Prior to last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show, one of the big rumors swirling was that Nintendo would drop the price of its Wii U console. Well, E3 came and went, and Nintendo made no pricing moves — and that’s not going to change any time soon, according to a company exec.

“We have no plans to change the price of Wii U,” Nintendo VP of marketing told GamesBeat in an interview. “The Wii U is a great value. With great content coming, that will drive the hardware installed base. We’ve gone from being the highest-priced console on the market to now being a great value with the announcements from our competitors.”

During E3, Microsoft priced Xbox One at $500, and Sony positioned the PlayStation 4 at $400. The Wii U sits $50 below that at $350 for the Deluxe model bundled with Nintendo Land. Nintendo thinks this comparison will help it going forward.

“The perception of our price has changed, but what’s also changed is that people now see what great content is coming,” said Moffit. “They’ll see the value in those games. They’ll be able to enjoy a Wii U in their household for a lot less than a competing console.”

Of course, the Wii U does not compare favorably to Microsoft’s and Sony’s previous systems. Microsoft is currently selling a 250GB Xbox 360 bundled with two games for $300. Sony has a 500GB PlayStation 3 bundled with Assassin’s Creed III for the same price.

Nintendo thinks that its “great content,” as Moffit puts it, will help it stand out this holiday season. GamesBeat got to go hands on with most of those games at E3, and we came away happy with what we played but also unconvinced that the publisher’s roster can withstand two major console launches.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Good news, everybody! I’m going to get to play a bunch of new Wii U games at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo! What? Aren’t you happy for me?

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced today during a Nintendo Direct video stream that the publisher will show off new installments of some of its biggest franchises at the June gaming conference. These games will be for the company’s newest system, the Wii U, which launched last November.

The Nintendo EAD Tokyo Software Development team, who previously gave us the Super Mario Galaxy series on the Nintendo Wii and Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS, is working on a new 3D Mario game that will be playable at E3.

We’ll also see the Wii U versions of racer Mario Kart and fighter Super Smash Bros. at the show. We know that Project Sora, the development team behind Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii and Kid Icarus: Uprising for the Nintendo 3DS, is working with Namco Bandai on the new Smash Bros. Iwata said that Nintendo will show the first screenshots of the game at the conference. Mario Kart will be playable.

Nintendo has a history of showing off new software at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Last year the venue gave gamers their first glimpses of Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3, and other Wii U exclusives ahead of the system’s launch. This year’s show will take place June 11-13 in Los Angeles.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Click here for all of GamesBeat’s Wii U launch coverage.

Nintendo’s Wii U console has been out for almost a week now, and gamers are finally seeing for themselves whether its “big screen plus smaller screen” format can actually provide the revolutionary interactive experiences we’ve been hearing about from the publisher. But you need more than just a couple of variously sized displays working in concert to capture the hearts and minds of players.

You also need software, and developers will soon fill retail shelves with titles designed to take advantage of the unique GamePad controller and its potential to allow games to break free from the confines of your TV and escape to a smaller TV that you hold in your hands. We’re sure to see a lot of ambitious projects in the next few years, but let’s hope that nobody takes the Wii U’s dual-screen concept in any disturbing directions.

Here are a few games we really hope we don’t see.

TSA: Defenders of Freedom

The concept: Players take the role of a brave agent of the Transportation Security Administration and perform screenings at a busy metropolitan airport during an especially busy holiday travel season.

Crazy GamePad functionality: The WiiPad becomes the monitor on which you review the images from both millimeter-wave and backscatter body scanners. Analyze your screen to identify suspicious wallets, forgotten receipts, and potentially dangerous colostomy bags, and then delete the pictures forever (right?).

Bonus weirdness: Good security is about making the right decisions, and Defenders of Freedom will confront gamers with a series of hard-hitting moral choices, none of which affect the outcome of the game. Or do they? You’ll never actually find out. Should you swab that infant for bomb residue? Do you think you’d better frisk that confused grandmother? Switch to the Wii Remote and start up the Operation-style Enhanced Pat-Down minigame. Just don’t grope anyone too obviously, or they’ll sue.

Road Trip U

The concept: The Wii U promises engaging asymmetric multiplayer experiences we’ve never seen before, like the Luigi’s Ghost Mansion minigame in the Nintendo Land collection, in which one person controls an invisible ghost using the GamePad while other players stumble around in the dark trying to catch him with their flashlights.

Road Trip U builds on this dynamic by simulating that most American of traditions: the really long road trip.

Crazy GamePad functionality: One player is a driver controlling a car on the TV screen, while another person has the map on the GamePad. The driver receives no information about where they are going or how to get there and must rely on directions from the navigator. Teams receive bonus points for making good time or taking especially scenic routes, and the navigator can tap the GamePad screen at any time to stop the car for a bathroom break, stretch, or just because he’s annoyed that the driver keeps yelling at him for giving bad directions.

Bonus weirdness: During pit stops, the GamePad becomes a camera that players can use to capture shots of all the virtual points of interest they come across. Once they’ve completed the game, they can invite their real-world friends over and force them to look at pictures from their fake-world vacation.

Gold Rush!

The concept: GamesBeat writer Mike Minotti, who loves Disney’s National Treasure film series like nobody else I’ve ever met, came up with this exciting game in which you can embark upon your own quest for riches. Players become prospectors staking a claim and panning for that lovely 79th element.

Crazy GamePad functionality: From Mike: “You just shake the pad to sift dirt and look for specks of gold, which is really rare, so you just basically never win.”

Bonus weirdness: This could be a great opportunity for an ambitious developer to bring microtransactions to the Wii U. Imagine if you could pay a small fee to customize your pan or increase your odds of actually turning up some gold.

Extreme Ice Fishing

The concept: Does all this driving and panning for gold have you feeling a little stressed? Maybe it’s time to take a break and do some virtual fishing. But, like, really immersive fishing. In the ice.

