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Wii U

Japanese developers weren’t the only folks who recently offered their thoughts to Famitsu. This week’s magazine also features opinions from gamers. Here’s how the response turned out…

Impression of the name (Total 3,200 votes, multiple responses okay)
– 720 votes: Name lacks impact
– 620 votes: Easy to remember
– 590 votes: Name doesn’t match
– 350 votes: Nice ring to it
– 430 votes: Easy to get used to
– 190 votes: Difficult to get used to


This information comes from Square Enix’s worldwide technology director Julien Merceron…

“I’d say, don’t write off the console. For every console it’s the same thing: one of the most important things is going to be the launch line-up. We see that every time there’s a great title shipping on PSP, the PSP sales go up, and every time there’s a great title shipping on 3DS, the 3DS sales go up. If the audience and players can see that there are products for them, there’s definitely going to be wide adoption of Wii U. The things of utmost importance are going to be the pricing at launch, and the line-up. They’re trying to do their own thing. Generally they don’t seem to look for breadth, in terms of the things [features] they are supporting with their console. They seem to be focusing a lot, and trying to make sure the things they are focusing on are going to be at the top. I’d always be careful making judgements on their hardware. They have an approach to it that is very different from others, but they have a lot of inner control of what they are doing. And there’s a lot of knowledge and skill behind it.”

I just hope Nintendo has learned their lesson with the 3DS. The launch lineup was pretty abysmal overall, and while they tried to make room for third-parties, they fell flat completely. The price will obviously be important as well. I can’t see Nintendo pricing Wii U at higher than $349.99 or so…

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A slew of Japanese producers have offered their thoughts about Wii U in the latest issue of Famitsu. Developers include Tomonobu Itagaki, Shinji Mikami, and Akihiro Hino. Read on below for their comments.

Tomonobu Itagaki (Valhalla Game Studios)
Said that he has a lot of ideas. He’d like to bring not just Devil’s Third to the system, but a variety of other things.

Jun Takeuchi (Capcom)
He believes that developers’ skills will be shown in how they can make use of the controller without having it draw the eyes away too much from the television screen. If Wii U has a strategic price, it could be a big hit, he said.


Team Meat is working on a new game, and while it’s not coming to the 3DS, perhaps it’ll launch for Nintendo’s new console instead. The studio posted a teaser of their project earlier today without revealing any concrete information. However, they later posted on Twitter that the game is being created for Wii U.

Given Team Meat’s rocky history with Wii, you have to wonder if that tweet was simply a joke. Then again, it’d be fantastic for them to consider Wii U and offer something to fans of the Big N.

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Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada is making a 3DS game and is also hoping to bring a new project to Wii U. Wada, who now owrks for Grasshopper, wasn’t ready to share details just yet.

“I’ve got a 3DS game in the pipeline right now, and I’ve got another game that we haven’t decided the platform on, but which I am hoping to bring to Wii U.”

Wada also seems positive about the console as a whole. He compared it to the DS, like many other developers, adding that Wii U contains “a lot of hidden potential”.

“Right now it feels like a home console version DS and I mean that in a good way. I think there is a lot of hidden potential there, so I am right now thinking up new modes of play. I really enjoy times like this!”

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Epic Games seems quite serious about Wii U. Unlike the Wii, which they found difficult to support due to the console’s specifications, Nintendo’s upcoming console is on par, if not more powerful than other platforms on the market. As a result, President Mike Capps is very excited about the platform, going as far as to say that “it is going to be a powerful box.”

“We haven’t made an official announcement about that platform. And while we loved the Wii, it just wasn’t a fit to make a game that would go across Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. It just wasn’t possible. So going forward, we’re working with those folks and we’re very interested in the Wii U. We find that the best way to support a platform is to be making a game for it and we don’t currently have a game in development for that platform. For example, we don’t officially support Android, although we have demos that work on Android… But we officially support iPhone because we’ve made a game and we know it works. We know how to get through the certification process – we know it cold. That’s sort of important to me; as a game developer who’s selling an engine, I want to make sure that I can ship a game on it myself, which is why we have very clear public support of PS3, Xbox 360, PC and iPhone but not as clear when it comes to Android or Wii U. At the launch event at E3, some of the products that you saw running on Wii U were based on Unreal Engine technology. So that kind of gives you an idea of where we are in that space. You can certainly use our engine on that platform – it’s a natural fit from a technology perspective. It opens up some doors that weren’t open before on current generation consoles because it is going to be a powerful box. I’m sure [Epic VP] Mark Rein would love anyone who’s interested to know how official our support is to get in touch with him!”

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Doodle Jump has been made it to one non-on one gaming-specific platform so far. And while fans shouldn’t expect the title to arrive on a Nintendo platform in the immediate future, it’s possible that we’ll see it one day.

Ivor Pušenjak, creator of the game, was recently asked if Doodle Jump could head to Wii U. He responded by saying that there are “no immediate plans, but we’d love to.”

Thanks to Mike G for the tip!

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There aren’t a whole lot of concrete Wii U games that we know about. There’s Pikmin 3, a couple of games from Ubisoft, and a few other titles from third-parties.

We can add another project to the list now thanks to an announcement at Comic-Con. Zen Studios has revealed that they’re bringing a pair of Marvel Pinball titles to Nintendo platforms by the end of 2012 – specifically Wii U and 3DS. Both games will launch by the end of 2012.

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Eiji Aonuma on the rumor that Skyward Sword may be the longest/deepest Zelda game…

“It’s certainly no rumor what-so-ever. It is definitely a tremendous game- there is so much content that Mr. Miyamoto and I haven’t been able to thoroughly play it all. We’re obviously in the process of doing the refinement, but the fact that we’re still chewing through the content as we go is a testament to the fact that it is a game backed by a tremendous volume of game play and content. When I say volume, its not necessarily just that there’s a big world out there to explore. You come to understand the structures of things in your world, and you’ll see a broadening of a kind of game play that goes on in these structures as you’re playing through. So, that’s one way the game has tremendous volume.”



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