Dcubed

I'd say it's worth it because 720p TVs aren't actually native 720p resolution anyway (they're always 1366 x 768, so you're getting uneven scaling anyway). The Wii U has a fantastic upscaler, far better than the one in the PS3 or 360 and your 720p games will certainly look better on a 1080p display, because you can allow the Wii U to do the scaling for you and it scales evenly. Also another thing to consider is that all VC games on Wii U run in 1080p, so (while it probably won't be all that noticeable TBH and chances are that you probably wont really care), your VC games will look better too as they can be mapped perfectly pixel for pixel on a 1080p display There are also a good few other 1080p games on Wii U as well, like Mighty Switch Force HD, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Skylanders Giants (ok you probably don't care about that one), EDGE, RUSH, Scram Kitty, NES Remix 1 & 2 (duh!) and quite a lot of other eShop titles (I believe Pullblox World is another). Not to mention that there's also Blurays as well (though you say you don't watch much TV, Blu-rays/DVDs may well be a different story). To be honest though, I don't really see 1080p as that big a deal for Wii U games in general though. At least as far as Nintendo's own 1st party titles go, all of their 720p games have impeccable image quality with almost no jaggies anyway. I'm not sure how they do it, but their 720p games look far cleaner, sharper and jaggy free than PS360 720p games do on my TV! Even switching back and forth between the two Resident Evil Revelations demos on PS3 and Wii U (which I did at the time when the demo first came out), the Wii U looked noticeably sharper free of jaggies/texture shimmering, despite running in the same resolution! Still, I'd say it's worth it though cause it's going to be a net positive even if you're not playing 1080p games on there anyway! One thing to consider though is input lag though (it's not the same thing as response time). It's not something widely publicised, but it can be a big issue for playing games though! Before you buy any TV, make certain that you check the TV on this site below... http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/ They always do input lag tests on every TV they review. You'll ideally want one with the lowest input lag possible obviously and ideally something at least around 16-20ms range (my living room TV has an input lag of 20ms and feels perfectly synced with the Gamepad. It's low enough to the point where I can't notice it at all - my bedroom TV has an input lag of 16ms and I can't feel any difference so 16-20ms is what you're looking for!). Before I found out about that site, I had a different Samsung TV and the input lag was beyond horrible! I checked online and it turned out to have an input lag of about 66ms or thereabouts! It felt like moving through treacle! You could see the Wii Remote pointer cursor lagging behind my hand!! That being said, TVs with really low input lag are not all that common. So it will narrow down your choices quite a lot. And ideally, you'll want a TV that can offer that 16-20ms range without having to turn on a separate "Game Mode" - what that does is turn off all picture processing to speed up the display and reduce input lag, but it makes the picture quality awful and usually takes away your ability to change even basic settings like sharpness or even contrast! Game Mode is very much a band aid, last ditch attempt solution in my mind. Avoid it unless you absolutely have to. And also there's one more thing to consider... It's a bit of a dirty little secret so to speak but you'll often find that even with the same model of TV, they actually use different panels when they change in size. I remember reading about one TV which supposedly was the dogs bollocks, low input lag, great picture quality etc, but that only applied to the smallest 32" model, while the bigger ones were worse quality and had globs of input lag! (I think it was the small one anyway, might've been the biggest one, but either way, it was only one size!). So yeah, Do your Research = Don't get Done Sorry if it comes across as super nerdy/nit picky, but I've made some regretful choices a long time ago and I wouldn't want you to fall foul of the input lag monster. It really does ruin your game experience completely and it's not an obvious and well known thing. If there's a TV which you aren't completely certain about either, https://www.avforums.com/forums/ is an impeccable resource for more detailed info about specific TVs (or indeed surround systems and everything else under the sun) - the guys on there are brilliant and know their stuff far better than even I do : peace: (oh and make sure you listen to all their advice about calibration and picture settings and whatnot - they even know how to find all the hidden service mode options that normally only official Samsung/Sony/LG/Whatever staff can access and they can often really improve your picture quality massively!) It was thanks to them that I learnt how to calibrate my TV properly and various tips and stuff, like how sharpness on all LCD TVs is artificial and should always be turned down to zero for HD content no matter what (SD content is different though, since the source quality is poor anyway). Anyway, if you got through that wall of text... TLDR, go for it! (and do your damn homework! :awesome: )

No nothing at all. They could easily do it via a system update if they wanted to. Would make for a nice way of making a bit more money out of people who pay for it too... Because of (and I know this is gonna make you want to roll your eyes and hurl), but it's because of... The Nintendo Difference It's those little touches that elevate it to being a different kind of product. It's the difference between Brain Training and its many many knockoffs. Something like Wii Fit isn't great because of its minigames alone, it's because it's a really good motivator. It's really really good for tracking your progress and encouraging you to meet your goals. It's like saying that Wii Fit is nothing more than a bathroom weight scale. The tech alone isn't what's important, it's the application of the tech that matters. That's what Iwata is referring to when he talks about Nintendo's "hospitality" in that Investor Briefing.