Crazy GamePad functionality: The Wii U is uniquely poised to capture all the adventure and excitement of real ice fishing. You place the GamePad on the floor, and it displays the hole you’ve cut in the ice. Your Wii Remote and Nunchuk become your trusty rod and reel, and you sit there waiting for a bite. It’s exactly as interesting as actual fishing, but you don’t have to freeze your ass off on a lake. I’m going to call that a win-win.

Bonus weirdness: Since all the action takes place in the GamePad, the TV shows a static image of the wall of your virtual shack. Maybe you could hang a picture up there or something.

Monster Looker

The concept: I asked GamesBeat writer (and Sonic hater) Sam Barsanti for his ideas on ill-advised Wii U games, and he came up with this interesting combination of Hide and Seek and those hidden picture games that I’m inexplicably terrible at. Sometimes my brain just doesn’t register the shape of umbrellas. It’s a condition, and I’m working on it.

Crazy  GamePad functionality: From Sam: “What if there’s a monster hidden somewhere in your living room, and you have to use the tablet to scan for it? The twist is that the monster is incredibly small and sometimes it doesn’t really appear. It’s a metaphor for something. Game design, maybe.”

Bonus weirdness: With a few minor tweaks, this title could become even more interesting. Variations could include “Where Are My Keys?” and “Quick! Find Your Pills!”

Daily Business

The concept: Daily Business takes the virtual existence that The Sims popularized and adds a whole new layer of depth.

Crazy GamePad functionality: The GamePad is actually the whole point; while you’re getting your little fake person to work and the bathroom on time, the controller is with you, corresponding to a tablet computer that your character keeps with him 24/7. In addition to the usual meters like Happiness, Social, and Hunger, the tablet introduces an additional metric: Guilt.

As you go through your imaginary day, tasks will appear on the GamePad that you must complete before Daily Business allows you to sleep. In order to keep the Guilt Meter low and get much-needed rest, your character will have to keep up his presence on social media sites, tend to his virtual pet, and reply to sad e-mails from his lonely, vaguely racist grandmother. Daily Business promises the most accurate life-sim experience ever created.

Bonus weirdness: Daily Business will feature full integration with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, and FourSquare.

Worst-Case Scenario

The concept: Players step into the shoes of Jack McDanger, a hard-bitten reporter out for the biggest story of his career … but then disaster strikes when he finds himself caught in the middle of a series of earthquakes, a terrorist attack, two deadly epidemics, and the worst storm in the history of the world.

Crazy GamePad functionality: Worst-Case Scenario uses the GamePad to eliminate the distracting heads-up display entirely, presenting all the information Jack needs on the smaller screen. Your seismograph, minimap, ammo, inventory, barometric pressure, rainfall gauge, CDC reports, news ticker, health, stamina, weapon status, compass, and goals will all appear on the GamePad, leaving your TV screen free of clutter and allowing players to really immerse themselves in the game without all those distracting icons breaking the illusion.

Bonus weirdness: Marketing will tout the “revolutionary ‘heads-down’ display.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Maybe you’ve heard about the Nintendo Wii U.

After a major marketing push and a torrential amount of Internet buzz, the successor to Nintendo’s wildly successful Wii video game console finally arrived in stores last Sunday. The gaming industry and the consumer base that feeds it have largely passed judgment already. But if you bought one of the 97 million Wii units solid in the last six years, and you consider yourself a casual user, you might wonder whether it’s worth your time and money to upgrade to the latest model.

Naturally, the answer depends on what you want it for.

Which model to get

This marks Nintendo’s attempt to catch up to its competitors on multiple fronts. We’ve covered the basics before, but the Wii U comes in two different packages — a white Basic Set retailing at $299.99 featuring an 8GB hard drive, and a black, 32GB Deluxe Set for $349.99 that includes a copy of Nintendo Land, a party-game compilation (read our full review here). That’s a significant increase from the Wii’s original $249.99 price back in 2006. Unlike its predecessor, the Wii U comes HD-ready, albeit at the lower end of the high-definition scale: 720p rather than 1080p.

Here’s a rundown of everything that comes in the box:

If you don’t plan to download a lot of games or apps, you might not need the bigger 32GB system. That said, the Deluxe set does include Nintendo Land, one of its best — and one of the few — casual gameplay titles at $10 off MSRP.

The big difference

The centerpiece of the Wii U is the GamePad, a handheld controller with a 6.2-inch touchscreen that combines a video game feel with tablet functions.

A nonstandard button layout presents a few problems for gamers, as we’ve pointed out already, but that won’t bother anyone coming off the Wii’s two-controller approach. In fact, I’ve already seen many clever applications for the GamePad’s capabilities — holding it up for “augmented reality” simulations, for example. But the Wii U’s not-so-secret weapon, asymmetrical gameplay, offers amazing possibilities by letting two or more players (one on the GamePad screen, the rest using the ubiquitous Wii Remotes or the Wii U Pro controller) experience the same game in very different ways, frequently with very different goals.

More often than not, you can also transfer what you’re doing to the GamePad’s screen entirely, freeing up the television for someone else to use while you continue your game or movie in peace. It’s a very liberating option, though at only 480p, the picture likely won’t be as sharp, and I frequently had to crank the Pad’s volume to maximum to hear Netflix films from its tinny little speakers. Plugging in a pair of earbuds only helps slightly.

Games, however, come through clear and strong. And the it’s games you play on the Game Pad that really show you the imagination and potential of the Wii U.

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Normal people associate the holidays with tacky decorations, dinners with annoying family, and an endless barrage of irritating toy commercials. Gamers, however, know that those last few months of the year really bring in a bounty of major game releases. That’s why this week’s edition of our Bring Your Own Topic podcast focuses on the holiday season of gaming, including a new system that you may have heard of.

