Wii U

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Rumors, Wii U | 0 comments

Forget The Box published a new speculatory report about the Wii U’s pricing today. The site’s “sources closely involved with manufacturing and distributing Nintendo products” claim that the console’s various parts total roughly $180. The Wii U’s controller, meanwhile, apparently won’t cost more than $50 to produce.

The same source believes a minimum $300 price tag should be expected, adding:

“Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo’s main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U’s hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition. ”

One of the Wii U’s touted features, fear field communication (NFC), is essentially “a drop in the bucket”. The source says that this functionality should cost $5 at most:

“NFC capabilities are a drop in the bucket for Nintendo. As NFC becomes more mainstream in mobile devices, the price for NFC implementation will rapidly decline. Nintendo is jumping on NFC because of a projected cost decline in the technology.”

The source said the following regarding the controller’s other manufacturing costs:

“The cameras in the Wii U controller are an estimated manufacturing cost of $6. They are slightly better quality than the 3DS and DSi cameras. The touch screen has a manufacturing cost estimated at $14.”

And on the hardware overall:

“Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today’s current consoles, but keep hardware costs down to maximize profits. Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news.”

Concerning the Wii U tablet, Forget The Box believes the “cost of materials would be slightly less than what Kinect cost when it was first released for the Xbox 360.” A breakdown of Microsoft’s accessory added up to approximately $56 following launch.

As is the case with each rumor we post on the site, take this report with a few grains of salt.

Source

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, DS, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

Top 30 New Works

01/01. [PSV] Persona 4: The Golden (Atlus, 06/14/12) – 795 votes
02/02. [PS3] Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom, 05/24/12) – 779 votes
03/03. [PS3] Resident Evil 6 (Capcom, 11/22/12) – 772 votes
04/04. [Wii] Dragon Quest X: Rise of the Five Tribes Online (Square Enix, 2012) – 744 votes
05/06. [3DS] Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo, 04/19/12) – 615 votes
06/05. [3DS] Monster Hunter 4 (Capcom, TBA) – 543 votes
07/09. [3DS] Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry’s Wonderland 3D (Square Enix, 05/31/12) – 426 votes
08/07. [3DS] Animal Crossing (Tentative) (Nintendo, TBA) – 408 votes
09/12. [NDS] Pokemon Black 2•White 2 (Nintendo, 06/12) – 357 votes
10/11. [PS3] Lollipop Chainsaw (Kadokawa Games, 06/14/12) – 313 votes
11/13. [PS3] Final Fantasy Versus XIII (Square Enix, TBA) – 289 votes
12/10. [3DS] Rune Factory 4 (Marvelous AQL, 07/19/12) – 251 votes
13/24. [PS3] Toki to Towa (Namco Bandai, 2012) – 244 votes
14/18. [PS3] Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (Capcom, 04/26/12) – 215 votes
15/17. [PS3] The Last Remnant (Square Enix, TBA) – 210 votes
16/19. [Wii] Mario Party 9 (Nintendo, 04/26/12) – 201 votes
17/16. [3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV (Atlus, 07/05/12) – 198 votes
18/14. [PSP] Conception: Please Give Birth to My Child! (Spike, 04/26/12) – 194 votes
19/15. [PS3] The Witch and the Hundred Knights (NIS, 2012) – 184 votes
20/26. [PS3] Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Konami, TBA) – 180 votes
21/20. [3DS] Fantasy Life (Level-5, 2012) – 174 votes
22/30. [PS3] Tokyo Jungle (SCEJ, 06/07/12) – 170 votes
23/22. [PS3] Persona 4 Arena (Atlus, 2012) – 168 votes
24/25. [PS3] The Last Guardian (SCEJ, TBA) – 164 votes
25/23. [PS3] 2nd Super Robot Wars OG (Namco Bandai, TBA) – 161 votes
26/21. [PSP] God Eater 2 (Namco Bandai, 2012) – 140 votes
27/—. [3DS] Luigi’s Mansion 2 (Nintendo, 2012) – 133 votes
28/—. [PSP] Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (Atlus, 05/17/12) – 130 votes
29/29. [3DS] Mario Tennis Open (Nintendo, 05/24/12) – 113 votes
30/—. [3DS] Culdcept Saga (Nintendo, 06/28/12) – 105 votes

Top 10 Rookie Titles

01/01. [PS3] Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom, 05/24/12) – 663 votes
02/04. [PS3] Toki to Towa (Namco Bandai, 2012) – 235 votes
03/02. [PS3] Lollipop Chainsaw (Kadokawa Games, 06/14/12) – 220 votes
04/03. [3DS] Fantasy Life (Level-5, 2012) – 210 votes
05/06. [PS3] The Last Guardian (SCEJ, TBA) – 207 votes
06/10. [PS3] Tokyo Jungle (SCEJ, 06/07/12) – 162 votes
07/05. [PSP] Conception: Please Give Birth to My Child! (Spike, 04/26/12) – 140 votes
08/07. [PS3] The Last Remnant (Square Enix, TBA) – 127 votes
09/08. [PS3] The Witch and the Hundred Knights (NIS, 2012) – 125 votes
10/09. [3DS] Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (Square Enix, 2012) – 94 votes

