Items tagged with Wii U
Nintendo has been fighting a legal battle in Texas against a company called iLife since 2013. The patent infringement case brought forth by iLife involves Nintendo's use of its patented technology in the Wii controller. When iLife originally filed a patent on the tech, the company had no thought of using the technology in video games. iLife originally devised its technology to detect when the elderly people had fallen and to monitor babies to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The suit sought a massive $144 million in damages, working out to $4 for every Wii game system sold. Nintendo sold about 36 million Wiis. iLife also wanted an injunction that would prevent Nintendo from using its...
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Are you itching to explore more of Hyrule? The Master Trials DLC pack, the first expansion for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is now available for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U. The Master Trials DLC pack includes a harder difficulty mode, in which games can be saved in their own separate slots. There are new, harder enemies in this mode and players will be able to find enemies and chests in mid-air. Players will also be able to trace their route through Hyrule with a new tracking system and temporarily create quick-travel spots with the new Travel Medallion. No DLC would be complete without some new swag. Players will be able choose from various new apparel such as the Tingle Outfit...
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Nintendo confirmed this past week that the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would be the big N's final release for the Wii U, much to the chagrin of the fans who've stuck by the console since its release in 2012. Nonetheless, if Wii U owners are not planning to make an immediate jump to the Switch, it looks like the Zelda release isn't going to be all that lacking for holdouts. The folks over at IGN reached out to Nintendo which happily provided tidbits to help clear things up. First and foremost, both versions of the game will become available on March 3, which is a great thing as Twilight Princess came out for the GameCube a couple of weeks after its Wii version launched....
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Are you looking for a feel-good story this holiday season? Employees at a Best Buy location Valley Stream, New York delivered one over the weekend when they surprised a teenager with a free Wii U console and game bundle ($300 retail) as a Christmas present. Several associates at the Best Buy store contributed towards the holiday gift for the teen, who had been coming into the store on a daily basis to play Smash Bros. at a Wii U kiosk. Raheim Storr, a manager at Best Buy who has been with the store for nearly a decade, recorded the moment and uploaded it to YouTube. The video shows several store associates approach the teen with the Wii U console and receipt in hand as he sat at the kiosk playing...
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It seems these days that we’ve learned more about what Nintendo’s upcoming NX console can't do, rather than what it can do. Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime claimed in mid-June that virtual reality just isn’t ready for mainstream adoption, while Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto chimed in with a “think of the children” angle, stating that parents likely wouldn’t be happy about their children wearing VR headgear. Nintendo also made it clear that the NX won’t get into a horsepower battle with Sony and Microsoft, and will instead focus on the gaming content. So we likely won’t see VR on the NX, and you can toss aside any notion that it will be a 6 TFLOP monster like Project Scorpio....
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There are a slew of reasons fans of fighting games should look forward to EVO each year, but this year, there are two special ones. For starters, this year's event marks the 20th of its kind, and it also marks the first time Street Fighter V is featured at the event. As the SF series has been such a hallmark of EVO over the years, it's easy to understand why a brand-new release in the franchise creates such a fevered buzz. The fact that Street Fighter V was a cause of a lot of excitement at EVO is interesting simply thanks to the fact that the game didn't have the smoothest launch. Some would argue that the game was released in a broken state, with features promised from the get-go not appearing...
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It's been somewhat of a rough run for Nintendo, which has been competing with Microsoft and Sony in the modern generation console wars. However, Nintendo's strategy to shift some of its focus to smartphone gaming is looking awfully smart right about now—the company's first smartphone app, Miitomo, racked up more than 1 million downloads in just three days. Nintendo's early success in the smartphone space isn't really surprising if you think about it. After all, Nintendo is one of the most iconic video game brands in the history of electronic games, and it's arguably the king of mobile gaming with a string of popular handheld system launches dating back to the original Game Boy released in 1989....
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Apple is expected to announces its next generation iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus during a keynote address this Wednesday held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. The new iPhones are supposed to bring faster A9 processor, a 3D Force Touch display, and higher resolution cameras (front and back). However, the biggest announcement to come out of the event likely won’t be the two new iPhones (which is simply a “refresh” this year). Instead, the star of the show is likely to be the next generation Apple TV, which the late Steve Jobs famously described as a “hobby” earlier in its life due to the limited number of units that the company sold. But Apple can’t simply sit by and let its...