This episode, GamesBeat editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu sits down with our own Sebastian Haley, Rus McLaughlin, and 1up’s Jose Otero to talk about the biggest releases of the holiday season, including the Wii U, Assassin’s Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Halo 4. Also, despite our best intentions, we do delve into a few minor spoilers. That was the warning. We just spoiler-warned you. No complaining now!

This episode’s topics:

• Our favorite holiday games so far
• Why or why not we’re getting a Wii U
• What makes a triple-A game
• Disappointing game endings

Listen:

Download (right-click and “Save As”): [.mp3]

Subscribe: [iTunes] [RSS]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Click here for all of GamesBeat’s Wii U launch coverage. 

Remember those crazy days when four-fifths of all Wii titles were minigame compilations, and they all sucked (except for those Nintendo made)? Seriously, I just described the last six years in one sentence. Well, it’s 2012 now, and Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U, definitely won’t go down that road again. Right?

Let me introduce you to Nintendo Land (releasing Sunday for the Wii U), a minigame compilation that draws from nearly every major Nintendo franchise (no, not Kid Icarus) for a jolly round of short-order fun. And like most entries in this much-maligned genre, you’ve got to dig deep to find a few aces in a deck stacked with jokers. But if you really want to throw the whole thing into chaos, all you really need to do is ask one little question: Who, exactly, is Nintendo Land for?

What you’ll like

The variety
By the time you roll through all 12 of Nintendo Land’s games, you’ll have a well-rounded understanding of what the Wii U and its WiiPad tablet controller can do, because nearly each one uses the pad differently. Some of the applications come off as really rather clever, and the Plaza — the eponymous amusement park hub world — shows off the system’s fluid augmented-reality capabilities.

“No two are the same” would be overstatement, but I like a lot of the inventive hardware applications here. Donkey Kong’s Crash Course relies mainly on the accelerometer as you tilt a very fragile Mii cart down a very rough obstacle maze. Yoshi’s Fruit Cart has you guide the little dinosaur through a landscape to gobble up fruit and presents, and here’s the twist: You use the stylus to draw his path on the WiiPad, but the prizes only appear on the TV screen. Simple, elegant, and quite fiendish.

Taken as a whole, you get nice a sense of experimentation, imagination, and play, and that’s not a bad thing to bring to a game. Or a party, for that matter.

Metroid Blast, Mario Chase, and Balloon Trip Breeze
When Nintendo debuted the Wii U back in 2011, it used two “tech demos” that I hoped would graduate into full games. They did, and they’re the best two offerings in Nintendo Land’s collection.

Mario Chase (formerly Mii Chase) casts one player as Mario on the WiiPad, with an overview of a fairly small maze. Up to four other players play as Toads and have two minutes to tackle Mario. With a full complement of players, it’s nothing short of thrilling. Metroid Blast (née Mii Battle) also showcases that brand of asymmetrical gameplay — the Wii U’s big strength — by transforming your Miis into ground-based Samus Arans; one player on the WiiPad gets her flying gunship. Solo, co-op, and versus modes all get good attention here. Thankfully, Nintendo scaled the gunship’s health back considerably from the tech demo, making it much more of a fair fight. The controls all come with a serious learning curve, but once you master them, Metroid Blast stands out as an immensely entertaining shooter.

Both games also upscaled to multiple maps, and Metroid Blast added a 20-stage campaign to its repertoire. It starts out gently, but eventually Mecha-Ripley and Mecha-Kraid come for you. The boss battles measure up nicely against Metroid’s famously brutal fights.

I expected those two to impress, but Balloon Trip Breeze pleasantly surprised me with sturdy, blissfully cruel neo-platforming. You sweep your floating Mii courier along with stylus/finger-swiped breezes, guiding him/her through an increasingly rough gauntlet of floating pins, rival ballooners (dispatched with a tap on the head, Mario-style), and bad weather. It scales up rapidly and I loved every evil thing it did to me.

The party games

Even though half of Nintendo Land’s games fall under the “Solo Attractions” list, you can play them all with — or against — friends, and that’s really how you’re supposed to do it. The “Attraction Tour,” launched by hopping on a train in the Plaza, gives you a time limit and a decent sample platter of games to play. With a good group of friends at the ready, a fair number of those minigames will play well to the crowd whether or not they’re gamers.

In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull out most of the minigames I’ve mentioned so far and show them to friends at one of my get-togethers. I’d also add Luigi’s Ghost Mansion to the list; it’s a variation on Mario Chase where the hunted gets to become the hunter. It’s all fast, light, and (with the exception of Metroid Blast) easily accessible, and that’s what party games need to be.

But a lot of Nintendo Land needs to be something more than it is.

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Click here for all of GamesBeat’s Wii U launch coverage. 

You’ve got to give it to Nintendo: When it locks information down, it’s locked down tight. Its latest console, the Wii U, launches in five days, and we still don’t know the full picture. Hell, Nintendo won’t switch its online features on until tomorrow.

But I’ve had a week to play with the hardware itself, plus a sample platter of first- and third-party titles, and I’ve noticed a few interesting things the Wii U does — and doesn’t do.

The WiiPad has a better range than you think

For months, I’ve listened to Nintendo reps downplaying how far you can travel with the WiiPad. Players chatted excitedly about bathroom-gaming Zelda and Super Mario while on the throne only to have official statements crush their dreams. The pad won’t work through doors. Sorry.

Except it does. I own a two-story house, and my Wii U lives down in the man cave. Just for laughs, I walked away from it while playing New Super Mario Bros. U off the pad’s screen. The fidelity held together at 30 feet, so I headed upstairs … and then closed the door at the top. Still fine. Now, I couldn’t wander too much further, and indeed, putting any more walls between me and the console pretty much killed the signal. But hey, those bathroom breaks show some promise again.