Top 10 USA Games

01/01. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard, November 2011) [PS3, 360, PC]
02/—. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Square Enix, January 2012) [PS3, 360]
03/—. UFC Undisputed 3 (THQ, February 2012) [PS3, 360]
04/—. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (EA, February 2012) [PS3, 360, PC]
05/02. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft, October 2011)[Wii, 360]
06/04. NBA 2K12 (Take 2 Interactive, October 2011) [PS3, 360, Wii, PC, PSP, PS2]
07/—. Soulcalibur V (Namco Bandai, January 2012) [PS3, 360]
08/03. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks, November 2011) [PS3, 360, PC]
09/—. Twisted Metal (SCEA, February 2012) [PS3]
10/05. Battlefield 3 (EA, October 2011) [PS3, 360, PC]

Source

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

A couple of new Assassin’s Creed III images have emerged. Apparently they’re from a demo being shown at PAX East. It appears that the photos come from the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Ubisoft did confirm they’d be showing the game at the event, so it looks like they’re the real deal.

We’ll update this post with any additional images we come across.

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

You can currently view a tentative floor plan of E3 2012 on MapYourShow. It’s unclear how much if this final, but I assume that most exhibitors/products listed on the site will be at the big expo in June.

Interestingly, there’s an entry on MapYourShow for a LucasArts MMO on Wii U. Could this be a sign of what the company has in store for the platform? Or is it just an error?

The current floor plan can be found here.

Via

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Wii U | 0 comments

There’s been lots of rumors going around about the Wii U’s power and graphical capabilities. Companies generally provide the standard “we don’t comment on rumors/speculation” line for these types of situations, but things are different this time!

A Nintendo representative provided the following comment when presented with GamesIndustry’s report, which surfaced earlier this week:

“We do not focus on technology specs. We understand that people like to dissect graphics and processing power, but the experience of playing will always be more important than raw numbers.”

This has more or less been Nintendo’s motto for quite some time now. I wouldn’t be surprised if we never saw an official, in-depth summary of the Wii U’s specs from the company.

Source

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 0 comments

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Screenshots, Wii U | 0 comments

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Rumors, Wii U | 0 comments

You know the drill by now. There are some unnamed “key developers” out there who have spoken with CVG, and these folks are saying some concerning things about the Wii U.

One developer source told the site:

“Assumptions that Wii U games will look like ‘up rezzed’ current-gen titles with better textures aren’t quite right. They’ll look just as good, but not better. You shouldn’t expect anything special from a graphics point of view.”

And a second source:

“We’re still working on dev machines but there have definitely been some issues [in porting PS3/360 games]. It’s not actually a problem getting things up and running because the architecture is pretty conventional, but there are constraints with stuff like physics and AI processing because the hardware isn’t quite as capable.”

“I suppose you don’t need sophisticated physics to make a Mario game.”

I’m not sure about you guys, but all of these rumors, unnamed sources, and random quotes are starting to become quite agitating. In the search for new Wii U information and details about the system’s power, there sure have been a lot of contradictory reports flying around…

Source

Posted on 12 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments

A fresh set of Wii U-related quotes from Gearbox president Randy Pitchford and Aliens: Colonial Marines producer Brian Burleson have swooped in.

Pitchford was more vocal – and very complimentary – about the hardware. He said Wii U is “a really cool system — it’s pretty powerful.” Pitchford also stated that “it’s a really nice bridge to the next generation.” This is similar to what Gearbox chief creative officer Brian Martel said last year.

Pitchford’s comments in full:

“Nintendo still has a lot to announce with their platform, and it’s not up to us to go ahead of them. I think it’s a great platform and I’m really excited about it, particularly with this game, there’s a lot of exciting opportunities like, ‘Wow, my motion tracker is there, and I can move it like this!’ There’s just so much cool stuff.

“There’s a lot that we can do with that screen. It’s a really cool system — it’s pretty powerful. I want to be careful, because I don’t want to risk any sensitive information that Nintendo’s not ready to share yet, but in our experience it’s a great system. I think it’s a really nice bridge to the next generation. I think people will be surprised. I don’t know off the top of my head how many of the specs they’ve released, so I want to be very careful not to jump the gun, but we’re very pleased with the hardware. And even since they gave us our first alpha kit, our very first ‘pre-prototype’ development hardware that they kind of let us play around with, they’ve done so many things to make the platform better. So it’s getting better for us as developers.”

Burleson remarks:

“You’ll have to wait. But I play it all the time, and it’s really good.”

Source