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Nintendo's famed Shigeru Miyamoto hinted that the Japanese game company is already looking ahead to its next major console release even though the Wii U is just a couple of years old. Nevertheless, it's also behind the technological curve compared to Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, both of which were released in November of last year. In an interview with the Associated Press, Miyamoto said that it's focused on bringing more games to the Wii U in the coming year, but that multiple groups within the organization have also been brainstorming new hardware.Image Source: Flickr (Greg Dunlap) "We're focused on providing a robust line-up of Wii U software for next year. It seems like...
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Viewers who tuned in to watch The Game Awards, a new awards show for video games produced by Geoff Keighley, got to see gameplay footage of Nintendo’s upcoming Zelda game for the Wii U. The demonstration featured Zelda lead producer Eiji Aonuma, who was playing the game, along with original Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto providing commentary. While playing the game, it was revealed that the new Zelda game would be coming out in 2015. The demonstration utilized the Wii U’s gamepad, which showed a zoomable world map while Aonuma controlled Link, the game’s main character. Viewers were able to see the game’s large, open world which featured bright colors and lush vegetation as Link moved around....
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All it takes is one good game to turn fortunes around, and Nintendo hopes that Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U will be the one that does it. As it stands, Nintendo's brawler featuring iconic characters from the company's many successful franchises is already the fastest selling Wii U game in the U.S. in the console's history. Super Smash Bros. powered through Mario Kart 8 to steal away pole position as the fastest selling Wii U title ever -- it's sold more than 490,000 physical and digital copies combined during its first three days on the market (November 21 through November 23). "The Nintendo holiday is off to a great start, but there’s a lot of work left to do and a few more surprises in store...
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After falling on tough times for the past several quarters, Nintendo appears to be back on track, at least momentarily. The Japanese video game company surged to an operating profit of 9.3 billion yen (around $86 million in U.S. currency) during its fiscal second quarter, an impressive turnaround from an 18 billion yen (around $166.4 million) loss in the same quarter a year ago. A big reason for the turnaround is increased Wii U console sales. Nintendo reported 1.1 million Wii U game system sales during the six-month period from April to September, which is more than double the 460,000 Wii U consoles it sold a year ago. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata credited the upswing in Wii U sales to Mario Kart...
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Nintendo can't seem to catch a break. The game hardware and software maker reported 74.7 billion yen (~$730.5 million) in revenue during the three-month period ended June 2014, down 8.4 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. And despite tripling Wii U console sales during the quarter, Nintendo ended up with a 9.9 billion yen (~$97 million) loss compared to an 8.6 billion yen (~$84 million) profit in the same quarter last year. Even though Nintendo sold 510,000 Wii U consoles during the April-June quarter compared to just 160,000 unit sales in the same quarter a year ago, the Wii U hasn't been flying off of shelves the way Nintendo hoped. Sales of the company's 3DS handheld aren't helping...
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Ah, do you smell that? It's coming from Nintendo's direction and it's either the scent of brilliance or desperation, we're not quite sure yet. Faced with disappointing Wii U console sales and having to compete with Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One consoles, Nintendo has to try something different to remain relevant -- that something different is called "amiibo." What is amiibo, you ask? It's Nintendo's foray into the "toy-to-life" category with collectible figures, or amiibos, that interact with the Wii U and its games. Nintendo showed off 10 amiibos at E3, including Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and others. You touch these characters to the Wii U gamepad to import character data...
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Nintendo has decided to mix a bit of old school styling with a new generation video game. More specifically, Nintendo is releasing a four-port adapter for the Wii U that will allow gamers to plug in up to four GameCube controllers for its upcoming Super Smash Bros. title. It's not yet clear if the adapter will work with other titles or if it will support Nintendo's wireless Wavebird. "Get excited! The Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. will be playable with GameCube controllers," Nintendo announced in a Twitter post. Nintendo also posted a video to YouTube teasing the release of both the game and the adapter. Take a look: It looks like the adapter needs to be plugged into both USB ports on the...