The WiiPad’s touchscreen isn’t always finger-friendly

Touchscreens basically come in two flavors, capacitive and resistant. Capacitive screens, like your iPhones and iPads, register inputs when an electrical conductor (your finger, for instance) disrupts its electrostatic field. The WiiPad follows Nintendo’s tradition of using the more pressure-based resistive touchscreens, which respond better to less squishy, more pointy stimuli (a stylus, for instance).

So no, the WiiPad isn’t always as responsive as perhaps it should be when you swipe it with your finger. It works, but I frequently have to repeat inputs several times to get the desired result. That becomes an issue in several games, too. Fortunately, the pad comes with a built-in stylus — also a Nintendo tradition — that works well.

Screw SD cards

An 8GB model marks a major bump from the Wii’s storage capacity, and nobody should complain at 32GB for the Deluxe model. But if you really need more, the SD card slot does make a return to the new hardware. But screw that … this console’s got four USB ports. You can actually buy an off-the-shelf external hard drive, plug it into the Wii U, and have three terabytes of storage on that bad boy.

Go on. Do it. Just to make Microsoft and Sony cry. Until someone plugs an external drive into their consoles, anyway.

It harmonizes

While I sat typing up notes with the new Wii U menu music playing away in the background, I suddenly noticed the song playing on my television differed slightly from what came out of the pad’s speakers. The two tracks harmonized into one piece, exactly as if they were recorded in stereo (which they probably were) and tuned for a forward/back setup instead of left/right.

I won’t pretend it’s balanced audio, or that the pad’s speakers aren’t a little tinny, or that serious audiophiles will be amused in the slightest. But it’s really a rather neat effect. I can see a savvy developer using that two-channel sound feature to their advantage — say, in Silent Hill-style horror game, where people on the TV tell you one thing and voices on your WiiPad tell you something very different.

It’s the best universal remote ever

I’ve tried a number of universal remotes over the years, and not a single one could sync to my Sharp HDTV (in fairness, it’s so old that I could get three bigger LCDs today for the same price I paid for it way back when). The WiiPad did it in 10 seconds. All I had to do was press the “TV” button on its face, identify the manufacturer, and we were in business.

That said, while we’re told you can use the WiiPad as a remote without leaving the Wii U on full-time, I couldn’t get it to work. Pressing the “TV” button on the pad supposedly does the trick, but it’s not happening here. We’ve reached out to Nintendo for clarification.

Update: After checking and re-checking everything, it looks like the problem was with my older-than-dirt TV. A few solid kicks solved everything, and the feature works as advertised now.

But that’s not all. Oh, no, that is not all.

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Hold on to your wallets; November 18 is rapidly approaching. That’s the day Nintendo picked for the U.S. release of its fancy new system, the Wii U.

The world was a very different place since the last home video game console came out in 2006 (the original motion-controlled Wii). Within the past six years, we’ve seen two U.S. presidential elections, three James Bond films starring Daniel Craig, and nine handheld Pokémon games. So it’s okay to feel a little rusty when it comes to hardware launches.

That’s why we compiled all of GamesBeat’s Wii U coverage in this handy post. If you have no idea what the Wii U is, or what it’s capable of, start with our comprehensive primer. Don’t know what games to pick up at launch? Here’s a complete list of all 23 titles. Otherwise, dive right in.

Editorial

• Why the Wii U might be set up for failure

Podcast

• BYOT Episode 8: Wii U and the holiday season of gaming

Hardware

• Why you should wait on a Wii U (review)
• Gadget lovers and gamers: Here’s a look inside the Nintendo Wii U
• Bricked Wii U owners will have to send their consoles to Nintendo for repair
• 10 Things you don’t know about the Nintendo Wii U
• The Wii U is (not really) battery powered
• What’s in the box? Nintendo Wii U Deluxe Edition and Pro Controller
• See how the Wii U’s size compares to the Wii’s

Game Reviews

• The Wii U launch-title review round-up
• Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed
• ZombiU
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii U
• Nintendo Land

Game previews

• Will Wii U players get an unfair advantage in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer?
• Nintendo Land will make you hate your friends and family
• The Wii U could be a new home for indie games
• EA shows off smart Wii U GamePad tricks for FIFA 13 and Mass Effect 3

Online services

• Your Wii U won’t connect to the Internet? Here’s the fix
• Wii U video chat provided by Vidyo, which also powers Google Hangouts (and sees a $1B opportunity in Nintendo)
• The Nintendo Wii U Online FAQ
• The Wii U’s online service is an ‘empathy network’ — what the heck is that?
• Wii U’s browser is better equipped for HTML5 than Internet Explorer 10 on PC
• Nintendo’s touchscreen TV service for the Wii U plays catch-up (hands-on video)

Interviews

• Nintendo and Wii U eShop impressing indie developers faster than Microsoft and Sony
• Nintendo’s Scott Moffitt tells us what we need to know about the Wii U launch
• Why Ubisoft has eight games coming for the Wii U
• Nintendo VP Scott Moffitt dishes on the Wii U’s $299 price, living room strategy, and more

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Click here for all of GamesBeat’s Wii U launch coverage. 

With a solid streak of Halo, Call of Duty, and Hitman games dropping almost nonstop in November, it might take a moment to remember that — oh, yeah! — we’ve got a whole new console launching this month, too.

The Nintendo Wii U hits Nov. 18 in the U.S., and we just got our hands on the fully loaded and glossy-black 32GB Deluxe Edition. We’ll report on how it plays in the coming weeks, but we can show and tell the complete package right now. And as a bonus, we’re also comparing the Nintendo Pro Controller to its popular doppelgänger, the Xbox 360 controller.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

And now, also for your viewing pleasure, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata unboxes his own Wii U. I wonder how he got one earlier than we did?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The U.S. is less than two weeks away from a new console launch, and retailers are starting to get demo units that’ll help consumers decide if they need to get one on launch day.

