What IS Next for the Wii U January 23, 2013

Several weeks ago I wrote an editorial about the Wii U. In it, I detailed a few things that Nintendo could announce for the Wii U in response to if any future console announcement that Sony or Microsoft made. I expected that the article would stand until Nintendo made any announcements for the next wave of Wii U content, which I figured would be at E3. Well, I was wrong. Today, during the Nintendo Direct webcast, Nintendo announced a plethora of new content for the Wii U, including games, system updates, and new console features. There is just so much to cover.

When I was watching the Wii U Direct Video, I felt like it was written as a response to a lot of the stuff I brought up in my previous editorial. So, I want to break down a few things that were mentioned by Mr. Iwata that I thought should be coming for the Wii U, and apparently now will be.

3D Mario Wii U Game – This was confirmed, and it will be playable at E3 this year. Its being done by the team who did Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, so there’s good chance it could be called Super Mario Galaxy 3 or since Mario Galaxy’s project code was Mario 128, you could call this new one Mario 256.

Mario Kart Wii U – Also confirmed and it will be playable at E3 this year. No other details about it were provided.

Wii U Virtual Console – The Wii U is getting its own Virtual Console. Users rebuying games they had already purchased on the Wii will be able to rebuy their games at a heavy discount to take advantage of the new features Wii U virtual console games will have. All a user will have to do to earn these discounts is transfer their Wii saves and purchases to the Wii U using the transfer tool.

Wii U Virtual Console games will have the same features 3DS Virtual Console games have, like allowing the user to keep a save file of their game progress. There are a wide range of games that will be coming from a wide variety of classic Nintendo platforms, including Game Boy Advance, which is a platform Nintendo has not released any Virtual Console games from to date. It also will be compatible with the Wii U Controller and offer a variety of customizable control options. Finally, Nintendo will be implementing the most requested Virtual Console feature people wanted on the Wii U, you will be able to play VC games entirely on the Wii U Controller’s screen if you want to.

No GameCube support coming to the Virtual Console yet (or backwards compatibility with GameCube games), but Nintendo is releasing Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker updated for the Wii U on disc this fall. There will be updated graphics, HD widescreen, and Wii U Controller screen support. Hopefully if this sells well it will inspire Nintendo to port over more GameCube games like Luigi’s Mansion or Eternal Darkness to the Wii U.

Wii U Panorama View – I mentioned this feature as a possible video service for the Wii U in my original article. Nintendo demoed a feature of the Wii U which would allow a user to use the Wii U Controller to view a 360 degree HD video. I was really interested in this feature when I first saw it shown at E3 2012. There hasn’t been a mention about this since E3 2012 and there was no mention of it during the Nintendo Direct video, but after writing about it, I decided to see what was the latest information I could dig up on it was. This had been previewed in real-time at last year’s CES and when it was shown at E3 2012 it had a tentative release date of the end of 2012. That time has passed and it never saw release so my guess is that it was either quietly delayed or cancelled.

Nintendo wasted no time capitalizing on the time that they have before Sony and Nintendo respond to the Wii U. I thought for sure that these announcements weren’t going to be coming until E3, but I was wrong. If Nintendo continues to improve their hardware in the time they have before another console’s release, as well as continues to release great software for the platform, either through retail or online, they will be in a very difficult position to move from the top spot of the future generation console battle.