Standard. It's out of beta now but it only works in certain browsers I believe (I know it works just fine in Chrome - but I dunno about any other browser, or indeed mobile) BTW am I weird for reading that word beautiful in Rodin's voice from Bayonetta? Edit: Oh, here's something I'm sure you'd appreciate... 60FPS footage of Super Mario Kart, captured from an actual SNES console

I actually completely forgot that even existed! I wonder if that will form the basis of this new QoL product, with Mr Sheep making a return? (well, that and their ideas they had with the Vitality Sensor that never came to fruition) Well don't forget, they've already dabbled in cloud storage of save data with Pokemon Bank. I reckon that there's a good chance that they'll make it a system wide feature either next time or in a future Wii U/3DS system update.

So just imagine how far ahead they are now!! DAT STEELBOOK! DAT SUPER EFFING ADORABLE GROUDON FIGURINE!!

Oh nice! Nintendo have seemingly updated their old E3 trailer videos on Youtube with 60FPS versions! Here's Yoshi's Wooly World (Works in Chrome, not sure about other browsers though) Nice to see them jump on the bandwagon. Higher quality footage should be the standard from here on out

Bearing in mind that what you're suggesting is completely illegal, let's take a look at what he actually said... Here he is saying that the 3DS hasn't sold as well in the west as it has in Japan and that it is at an earlier stage of its popularization lifecycle. There's nothing controversial about that and it's completely right - it has indeed not sold as well yet and has a ways to go before it catches up to its Japanese sales. Incidentally, it is also the reason why there is still so much hardware sitting on store shelves that they need to sell through before they can start selling the New3DS to retailers. Australia is in a unique situation however because they have actually sold through all of the region's allocated stock (indeed, they stopped selling the original model 3DS altogether around a year ago - you can't buy anything other than 2DS and 3DSxl consoles there now), selling at a faster pace relative to the market size in comparison to US/EU. As such, it's at a later stage in its lifecycle there than it it in US/EU. Just for reference, the same thing happened with the DSi as well. It was released in Japan 6 months before it was released in the rest of the world (Australia just happens to be a weird exception this time). There's nothing more to say here. There's no lie being perpetrated, you're just reading your own thoughts into what he's saying.

The expanded battery does increase the weight of the Gamepad significantly and they clearly stated in the Wii U hardware Iwata Asks that they had a specific goal in mind to keep the weight of the Gamepad below 500 grams. Incidentally, that's also why it lacks analog triggers.

Very true. Hard drives effectively come at a fixed cost to console manufacturers and never get cheaper over time. Nintendo's method is much more user friendly (if a little ugly looking and surprisingly more power user friendly than what you'd expect off them) and significantly cuts the manufacturing cost of the console (which of course makes the console cheaper at retail). Much like with the Gamepad battery, it was intentionally left smaller than the battery compartment had space for because they wanted to keep the weight of the Gamepad below 500g for ergonomic reasons. Leaving the space open though offer people a choice if they want to sacrifice lightness for a longer battery life.

Pre-loading is good news. Especially with Smash Bros, that game is gonna be huge in terms of file size no doubt (at least 437 songs in uncompressed LPCM 5.1, 1080p FMV video files in full blu-ray quality, massive amounts of art assets etc). I would complain about it being late, but at least it's here now.

From Nintendo's Investor Briefing... Well that's an interesting theory, I never even considered that... How true is it for any of you guys here? (Ironically, R/S/E were my least favourite Pokemon games and yet I'm really excited for their remakes!)

Maybe it's because I woke up to read that rather sleep deprived this morning, but it comes across as Sleep Training: Train Your Sleep In Minutes A Day I can see where they're going with this... The tech is completely foreign to me (I don't know if it's completely new or not), but the application of Nintendo's expertise here is pretty much exactly what I was expecting. It's a Touch Generations game, turned into its own piece of hardware. I expect either a built in piece of software (with the device having a touch screen you interact with), or it will come with a tie-in smartphone application - either way, it'll be VERY similar to Brain Training or Wii Fit in terms of design; heavy focus on stat tracking, lots of cute little touches and the awesome music that Nintendo games are known for. I also expect the server infrastructure to be built on top of the same Nintendo Network as their game consoles and there's a good chance that it'll also allow you to share your stats on Miiverse if you so choose. Sounds like it has some real potential, but I really can't say whether or not it it'll be successful. It's far too early to say and I don't have the expertise in this field to judge. That being said though, I could really do with it right now since I just had one of the crappiest nights of sleep I've had in a long time...