Nintendo’s Wii U hardware, which replaces the Wii console, debuts Nov. 18 and starts at $299.99. The Japanese video game giant announced today that it is sending out 5,000 demo kiosks to retailers like Target, Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, and Toys ‘R’ Us so that gamers can get their hands on the new Wii U and its GamePad controller. The GamePad is like a typical console joystick, only it has a 6.2-inch touchscreen embedded in its center.

To learn more about the Wii U and its capabilities, read our guide with all the important information.

The GamePad is the new marquee feature. Nintendo plans to introduce many new types of gameplay mechanics that involve using this unusual console-gaming device. The demo kiosks are part of convincing people that this works and that the Wii U is something that they should want.

Some of the retail stations will have fully playable hardware while others will have non-interactive video displays. The playable units feature games like New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land, which the publisher designed for the GamePad. Nintendo includes a copy of Nintendo Land packed in with the $349.99 deluxe version of the Wii U console.

You can find the retailer nearest you with a playable station by using this tool on Nintendo.com.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This week, Valve claims the Linux operating system is more viable than Windows 8, Disney buys Star Wars studio Lucasfilm as well as LucasArts, and hurricane Sandy delays Take-Two Interactive’s earning call.

You’ll also find reviews for Halo 4, Pid, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, Assassin’s Creed III,  WWE 13, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

News:

• Halo 4, Xbox, and American Express partnership: kill Covenant nasties to earn cold, hard cash
• The DeanBeat: Halo 4 is the romance of Master Chief and Cortana, disguised as a combat game
• Startup accelerator Tandem Capital rolls its new capital into mobile technology and games
• Twitch embeds livestreaming in Sony Online Entertainment’s Planetside 2
• Flurry’s knowledge is power as it raises a whopping $25M for mobile app analytics
• Wii U’s browser is better equipped for HTML5 than Internet Explorer 10 on PC
• Now streaming for Windows 8: 1,000 games from Agawi’s GameZen
• Preorder Crysis 3 and return to the beginning with a free download of Crysis
• Here come the brands: Wizard of Oz game launches on Facebook
• Mystery narrative and new features headline CityVille 2′s launch
• Minecraft-like first-person shooter heads to Steam in December
• Israel’s Plarium debuts graphically rich hardcore Stormfall game on Facebook (exclusive)
• Mountain Dew-branded Halo 4 game makes a weird sort of sense
• Valve prepping next batch of Greenlight-approved games in November
• Disney’s recent history suggests it might not be ‘business as usual’ at LucasArts for long
• Grand Theft Auto V delay blows a $600 million hole in Take-Two’s outlook for 2013
• Imbibe a Nos Energy Drink to unlock Assassin’s Creed III multiplayer character
• Disney buys LucasArts alongside Lucasfilm (updated)
• Gaming’s ‘Nite to Unite’ raises over $800,000 for children’s charities and scholarships
• Publisher Valve says Linux is more viable for games than Windows 8
• Browser-based steampunk: City of Steam enters closed beta in November
• Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment raises $18M as big launch draws near
• Developers are mostly thrilled with the chance to make money with Windows 8 games

Mobile news:

• Boom! EA brings its Madden football franchise to iOS & Facebook
• Developer support builds for Ngmoco’s mobile social gaming network
• Amazon Game Studios launches its first mobile game: Air Patriots
• Joining the insane social sports-betting crowd, Bunker Mode debuts its High Limit Sports app (exclusive)
• Wooga expands into mobile with its Bubble Island arcade shooter game
• Leap Motion hires former Apple director to lead its marketing team
• Gameloft doesn’t hesitate to support Windows Phone 8 with 12 optimized games
• Activision preps two more Skylanders mobile games for this year
• Developers wary about investing in Windows Phone 8 games

Earnings:

• Sony’s game division revenues fall nearly 16 percent in Q2 2012
• Hurricane Sandy forces publisher Take-Two Interactive to postpone earnings report

Reviews:

• Halo 4 is the next chapter, not the next evolution (review)
• Pid turns childlike magic into planet-sized punishment (review)
• Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s bearded badasses can’t defeat mediocrity (review)
• Assassin’s Creed III: The revolution will be gripping but glitchy (review)
• Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation can’t match the quality of its console brethren (review)
• WWE ’13 gives fans plenty of nostalgic Attitude (review)

Previews:

• Nintendo Land will make you hate your friends and family (hands-on preview)

Interviews:

• 343 Industries’ Josh Holmes on Halo 4′s love story, weaponry, and new enemies (interview)
• Better graphics and physics gave designers more freedom for Halo 4 (interview)
• Treyarch’s Mark Lamia promises that Call of Duty: Black Ops II will push gaming’s boundaries (exclusive interview)
• How to find the secret website in Shadowgate’s Kickstarter video and more (interview)
• David Vonderhaar’s expert advice on how to get ahead in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer (exclusive interview)

Pieces of flair:

• You don’t have to play horror games to pee your pants in fear
• You can play Tetris on this pumpkin
• From celluloid to pixels: Movie personalities crash video games

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The timer was ticking down to the last 30 seconds. My teammates and I ran, frantically trying to capture Mario — or at least an avatar dressed like him — in a color-coded landscape filled with hills and mud. “Back of yellow heading toward red!” one of them shouted. “No, he’s going in blue!” Suddenly, I saw him fly down a long slide. I ran as fast as I could to meet him at the bottom and made a desperate attempt at a midair tackle in the hope of catching him.

He soared over me as the clock reached zero, laughing at his stroke of luck. Even though I only met Corey, the Nintendo representative playing as Mario, just minutes before, I already hated him.

