Update 2: Kotaku says this is about Ubisoft, as expected.
Update: Some sites are indicating that the event will focus on a single third-party. If true, I have no idea when we’ll get online Wii U details… Maybe Reggie was lying!
Nintendo’s hosting a second roundtable at E3 2011 tonight. From what we’ve heard, Ubisoft will be there to talk about Assassin’s Creed Wii U and it’s possible that other third-parties will be in attendance. There’s a good chance that some online details for Wii U will be revealed as well. Basically, you won’t want to miss it!
Tune in at 9 PM EDT / 6 PM PDT for live news updates.
This information comes from Rage studio’s creative director Tim Willits…
“The Nintendo market is a tough market for us to get into. A lot of first party games, a lot of licensed games – those are the ones that have done the best on that platform. I’d love it if we can get a hardcore FPS community going and build on it, but it’s tough. I think we should keep our toes where we know best.”
Well, you win some, you lose some. I’ve been pretty surprised by the third-party support thus far. Not a whole lot of concrete games were announced yesterday (let alone new titles), but it’s very interesting to see titles such as Batman: Arkham City, Darksiders II, and Ninja Gaiden III coming to the console.
This information comes from Kojima Productions creative producer Yoshikazu Matsuhana…
“Obviously we did have talks with Nintendo early on – they approached us with the Wii U. We can’t say exactly when this happened or what kind of talks we’ve had but we were aware of the hardware and we’ve been looking at it. We are very much thinking about possibilities with the Wii U and it looks like a very fun system. As for whether we’ll have something at launch for the Wii – we can’t say that. Probably not, but we definitely have things in mind. We’re also looking at the public reaction. If there are enough people who say they want us to bring something to the Wii U that also factors into things.”
Matsuhana also touched on the subject of Metal Gear Solid 5…
“We anticipated we would get questions about this today (Metal Gear Solid 5) and unfortunately our answer is, we can’t answer that. We can’t say anything right now. Top secret.”
It’s anyone’s guess what Kojima Productions will work on/what possibilities they’re thinking of for Wii U. It should be able to handle the company’s newly announced engine, however.
Here’s an interesting nugget for you: apparently this game is being made by Tak Fujii!
It’s an end of an era! The Wii U will not support GameCube functionality in any fashion. The console doesn’t have a memory slot or controller ports, of course, and it therefore will be unable to play any GameCube games.
You lucky, lucky Europeans. You’ll be able to play Xenoblade Chronicles later this year, but it doesn’t sound like North American gamers will have the same opportunity. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said he had “nothing to announce” about bringing the title stateside in an interview with Kotaku.
The same also goes for The Last Story and the recently released Japanese title Pandora’s Tower. Technically there’s still a chance that all three games could end up in North America sometime down the line, though you shouldn’t count on it for now…
