Dcubed

Not gonna lie, this looks good so far, DAMN good in fact! I didn't really enjoy Colours much (not a bad game, but the controls felt loose and there was too much auto pilot stuff), but I had some fun with the Classic Sonic stages in Generations (after playing it on PC @ 60FPS - does wonders for the feel of the controls!). I'm not really sold on this yet, but it does look VERY promising so far and seems to fix a lot of the fundamental problems associated with 3D Sonic gameplay (also completely doing away with that horrible boost mechanic where the game practically plays itself). I've yet to see anything that might sour the experience and it actually does look pretty fun to play I can only hope and pray that the final game plays as well as it promises... BTW: Did anyone else get the impression that SEGA were being allegorical when the bad guy said "Your fate is to be destroyed, why can't you accept that. Just lie down and die"? (referring to the Sonic Cycle and the death of the character/series).

Just Pikmin 3. More than anything else it shows that Pikmin 3 is selling primarily towards people who already own the console. It's actual sales are pretty good in context of what the series usually does, but considering that it launched alongside NSLU, the White Premium model and the NintendoLand Wiimote bundle, it's a very bad hardware result...

Decent Pikmin 3 sales (Famitsu pegs it at 102,188 and they include Download Cards, so it's pretty much in line with the first week sales of the first Pikmin game - which were 101,299 according to Famitsu). Those Wii U hardware sales are utterly pitiful though. I expected a much larger bump, this is just miserable to look at Stick a fork in it, it's done

Could be, but to be honest, I reckon it's more likely to be a new Seaman game.

Great! Nice to see that the Wii U now has a decent schedule for August! (now if they could just sort out the black hole of nothingness that is September...) Strange that they didn't mention the NFC toys though. I'm sure we'll get them but it's just a bit weird that they aren't bigging them up yet though. Edit: Ahh, the toys are coming later on.

I think we all know what game is the winner of this week...

Will wait for Ultra Street Fighter 4 Turbo.

Unlikely. We're not due a Direct until next month, going by the usual bimonthly schedule...

Well that's just obvious. Current Smartglass works over TCP/IP, so there's significant internet latency (meaning that direct gameplay control is practically impossible) and the Vita-PS3 remote play function still features significant amounts of lag (even when connected directly via adhoc WiFi N) Even Miracast, which is currently the best commercial solution outside of Wii U (and the tech that was used as the basis for the Wii U's own local video streaming solution), features significant amounts of lag... The Wii U's functionality isn't due to be topped by any other device any time soon and smartphone/tablet connectivity won't be a significant part of the PS4/Xbone's futures outside of bullet point ancillary features.

It's well worth the cash. It was a full price retail game in Japan and it's a really great game! It's much slower paced and methodological than you would expect a twin-stick shooter to be (which this isn't. You drive a tank and spin it round using the L/R buttons - works really well!) and makes for a more tactical experience all round. My only real complaint is that there doesn't seem to be much depth to the scoring system. You get points for every shot landed on an enemy (not just for destroying them), points for clearing out all the enemies in an area and a score multiplier for each card you use - but that's about it. Either way it's great fun though!

For all those people complaining about low res ground textures. Do remember that during the actual game itself, the camera is zoomed out far back (which is how the textures are designed to be seen). You'll not notice the ground texture resolution while you're actually playing the game (those screenshots come from a specific photo mode that allows you to freely move the camera around - think Smash Bros). The game looks just fine. It's probably not a technical powerhouse (which makes sense considering its Wii origins), but it still looks great (and runs at a silky smooth 60FPS to boot )

Post? Strange. I had the impression that Nintendo just gave out download codes to reviewers now (makes sense I guess as it's cheaper to distribute and it prevents review copies from being sold, but oh well, so much for that!). Glad to hear that you're enjoying it! Just a little under 2 long gruelling weeks for me!

YES YES YES!!! GET HYPE!!!

Was kinda hoping that we'd get Alph instead, but oh well. Hopefully the three new captains in Pikmin 3 will be alt costumes!

Huh? Pikmin 3 is gonna be £39.99 on the Wii U eShop? https://mobile.twitter.com/NintenDaan/status/355329865521700865 Oh wow! So Nintendo are dropping the RRP of full price Wii U games down to £39.99? Nice! (No doubt it'll be £34.99 if you buy a download code from GAME). Nice to see that eShop prices for Wii U games at launch will no longer be complete highway robbery!

Nah, it's due in August, going by the usual bi-monthly schedule. Before I would've expected it to coincide with the Summer update itself, but obviously that's been pushed back for a few weeks so it'll probably just come out when the update was originally due for release and include details of what new features will be included. What they've probably done here is released part of what they planned for the "Summer Update" now, in order to placate fans for the delay. TBH, the speeds are pretty good now - I don't imagine that the autumn update will improve much more on them.

Just got the update. Games load up much faster now! Nintendo Land takes about 5.5 seconds now (you don't even get to hear the 8 bit part of the song any more!), Bit Trip Runner 2 is about 4 seconds and VC games take about 2.5 seconds Exiting is also a bit quicker too (You only hear the "doo, doo doo doo" sound twice now before it fades out) Also apps/games now start booting instantly when you select them when you first boot up the system (before, if you selected an app/game immediately upon boot up, the system would stall for about 5-10 seconds while it seemed to load up the rest of the OS first - now it just starts the game up properly when you select it immediately after boot up ) Not bad for a minor update I have noticed that it sometimes stalls when you close the software that's running though. Seems to happen randomly No change to the eShop/Miiverse loading speed as far as I can tell.

At the very least, it'll herald the release of N64 and GBA VC games (even though its not really related to the update itself per-say). I'd hope for live streaming support via Miiverse (considering that the console already generates a live video stream during gameplay - making it a relatively trivial feature to implement), but let's just hope for basic stuff first like instant friend messaging. The poor guys are struggling just to get the thing up to speed right now, so you know... baby steps!

Until it becomes the "Holiday Update"

Summer now takes place in September-October confirmed! Pumpkins for Xmas everyone!

Well the DS version does differ greatly from the original, so it's still well worth localising the original NES version (especially considering that most of the work is already done) Basically they all deserve to be localised

Well obviously I'd want them to start with Shadow Dragon on NES and then work through the rest of the series in order. That's why I always ask for the entire series to be localised, regardless of which community I post in. Just translating one game is silly. If they're gonna do one, might as well do em all! Plus of course Shadow Dragon already has a full localisation already done for DS that they can just adapt to the NES version, so it would be by far the easiest one to do to start off with (which they can then reuse again for the first part of Mystery of the Emblem )

That's a pretty loose definition... "New franchise" doesn't necessarily mean new IP, it could just be a franchise that is new to Wii U or 3DS. It could also be his way of referring to Steel Diver 2, as making a sequel to the original now makes it a "franchise" by some people's definition.

Well this is exactly why Nintendo introduced things like Super Guide, so that they can design more difficult games while not leaving the less skilled/experienced players out in the cold (the difficulty jump from NSMB DS to NSMB Wii is staggering!) Reading the Miiverse pages for games like SMW and Super Metroid is often a painful experience when you see players struggle on really basis stuff. It's then that you really appreciate the need for these kinds of systems to assist newcomers!

DING DING DING! That's where I'm going! I'm not expecting them to listen, but it's the best chance we're probably ever going to get to see the original games get localised so there's no reason not to try! FE is more popular than it has ever been before thanks to FEA. Might as well strike while the iron is hot! (plus they've localised a big chunk of the character names, thanks to their inclusion in FEA's DLC - so some of the localisation work is already done now )