That’s the sort of competitive reaction Nintendo Land, a collection of minigames disguised as a virtual theme park, brings out of you. Available as a pack-in bonus for the Wii U Deluxe Set or separately on store shelves when the console launches on Nov. 18, Nintendo Land features 12 “attractions” inspired by many of its famous franchises, like Mario Chase (pictured above). And based on my experiences, they can get a little rowdy.

A fighting spirit

Nintendo Land’s multiplayer offerings, even in cooperative modes, all have some kind of competitive component. I first realized this while playing Pikmin Adventure, a fast-paced version of Nintendo’s popular alien-management strategy game. One player uses the GamePad and its stylus to control Captain Olimar, who commands a small army of Pikmin creatures. Any extra players (up to four) use Wii Remotes to play as larger Pikmin with different abilities.

Here’s the catch: Olimar can summon all of the Pikmin to his location with a special whistle during the mission-based Challenge mode. If you wanted to, you could abuse this mechanic by rounding them up as many times as you possibly can. Those with the Wii Remote can shake the controller to defy your orders and jump away, but chances are they’ll still find it annoying. You’ll also fight over Nectar pieces dropped by monsters (mechanical versions of the Bulborbs seen in earlier Pikmin games) or found in boxes. These help you level up, increasing the damage and number of Pikmin for Olimar or adding attack combos to the large Pikmins’ arsenal.

Once your relationship reaches a boiling point, you can head on over to the competitive multiplayer mode. It pits Captain Olimar against the Pikmin players in a small arena filled with power-ups (like hammers and bombs), and the goal is to collect as much candy as possible. You’ll lose the candy if you get hit even once, so it’s a constant struggle. Both modes contain a variety of stages to unlock, giving you many places to vent your frustration.

Metroid Blast, a minigame based on Nintendo’s Metroid series, is just as thrilling in 1-on-1 combat. The player with the GamePad controls a spaceship while the Wii Remote characters stay on the ground. One side doesn’t necessarily have an advantage over the other. Those on the ground can morph into a ball, swing across a level, and fire shots from their arm cannons. The ship comes with a slight learning curve to the controls, but it can reach places that the other players can’t. It also has a punishing volley of rockets to unleash on unsuspecting foes. Expect a good heap of trash talk to accompany the explosions and laser beams.

GamePad versus Wii Remotes

The reason this particular form of multiplayer works is because of Nintendo Land’s asymmetrical gameplay, which is when the minigame offers different experiences depending on what controller you use. In Mario Chase, the GamePad player is Mario, and he has to focus on the touch-screen’s top-down view of the map, along with a zoomed-in section, to find hiding spots or alternative paths to run through. When I was playing with three Nintendo reps, the GamePad’s camera was also on, projecting my lovely mug on the TV for everyone to see. You can use this to taunt your pursuers with any facial expressions that you see fit.

GamePad players have to hide the precious data it holds; usually, the Wii Remote crowd will have an entirely different view on the TV. Either side can cheat by taking a peek at the other’s screen, but where’s the fun in that? This is vital in games like Luigi’s Ghost Mansion. The GamePad controls a ghost, whose movements are invisible to the players hunting it down with their flashlights. You can reveal your presence either through recklessness (if you use the dash button), by the flashes of lightning outside the level (unless you’re hiding behind something), or on purpose (if you charge up a special attack). And the only way to conquer your intruders is to bait them into a series of traps by taunting them with your appearance.

As I quickly learned, it’s easy to get swept up in the GamePad’s novelty and its exclusive gameplay perspectives: It took only a minute before the ghost hunters defeated me. So it’s best not to rely on the GamePad as a crutch as determined players — or really experienced Nintendo employees — will find a way to knock you down.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you’ve heard the Wii U name before but don’t quite know what it’s all about, you’re in the right place. Video game publisher Nintendo has a new home console on the way, and we’re going to run down everything you need to know about it.

As the Wii U name implicates, the new hardware is the followup to Nintendo’s popular home console, the Wii. But this name may cause some confusion, so let’s clear a few things up right away:

• This is an entirely separate device from the Wii.
• The Wii U is not an add-on for the current Wii.
• The Wii U’s GamePad tablet controller does not work with the original Wii.
• The Wii U will play original Wii games.
• The Wii Remotes for the original Wii will work on the Wii U only if they are using MotionPlus (either built-in or as an attachment).

That should clear up some common misconceptions. If you’re still a bit shaky on exactly what the Wii U is, that’s OK. We’re going to do our best to explain. Here’s the basic answers to the frequently asked questions:

• Release date: Nov. 18
• Price: $299.99 for the Basic set, $349.99 for the Deluxe
• Pack-in game: Only with the Deluxe set. The Basic set comes without a game.
• Backward compatibility: Wii U can play Wii games
• Game cost: Most retail games are $59.99.
• 23 launch games: Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, and more (full list here)
• Wii-to-Wii U WiiWare and Virtual Console game transfer: Yes

The system

The Wii U is entirely separate from the Wii. That has its pros and cons.

This means that your Wii, if you have one, is now obsolete. You can’t just go out and buy the Wii U’s interesting GamePad controller and have all of the functionality of the new system without buying a Wii U. If you want those Wii U games, you’ll have to spend at least $299.99 for the Basic system and then the cost of some games. The good news it that all of your old Wii games will still work on this new hardware. Also, a lot of new Wii U software is compatible with the Wii Remote as long as it’s using the MotionPlus dongle (or has MotionPlus built-in).

The plus side of a new system means the visuals are a significant leap over the Wii. The Wii U is Nintendo’s first fully high-definition console. It is capable of producing visuals at least on par with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. If you want a Mario game that takes full advantage of your 1080p HD television, the Wii U is the only way to make that possible.

The GamePad controller is the next big upgrade you’ll find in the Wii U. Nintendo’s advertising campaign is focusing on this new handheld device with a screen that connects wirelessly to a console. It’s easy to look at that and think “Why didn’t Nintendo just release that for the Wii?” Well, the Wii simply doesn’t have the juice to power what Nintendo plans to do with the GamePad.

