Nintendo's Wii U set for November release
NEW YORK (AP) - Nintendo's upcoming Wii U gaming console will start at $300 and go on sale in the U.S. on Nov. 18, in time for the holidays, the company said Thursday.
A "deluxe" version will sell for $350. It will be black instead of white and include extra features such as more memory, a charging stand and the game "Nintendo Land."
Nintendo Co. has been trying to drum up excitement for the Wii U, which is the first major gaming console to launch since 2006. The device has a touch-screen controller called the Wii U GamePad. It also plays games made for the original Wii.
Nintendo said the latest game in its wildly popular Mario franchise, "New Super Mario Bros. U," will be available when the new console launches. It will include new ways to play that use the GamePad. It will also offer new challenges for advanced Mario players, such as trying to complete a level without touching the ground. "Mario" and other classic games have long been Nintendo's main draw.
The company also announced new entertainment features for the console. Called "Nintendo TVii," the service collects all the ways users have to watch movies, TV shows and sports. This includes pay-TV accounts along with services such as Hulu and Netflix. The GamePad works as a fancy remote controller and will let viewers browse shows they can watch.
TVii "brings all of your services to one place," said Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America.
So if you like the TV show "Modern Family," for example, it will pull in the show's episodes from every available source.
The service also captures scenes from live TV and displays them on the controller. Viewers can then comment on the scenes and share that on Twitter or Facebook if they want. With this feature, Nintendo is playing into what many people already do while they watch TV - comment and share things with friends using a second screen such as a smartphone.
TVii will be available Nov. 18 as well, at no extra cost.
Among the games available on the Wii U will be Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty Black Ops II." The "Call of Duty" games have been holiday best-sellers for the past several years.
A "deluxe" version will sell for $350. It will be black instead of white and include extra features such as more memory, a charging stand and the game "Nintendo Land."
Nintendo Co. has been trying to drum up excitement for the Wii U, which is the first major gaming console to launch since 2006. The device has a touch-screen controller called the Wii U GamePad. It also plays games made for the original Wii.
Nintendo said the latest game in its wildly popular Mario franchise, "New Super Mario Bros. U," will be available when the new console launches. It will include new ways to play that use the GamePad. It will also offer new challenges for advanced Mario players, such as trying to complete a level without touching the ground. "Mario" and other classic games have long been Nintendo's main draw.
The company also announced new entertainment features for the console. Called "Nintendo TVii," the service collects all the ways users have to watch movies, TV shows and sports. This includes pay-TV accounts along with services such as Hulu and Netflix. The GamePad works as a fancy remote controller and will let viewers browse shows they can watch.
TVii "brings all of your services to one place," said Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America.
So if you like the TV show "Modern Family," for example, it will pull in the show's episodes from every available source.
The service also captures scenes from live TV and displays them on the controller. Viewers can then comment on the scenes and share that on Twitter or Facebook if they want. With this feature, Nintendo is playing into what many people already do while they watch TV - comment and share things with friends using a second screen such as a smartphone.
TVii will be available Nov. 18 as well, at no extra cost.
Among the games available on the Wii U will be Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty Black Ops II." The "Call of Duty" games have been holiday best-sellers for the past several years.
I love this "no extra cost" stuff. Unlike the Xbox where you have to pay extra just to make it go online.
Yawn...Wake me up when the new Playstation is on the shelves. Nintendo is so far behind the times. The Wii was popular for a few months but it was just a fad. The whole motion controller garbage is just a gimmick. It's fun every once in a while at a party but most hardcore gamers don't want to get off their couch to play a video game. If I wanted to play basketball I would grab a ball and head to a real court. Nintendo is fun for kids but no grown man wants to play it (unless it's an old vintage NES)
 @FremontTroll I like Playstation better so far too.... I must admit though this Wii U looks more complex than Playstation 3 though. Maybe the games for Nintendo will once again interest me... Zelda rocked, but I was hard pressed to find much else to play.
 @FremontTroll How is Nintendo "behind the times"?  With the Wii-U they are the first out with a next-generation console, so they are ahead of the times, by at least a year!  And you should like the Wii U, because its main new feature is NOT motion controls but a normal controller with d-pad, 2 analogue sticks, and all the normal buttons, just with a touchscreen in the middle.  In fact at this morning's event they showed people playing Call of Duty: Black Ops II on the Wii U without motion controls.
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Yes the system will still support Wii Remotes and there will still be games that require them, but considering how super popular motion controls are, that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
 @FremontTroll I'm going to say that the Wii was not just a fad.  With over 96 million Wii consoles sold since it's release in 2006 (beating both Xbox360 at 68.3 and PS3 at 63.9 million respectively), it's a bit more than a fad.  :)
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If you didn't like Nintendo before, you won't like them now. Â The WiiU is clearly marketed toward existing Nintendo customers and not really meant to persuade Xbox or Playstation gamers over to Nintendo.
I like Nintendo, but I am still mad about Game-Cube and how fast it was replaced by another machine. I barely had it before it was pulled from the market.
 @Funky-Munky 5 years was super fast?  GameCube came out in 2001, was replaced by Wii in 2006, at the same time as a brand new GameCube Zelda game (that got ported to Wii).
 @CommutingGuy I meant..... my own fault of not knowing when the machine was going to be replaced. Mad I couldn't get more new games for it...... Ha!