Dcubed

Yeah, seems silly to sell them separately at launch when nothing can actually use the 2nd one. Seems like they're opening up a possibly of people buying the Upad for their original Wii for no good reason at all. They'd be better off waiting until something comes out that actually requires 2 Upads before releasing it for sale separately and the launch confusion subsides.

Spot on. 8GB (or 32GB) is just a launching pad to get you started and in that respect, it's plenty. This thing is ridiculously open in terms of storage and dirt cheap to upgrade. Even for your average joe, the concept of adding more storage to your computer/mobile isn't a foreign concept (hell chances are that you have a few SD cards or flash drives lying around anyway) HDDs are large in terms of physical size, fragile and worst of all become more expensive to manufacture over time (that's why the PS3 and 360 are constantly increasing the size of their HDDs. It actually becomes more expensive to manufacture the same small size HDD as manufacturers stop producing them in that specific size. They keep adding bigger hard drives in order to keep the manufacturing costs constant) Flash storage however is small, reliable, very fast and steadily goes down in price over time. Nintendo made the right choice in going with it.

Possible, but considering that Japan has to wait till December, I doubt it. The US console absolutely must be released before Black Friday, under any circumstance it must not come out after that day. I really doubt that the EU will get it before the US if they've had to push back Japan's date till December...

That didn't stop them from showing off unfinished OS/Online functions of the Wii & DS before they were ready for primetime (even though many of those features were delayed till after launch) At the very least, they could show us mockups (like they have done with the Miiverse - I'm certain the videos they've shown aren't actually running on real Wii Us yet) Just show something, anything. Show us how the hell you use the thing when you turn it on! (and how on earth you go into the shop and browse! or buy DLC!)

Kinda hard to tell really. Nintendo waited until November 2006 before announcing the absolute final launch day list for the Wii, but they also had a preliminary list set up for the launch day that was released months before the price/release date was announced and we have nothing of the sort this time around... There's a good chance that you may well be right, though I still reckon that they can't really wait any longer before showing off their online/OS stuff!

Just add the Wii U Internet Curtain for good measure!

What off TV play was invented for...

They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. Some people are just beyond saving Besides, their memory spans are so short that they'll probably forget about it in 4 hours time anyway when the real price/date info comes out (shame on Eurogamer for purposely misleading people though by putting up direct currency conversions though)

At the very least, you've got videos/info about Dragon Quest 10 Wii U, YAIBA (Keiji Inafune's new zombie game) and what appears to be BLOPS2 (going by what that guy said about an game that's been hinted at for a while to be unveiled today) coming in these events...

Seriously. Stop looking at website comments and "idiot" forums. It's not good for your health!

Also did anyone notice that the HUD clutter example looks suspiciously like Monster Hunter? (specifically Monster Hunter 3G) Whether or not it's actually indicative of a Monster Hunter Wii U game incoming, it's still a sneaky move...

There's no kind of doomed that's better than Nintendoomed though! Any Nintendo related event brings the crazies out of the woodwork like nothing else!

That was announced back at E3 2012... We've known about the transfers for months :p

Man that controller separate is more expensive than I thought it would be... If it does stay at half the price of the console, we could be looking at a price of $124.99 or £89.99 elsewhere... I wonder how costly it is for them to manufacture (If it's anywhere close to that, then they must've really struggled to keep those console costs down - that's a seriously impressive price for the console in that case!) Could they be losing money on the cheapest SKU perhaps? (might be why they've come out with that loyalty scheme to try and encourage them to buy the SKU that they actually profit off!)

He's talking about a Wiimote/Nunchuck/Sensor Bar pack that is being sold separately for people who don't own them. It does not come in the box

Basically it's a GPU that can perform CPU tasks. It's the major feature of Shader Model 5 and the biggest feature of today's fancy shmansy GPU cards. It also means that the Wii U is architecturally more similar to PS4 and 720 than PS360 and also goes some way towards explaining why the PS360 ports don't look much better than they did previously (since they're not taking proper advantage of the Wii U's next gen capabilities) It's a bit odd though since it seems that the Wii U is kinda lopsided in terms of design, with a really great fuck off GPU and a somewhat middling CPU (kinda like the SNES actually!) Seems that their strategy is to have the other chips inside the console (DSP for sound processing, ARM for input/output/video encoding & streaming to UPad, GPGPU to help general CPU functions) offload some of the functions off the CPU. Of course, most 3rd party games aren't gonna be taking advantage of these functions yet since they're mostly just copy/pasting code from the PS360 - so you're not gonna see the benefits of this until at least the 2nd wave of titles - but it should make the Wii U easily capable of receiving PS4 and 720 downports. UE4 being able to be run on Wii U (and according to supposed leaks from the UE4 support site, already is running on Wii U), is more evidence of this too. Specs shouldn't be a problem in terms of 3rd party support...