We’ll break down the controller in detail in the next section, but the simple explanation is this: The Wii U can display one player’s in-game view on the GamePad and multiple other views on the television. That sort of video output requires a level of graphics processing that the Wii cannot reproduce.

If you have any WiiWare or Virtual Console games on your original Wii, those are transferable to the Wii U. The process requires both systems to connect to the Internet, so Nintendo can verify the content, and then you take an SD card from the Wii, pop it in your Wii U, and that’s it. It’s a similar process to moving downloadable 3DS games to a 3DS XL.

The Wii U console comes in two varieties: a white basic system with 8GBs of capacity for $299.99 or a black deluxe version with 32GBs of storage and a game for $349.99.

Here’s a list of each version with the included bits and pieces:

Wii U 8GB Basic: $299.99

• White Wii U console
• White Wii U GamePad controller
• 8GBs of storage
• Sensor bar
• AC adapters
• HDMI cable

Wii U 32GB Deluxe: $349.99

• Black Wii U console
• Black Wii U GamePad controller
• 32GBs of storage
• Nintendo Land (game)
• GamePad stand
• GamePad charging cradle
• Console stand

The controller

This is it. If motion controls were the big draw for the Wii, then Nintendo expects this controller with a touchscreen in the middle to reproduce that success. We’ll explain all the things the GamePad can do for games, but let’s run down the specifications first:

• Color: White or black
• Buttons: Six face, four shoulder, power, TV, Start (+), Select (-), Home, D-pad
• Analog sticks: Two clickable sticks (R3 and L3 buttons)
• Front-facing camera
• Microphone
• Display: 6.2-inch resistive LCD touchscreen, 16:9 aspect ratio
• Audio: Two stereo speakers
• Near-field communication
• Motion sensors: Accelerometer, gyroscopic sensor, magnetic sensor
• Stylus included
• Rechargeable battery
• Force-feedback rumble
• Headphone jack
• Infrared transceiver (for operation as universal TV remote)

If you’re confused by that list, don’t worry. We’ll explain how Nintendo and other developers plan to use all that junk.

Basically, the GamePad operates as both a controller for the game on your TV screen and as a tablet for observing and maintaining supplemental information in said game. For example, in an adventure titles, gamers can now tap on the screen to select between different weapons and tools.

But this a simple explanation of its capabilities. Nintendo built in some advanced sensing equipment that allows the tablet screen to directly interact with the television display.

In Nintendo Land, the game that comes with the Deluxe console set, a particular minigame allows players to hold their GamePad vertically and throw ninja stars by swiping on the screen. Those ninja stars then appear on the television exactly where the player aimed them.

Other games will allow players to hold the controller’s touchscreen up in front of the television to get an augmented perspective of the TV screen. Let’s say smoke fills your field of view on the set — hold up your GamePad and use it as infrared goggles to see your enemies.

Another oft-touted feature is the Wii U’s capability to play full console games directly on the GamePad LCD. If you are in a household where multiple people are vying for the television, you can quickly migrate a game like Call of Duty: Black Ops II from the television to the controller with a simultaneous press of the + and – buttons.

Since the Wii U will support the GamePad and the Wii’s old Wii MotionPlus controllers (along with new controllers like the Wii U Pro Controller), developers are designing their early Wii U games around an idea called “asymmetrical multiplayer.”

Asymmetrical multiplayer is when two or more users are playing one game and one of those players has more in-game abilities than the others. For example, Ubisoft’s Rayman Legends will have one person on the GamePad controlling a special touchscreen character who can interact with the environment that the other players are running around in.

You can see in the video above (starting around the three-minute mark) that the GamePad player was changing the world and allowing the other players to get more points as they traversed the platforms.

Nintendo wants this type of gameplay at the center of the Wii U experience, and it’s the GamePad controller that makes it possible.

This device also has a microphone and front-facing camera for video chatting and in-game communication.

It has a lot of features, but the GamePad will also work fine as a controller for standard games. It may look some chimeric monster built from leftover Kindle Fire and Xbox 360 controller parts, but our hands-on time with the device suggest it will be perfectly capable and comfortable for games like Assassin’s Creed II.

The controller as a TV remote

The GamePad has an infrared transceiver, so it can work as a universal television remote. That TV button on the bottom right will bring up television controls so that players can quickly turn down the TV’s audio if it’s too loud. The TV functions of the GamePad will expand beyond that, though. Even when the Wii U console is off, the GamePad can still control the TV.

Thanks to a service called Nintendo TVii, you may actually want to use this device as your primary remote.

Nintendo TVii allows your Wii U GamePad to hook into your Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video accounts. TVii can also interact with your Tivo or other personal digital-video recorders. If you’re looking for something in particular, searching for it on the GamePad will tell you if the show, movie, or sporting event is on one of your services or even it’s playing on television currently. If it is, the GamePad will tune your TV to that channel with the touch of a button. TVii also includes a suite of interactivity features for quickly sharing moments to social-networking sites like Twitter.

The games

Like any home console, the Wii U will have a lot of games. We’re not going to list them all here, but at the bottom of this section we’ve included a YouTube video that runs through many of the system’s biggest releases.

Instead, let’s talk about the types of games that you’ll be able to get on the Wii U, since that’ll be quite a bit different than the Wii.

On the Wii, developers couldn’t bring over the games they made for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Most developers had to rework their games for the Wii’s less powerful hardware and motion controlls. That will no longer necessarily be the case on the Wii U.

The Wii U now has the power and the controller necessary to play ports of games like Assassin’s Creed III and Darksiders II. On top of this, it’ll also support any developer who wants to build something new that takes advantage of the tablet controller.