Even if they sold the same amount as last year with no increase at all from this point onwards, they would still hit that 3.6 million mark for the fiscal year. It's actually a very conservative estimate unlike the last few years. The 3DS however? Not a chance. With the New3DS not coming out till next year in the west, there's no way they're hitting the 12 million mark...

Nintendo typically make around 50-60% of its yearly sales just during the Xmas season. They get a bigger holiday boost than anyone else and they have the launch of Smash and Amiibo (very very high profit margins) this season. They're actually making money off of Wii U hardware now unlike before, they have the launch of the New3DS in Japan & Australia (dem EU importers paying dat Australian tax too ), they have the launch of Pokemon OR/AS (which is actually tracking ahead of X&Y in terms of pre-orders amazingly enough), they have the launch of Mario Kart 8's DLC and they have the continued sales of their evergreen catalogue titles, many of which are about to get their first Xmas boost. Combine that with the significant saving in running costs that they've somehow achieved and it suddenly seems doable... (BTW, that quib about them not posting a yearly profit in 4 years is a bit misleading since they did actually post a small profit for fiscal year 2012 - ok mainly off the back of the appreciation of the yen but still!)

That's a striking reduction in cost of sales! Very impressive! I wonder where the majority of those savings came from... It's certainly not through staff cuts (if anything, with all the contractual work they've ordered from Namco and T-K, you'd have thought it would've gone up if anything!), and while they did restructure NOE, that only came towards the end of the quarter so the results from that wouldn't have been reflected yet... NOA made up the majority of their operating loss outside of their development R&D, some (including I) speculate that they were writing blank cheques to retail channels to keep Wii U on the shelf in order to keep that all important retail presence alive, resulting in huge running costs associated with NOA, so... Hope we get a more revealing breakdown later on today or tomorrow. Should make for an interesting read. Either way, Iwata wasn't joking when he said they were going to get costs down! Very impressive Speaking of impressive, Tomodachi is also very impressive too! Bet they're kicking themselves for not releasing the DS game back in the day now It's gonna end up selling more in the west than in Japan when all is said and done!

The track design is randomised!? That's awesome!!!

Yup and there's another 24 classic Lucasarts games coming to GOG soon as well! Not played most of those classic Lucasarts games either, so that's big news to me too!

I can't remember exactly... I think we just stuck loads of Franlkin Badges on back when we would do that in Brawl... Great fun BTW!

Wow! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=920197 Valkyria Chronicles is coming to PC!? HOLY CRAP! WOW! I'm honestly shocked! I never thought it would ever end up getting ported anywhere!! (Custom engine used for just this one game, publisher who wanted out of console style productions etc) Out of all the PS3 3rd party exclusives, this and Ni No Kuni were the two most unlikely to ever get ported in my mind! I still can't believe it! A chance for VC 2 and 3 (the latter in English!?) to follow? Is it possible!? Either way, they are guaranteed my support! I LOVE this game!

Reflect wasn't in Brawl's Special Smash mode was it? I can imagine that making for some fun projectile only matches

Have you ever played the Captain Toad stages in SM3DW? Have you seen any actual footage of the game? There's no way you'd be able to control it! Despite the lack of a jump button, the game still requires precision control for movement and camera control as well as interaction with objects and enemies. It also makes heavy use of the two different screens for perspective based actions and puzzles, as well as gyro controls without interfering with the TV screen view. It wouldn't work on a phone (or a 3DS for that matter!) Anyone who has played the CT stages in SM3DW would know that instantly...

Oh nice! We don't get lumbered with that horrible yellow boxart that the US are getting Here's the US version for reference... YUCK!

Wow! Bayonetta 2 actually didn't completely bomb in the UK! http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110032 6th in the Individual charts, 7th in the All Formats chart. And bear in mind that this is the UK, Nintendo's weakest market worldwide AKA Anti-NintendoLand! HOORAY!!! Edit: Nintendo Land is back in the charts as well, indicating that Bayo 2 moved some hardware too! I expect it to disappear off the charts next week mind you, but it's at least a small victory here!

Interestingly DKC1-3 are also back on the Wii Shop Channel this week as well! Nice to see that they saw sense and released the US version of DKC3 at least (though it was expected, since they only listed English/French on the site) Still it makes no damn sense! DKC 3 was originally released in English, French and German, just like DKC2 and yet they release the US version of 3 but not 2. UGH! Just give us the US version of all of them!!

There's an update out for Smash 3DS! Hides Conquest results until the results are fully tallied now (a nice change I think personally, makes it all the more exciting )