New news from this morning:
During today's Nintendo Direct, CEO Satoru Iwata announced that the team behind Mario 3D is working on a new installment, with Mario Kart also planned for Wii U.
The games will be playable at this year's E3 show, so hopefully that means they'll be in homes by the holidays.
This morning's Nintendo Direct confirmed two new Zelda games for Wii U, namely a HD remake of GameCube game Wind Waker with improvements to gameplay and graphics, and a brand new entry that will address series conventions like "completing the dungeons in a certain order", and to "play by yourself." The Wind Waker HD remake is confirmed for release "by this Fall."
During the latest Nintendo Direct presentation, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that Virtual Console will soon be launching for the Wii U. The Virtual Console will launch this spring, after a Wii U system update that will improve the speed of launching software. Another update is planned for the summer that will improve the speed of returning to the Wii U menu.
The Wii U Virtual Console will launch with a selection of NES and Super Nintendo titles, though Iwata noted that it will not launch with the entire library of titles already available on the Wii Virtual Console. The reason for this, said Iwata, is that Wii U Virtual Console games are being newly developed especially for Wii U and will feature the ability for players to save their progress and play directly on the GamePad. Furthermore, the Wii U Virtual Console will eventually include Gameboy Advance games. (What, no Virtual Boy?)
NES games will run from $5 to $6, while Super Nintendo games will run from $8 to $9. However, users who already own a particular NES or SNES game for the Wii Virtual Console will be able to pick up its Wii U counterpart for $1.00 or $1.50, respectively.
Nintendo's Wii U-based Miiverse social network is also getting a big update later this year, including user-created communities, more than one community per title, updated usability, and a more advanced filtering system. That's in addition to a mobile phone-based application, all arriving in 2013 -- you'll be able to access the Miiverse via mobile phone a bit earlier. "Initially the experience will be browser-based, but Nintendo plans to create a dedicated Miiverse app in the future," the official PR reads.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced the updates during a Nintendo Direct video presentation this morning, though he didn't give a concrete date for the Miiverse updates or the mobile app ("spring" was the closest he got, and that's only applicable to mobile access, not the app). He did say that you'll sign into the mobile app using your Nintendo Network ID, and be able to access (and interact) with the Miiverse on-the-go.