Yeah, having a HDMI cable come with the machine is a nice bonus (especially for grandmas who'd get confused about how to hook it up and would just end up using the "normal" yellow/white/green cable!) They're not very expensive, but it's nice to see them remove any confusion regarding getting HD out of the thing. Doesn't make up for eschewing the Wiimoteplus/Nunchuck from the box though. Say goodbye to any and all 3rd party support for the Wiimote

Yes. You can use any USB hard drive or SD card. I'm tempted to just go for the normal one actually. I really don't need more on board storage, I'm happy using SD Cards/external storage. Depends on those discounts I guess...

The price will probably be cheaper over here and in the US (as it was with the 3DS) I think it's safe to say it'll be $249.99/299.99 and £189.99/£229.99. The multiple SKUs seems kinda pointless really. Neither coming with a Wiimote Plus & Nunchuck is disappointing That's an SSD, not a HDD. BIG difference (both in terms of performance and price)

Multiple SKUs... Too bad I got the contents wrong (At least in Japan) Also apparantly the Nintendo Network Premium thing is just a loyalty scheme for those who buy the Premium model (discounts on games until December 2014), NOT a subscription service. Edit: Cheers Serebii!

Nintendo Live Gold/Plus!? NEED TRANSLATIONS NOW!! PRICE!!!! Normal one is only slightly more than Wii was at launch...

HOLY SHIT SPECS!!! GPGPU functions confirmed. 2GB RAM total, 1GB for games, 1GB for OS. WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK WHY WOULD THEY HAVE SO MUCH RAM CORDENED OFF?!?!?! Was NOT expecting specs! Nintendo haven't done this since the GCN! (I bet this is a reaction to yesterday's leak...)

Should really mention that there are now TWO JPN Nintendo Directs coming! (The 2nd one goes over 1st and 3rd party software) http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491088 Annoyingly it's at the same fricking time as the US and EU ones (OH FOR FUCKS SAKE NINTENDO, you expect me to watch THREE conferences at the same time!?) Oh well, the 2nd JPN one is gonna have to be watched afterwards (No way am I missing out on my launch details!)

YYYYEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Been waiting too long for this! I loved the DS games! I swear, this had better come out over here (unlike a certain Wii Ware Pokemon game that shall remain unnamed...) Kinda wish they were going with sprites though. The DS games had a nice charm about them; oh well

So with the US (and now EU, thanks to a last minute Nintendo Direct announcement, scheduled for the same day!) details incoming in less than 72 hours from now... How's about some final predictions on the launch details up in here! Just guessing the US launch details (since we don't know when we're getting EU details - but they'll probably be similar to what the yanks get anyway), what do you reckon we'll see on Thursday regarding the following? To start things off, here's my own set of predictions! Price: SKU1 - $249.99/£189.99 (Wii Upgrade Kit), SKU2 - $299.99/£229.99 (Standard SKU) Release Date: US - 11/11/12 EU - 23/11/12 Launch Day Titles: 1st Party - New Super Mario Bros U, NintendoLand, Wii Fit U, Ninja Gaiden 3 Launch Day Titles: 3rd Party - Assassin's Creed III, Batman: Arkham City - Armored Edition, Ben 10: Omniverse, Family Party: 30 Great Games, FIFA 13, Game Party Champions, Just Dance 4, Madden NFL 13, Mass Effect 3, Rabbids Land, Rise of the Guardians: The Video Game, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Skylanders: Giants, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Nov-Dec 2012 titles: Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Lego The Lord of the Rings: The Video Game, Rayman Legends, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, ZombiU Delayed till 2013 Titles: Game & Wario, Lego City Undercover, Pikmin 3, Project P-100, Sing, Darksiders II What comes in the box: SKU1 (Wii Upgrade Kit) - Console, Power Supply, UPad SKU2 (Standard SKU) - Console, Power Supply, HDMI Cable, Upad, Wiimote Plus, Nunchuck, Composite Cable, Sensor Bar Any surprise game announcements: Retro's Wii U title - slated for late 2013 Will Europe's launch differ in any way other than price? If so, how: No difference. Just to lend a hand, here's a list of Wii U retail titles currently scheduled for release in the "Launch Window" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_U_games Channel your internal Nostradamus and post your predictions!