How Nintendo chooses Wii U’s dashboard messages
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
When you boot up Wii U, you can see a series of icons representing games and users’ Miis milling about around each title. Some Miis’ messages will also be highlighted for the world to see. Now, you might be wondering, how is the content selected?
According to Nintendo, the most discussed topics in Miiverse are selected. But it’s not an automatic process – each selection is screened and filtered before being approved.
“The most discussed topics in Miiverse – e.g. specific games, applications, boss battles, user accomplishments, etc. – will be displayed on Wii U’s main menu. Before that content is posted to the main menu it will be screened and filtered to ensure that it is appropriate for everyone.”
Only 15 players have completed ZombiU in normal mode thus far
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Here’s a random but interesting fact about ZombiU: only 15 players have completed the game in normal mode… so says Ubisoft producer Guillaume Brunier.
Normal mode was completed the quickest in 8 hours. The most amount of time taken is 15 hours.
“Only 15 people finished #ZombiU in normal mode to date. The fastest in 8hrs, the slowest in 15hrs.”
Reggie: Wii U becomes profitable with one software purchase, why the console didn’t release sooner, more
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has offered some new insight into the Wii U in an interview with Mercury News. Read on below for Reggie’s comments regarding how Wii U becomes profitable, why the company didn’t release Wii U sooner, and more.
Wii U’s day-one update is actually around 1GB or so, not 5GB
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
There’s no question that the Wii U’s day-one update is big. Just not 5GB big, as initially thought.
The full download is closer to 1GB. As you can see in the image above, only .47GB of content was exchanged after progressing halfway (roughly) through the process.
There are reports floating around that you can download the day-one firmware in the background, much like other updates. That surely makes things easier. You just need to cancel the update when initially prompted following Wii U’s initial Internet connection setup.
ZombiU sequel depends on first game’s sales, as expected
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Coming from a Twitter conversation I had with co-creative director of ZombiU, Florent Sacré…
No surprise that this is the case at all. Even after just two days with the game I want to see a sequel so badly, especially given how incredible the first one is! Fingers crossed.
The Wii U isn’t just hindered by one giant update– there are countless others
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Edit: Just wanted to note that these updates can be downloaded in the background while you play games.
I want to make it clear that I absolutely adore the Wii U as a console, but it definitely has some major problems. The two everyone seems to be talking about are the oddly long load times (10-20 seconds for an app, sometimes more than 30 for a game) and the big one-hour update that you have to do right at the beginning. What people seemed surprised to hear on our Wii U stream last night was that there are countless other updates that you have to install in order to play various games. By memory, here are the games and updates I’ve had to do so far:
– ZombiU: No update initially, but today I had to do an update that took about 2 minutes.
– Nintendo Land: Had to do two updates yesterday, one taking about 5 minutes and one about 8.
– New Super Mario Bros. U: Had to do an update once, took about 8 minutes.
– Sonic & SEGA Racing Time: One update, took about 6 minutes.
– Black Ops 2: Just the one update so far, taking about 8-10 minutes.
There might have been more that I’m forgetting about, but beyond that the system alterts you that it’s finished downloading something randomly every so often (especially yesterday), but gives you no indication as to what it is. I looked into it, but nothing seemed to help out.
This isn’t a system breaker at all, but I think new Wii U owners should be prepared: Long load times, lots of updates, and one BIG update will be there to meet you when you turn on your console for the first time. Unless they fix all of it by the time the next shipment arrives, who knows?
~Austin
Clever workaround allows you to play Wii U games off of an SD card
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
Though Nintendo may kindly ask you not to, a Wii U owner seems to have stumbled upon a simple-yet-ingenious way of using an SD card to play Wii U games off of: By using a USB SD card reader. Check out the video:
Keep in mind that if something goes wrong in this process, Nintendo can’t be held responsible. They told users a week or so ago that, while you can play games off of a flash drive, they don’t recommend it because flash drives can only take so many read/write cycles before they turn to junk. It’s much safer to use a hard drive!
Metro: Last Light dev explains why it dropped Wii U SKU, says console has a “horrible, slow CPU”
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
THQ and developer 4A Games dropped its plans to release Metro: Last Light for Wii U. Part of that can be blamed on the number of SKUs the studio is already committed to. Unlike the original game, Last Light will be coming to the PlayStation 3.
Chief technical officer Oles Shishkovtsov explained that if yet another platform was involved, the quality of the game could have diminished:
“We had an early look at it, we thought we could probably do it, but in terms of the impact we would make on the overall quality of the game – potentially to its detriment – we just figured it wasn’t worth pursuing at this time. It’s something we might return to. I really couldn’t make any promises, though. We had an initial look at the Wii U, but given the size of the team and compared to where we were last time, just developing for the Playstation 3 is a significant addition.”
Wii U’s technical aspects may have also contributed to the decision. 4A’s Huw Beynon said that console “has a horrible, slow CPU.”
Best Buy to have “constant flow” of Wii U stock throughout the holidays
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments
If you’re looking for a Wii U this holiday season, you may want to turn your attention to Best Buy. The retailer anticipates having “a constant flow of inventory for the Wii U throughout the holidays”. Having said that, Best Buy believes demand will be high.
A statement from the company reads:
“While we will have a constant flow of inventory for the Wii U throughout the holidays, we expect there to be great demand.”
[Review] ZombiU
Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in Podcast Stories, Reviews, Wii U | 0 comments
(Note: This is a review of the single player. Multiplayer is pretty much exactly what you’d expect.)
I’ve been playing ZombiU constantly over the last two days, and when I first started out I considered myself nothing more than certifiably intrigued. A couple of hours in, and I went from intrigued to impressed. A few hours on top of that and I was enthralled. Add an hour or two more and I found myself legitimately surprised that I was enjoying the game as much as I was. I had read in so many places that at best it was “fun-but-flawed”, and I had damn-near convinced myself that such a label was “good enough”, and very admirable for a launch title.
When it comes down to it though– and I do NOT say this lightly– I’ve ended up thinking that ZombiU is one of the best survival horror games I have ever had the immense pleasure of playing.