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Thank you Nintendo, but your profits are in another castle. Such is the paraphrased message Nintendo's accounting team had to deliver after going over the numbers for Nintendo's fiscal year ended March 31, 2014. Sales for the year totaled 571.7 million yen (around $5.6 billion), down from a revised forecast of 590 million yen (~$5.8 billion). Back in April of last year, Nintendo had optimistically forecast sales of around 915 million yen (~$9 billion). The end result is that Nintendo posted a net loss of 23.2 million yen, which works out to around $229 million in U.S. currency. On the bright side, Nintendo had previously forecast a net loss of more than $245 million, though there's not much to...
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Nintendo got a head start over Microsoft and Sony in the next generation console wars by launching its Wii U system well ahead of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, but being first out of the gate doesn't necessarily guarantee victory. Quite the opposite in this case, as sales of the Wii U have been so bad that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is slashing his pay in half from February to June. He's not alone in seeing his income reduced. The other 9 members of Nintendo's board will take pay cuts of at least 20 percent as a result of falling profits, the Financial Times reports. Such is the fallout from Nintendo's net income dropping by a almost a third in the nine-month period ended in December,...
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Nintendo surprised an entire flight of passengers on Southwest Airlines by handing out free Wii U consoles to each and every person. There were more than 100 passengers on flight 1883 from New Orleans to Dallas Love Field, and every one of them walked off the plane with Nintendo's latest home console after being greeted by a costumed Mario character. The surprise act kicked off a partnership between Nintendo and Southwest that will extend through the holiday season. Nintendo is now the official video game partner of Southwest Airlines, and as such it will set up Wii U Gaming Lounges in some of the Southwest's busier airports between now and December 22. That will give passengers a fun way to...
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Nintendo thought it was getting a jump in the next generation console wars by lobbing the first grenade with its Wii U console, but on hindsight, the hardware maker may have effectively shot itself in the foot instead. While Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 are both expected to light up the sales charts when they debut next month, Nintendo said it's Wii U hardware is having a "negative impact" on its profits. Not good. Nintendo sold just 460,000 Wii U consoles during the six month period ended September 30, and 3.91 million units since it launched. Perhaps a bit stubbornly, Nintendo still expects to sell 9 million consoles by the end of its 2014 fiscal year. Color us skeptical. The...
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This is one of those announcements that's so odd, I'm still trying to figure out if it works out to a positive. I'm fairly certain it does. So as you likely know, the Xbox One has both HDMI-in and HDMI-out capability. The point of HDMI-in is to allow you to hook up a cable box, with output then running from the Xbox One to your television. As it turns out, however, that's not the only thing the Xbox One can do. Since the HDMI-in port is a standard option, it can accept video input from a PS4 -- which means it can also accept a video stream from a PC. According to Xbox senior director of product management, Albert Panello, "any application can be snapped to a game... this could be the live TV...
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It's common knowledge that game console and game sales have been in a serious slump this year. According to conventional wisdom, this is part of the console refresh cycle -- sales of older hardware falls off as customers await new products, even when manufacturers are publicly committed to long life cycles for current generation hardware. Makes sense, right? Right. But a new comparison between long-term hardware sales for Sony and Nintendo products makes it clear that the recent decline in shipments isn't a new development -- it's been building for a long time. Take a look at Sony and Nintendo's combined sales for consoles and handhelds from 2008 - 2013. In mid-2008, the two companies combined...
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Whatever Nintendo is using to spike its water coolers, it seems to be causing a bit of delirium in the accounting division. Either that, or Nintendo has something up its sleeve that's going to dramatically boost the number of Wii U consoles it sells in the next three quarters in order to meet its forecast. For the year through March 2014, Nintendo said it expects to sell 9 million Wii U consoles. However, during the company's April-to-June first fiscal quarter, it only sold 160,000 game machines, leaving itself 8.84 million units short of its goal with three quarters left to go. Nintendo would have to average greater than 2.9 million Wii U sales in each of those remaining quarters to meet its...
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