Of course, you’ll also be able to get and play motion games like Just Dance 4 since this console still supports the Wii MotionPlus controller.

Theoretically, the Wii U should be the best of all worlds. It could have the best multiplatform games (Call of Duty: Black Ops II), fun motion-control games (Just Dance 4), and new kinds of GamePad games (Nintendo Land.)

How to buy a Wii U

OK, well, that’s going to be difficult, but not impossible.

Right now, the system is sold out on retailer GameStop‘s website. Some independent vendors on Amazon are selling the console for as much as $1,000. Between now and its launch on Nov. 18, the hardware may become available on different websites, but it’ll likely sellout as fast as it appears.

Our suggestion, and it’s only that, is to use Walmart’s layaway service to preorder the system. Walmart will allow you to reserve your Wii U for launch day if you put down 10 percent in their layaway department between now and then. You’ll probably still have to wait in line on Nov. 18, but you’ll have a better chance to get one than someone who didn’t reserve it.

Call your local Walmart first, though, because some only have one of the Wii U models (my local Walmart told me they only have the $349.99 version.)

Other retailers, like Toys R Us, Target, and Best Buy are all out of preorders as well. You might be able to get in line on the night of Nov. 17 for a chance to pick one at midnight at those locations and others (Fry’s, Kmart, Meijer’s), but by the afternoon on Nov. 18, customers will have picked over most stores.

So … should you get one?

We can’t really answer that for you. We’ll have a review of the system up around the time of its release, but everyone’s different. If the idea of Nintendo Land’s asymmetrical gameplay sounds appealing to you, it could be worth it. If you desperately want HD Nintendo games, you’ll likely get your money’s worth.

Oddly, despite the fact that we’re less than a month away from release, we still don’t know everything about this device. It’s online service remains something of a mystery. It will have some kind of service that’ll allow you to leave comments in your games that other players can read once they reach that point, but we don’t know much else.

If you’re on the fence, hold off. It’s going to be difficult to buy one anyhow. You might as well wait for the reviews.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo specifically designed its Wii U GamePad controller to work in a variety of circumstances, but at least one engineer wished they wouldn’t add motion games to the list of potential complications.

With the Wii U and its tablet GamePad controller, out Nov. 18 for $299.99, you play a game on the television while viewing important information on the handheld display. More impressive than that, you can simultaneously press the + and – buttons to have the primary screen moved to the tablet’s LCD panel so that someone else can use the TV. The Wii U accomplishes all of this by sending video data wirelessly to the controller.

Nintendo wants that functionality to work while also using the GamePad for motion games.

And that’s the problem.

“It’s extremely tough, wirelessly, to have players hold the Wii U GamePad and move with it because of the Doppler effect,” Nintendo product development engineer Kenichi Mae said in an “Iwata Asks” feature on Nintendo’s website.

“To be honest, I even thought, ‘No, please don’t!’” Mae said about Nintendo’s plans for motion games on the Wii U.

For those who skipped your high school science class, the Doppler effect is when differences in relative speed between the source of waves and the receiver of those waves causes a distortion. It’s the phenomenon that causes a police siren to sound different depending on whether the police vehicle is approaching or leaving your location.

That same kind of distortion can happen in the radio waves sent between the Wii U and the GamePad if players are waving around the controller … which they will in games like Nintendo Land.

Mae and fellow engineers didn’t mention exactly how they overcame this obstacle, but they seem confident that it shouldn’t pose a problem in the final product.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I love Nintendo. I hate Nintendo. As the company that first got me into gaming and technology, Nintendo will always hold a special place in my heart. But I’ve been frustrated by its move toward casual gaming with the Wii and its past missteps with the 3DS.

Now Nintendo is gearing up to release the Wii U, its newest console. It sports high-definition graphics and a tablet-like game controller. Yesterday the company announced that the Wii U will be available in the U.S. on November 19, starting at $299 for the base model and $349 for a deluxe model with added memory and a copy of Nintendo Land. It’s also taking a stab at living room entertainment with Nintendo TVii, a unified interface for searching and interacting with media across live TV, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other services.

At the launch event in New York City, I got Nintendo’s executive vice president of sales Scott Moffitt take on the announcements. After joining the company last year, Moffitt has become the main person responsible for creating excitement for the Wii U. And as you can see from our conversation below, he’s thought quite a bit about what makes the Wii U compelling.

GamesBeat: Can you talk about the $299 price for the base model? That’s more expensive than the current consoles, and it also doesn’t come with a game. What was the decision in terms of pricing?

Scott Moffitt: Yah many factors go into pricing. … Let me talk first about our goal with going to a two-tiered model, to have two prices and two configurations, is to give consumers choice and provide flexibility. …  That philosophy really permeated a lot of the decisions. It permeated what price point it should be but also what to pack in with each of the configurations.

The $299 price point in the basic sense allows the broadest amount of consumers access to the Wii U and all of its technologies at a really affordable price. For $299 you get everything you need to enjoy Wii U, and you have the capability to add memory as you want, and we know the price of memory is dropping precipitously. But it also allows you the choice of game…you’re not locked into a certain game.

Certainly, we think a lot of those consumers may really enjoy Nintendo Land if they choose to buy it — but they may not. They may choose to buy New Super Mario Brothers U; they may choose to buy Zombie U. We don’t know. It gives them at least one option that does not have a game, that allows them to choose a game. The deluxe set [$349] comes with added memory, a couple of added accessories, and it comes with Nintendo Land, all of which also puts it at a great value for those consumers that know they’re going to want that extra memory and they know they want that game.

GB: So Nintendo Tvii, it seems like this has been a long time coming. How exactly are you guys trying to differentiate from what the Xbox and PS3 is offering?

Moffitt: So the idea behind Wii U is first we want it to be an everyday device. We wanted it to be the entertainment hub in the living room, in the family room, and we want it to be used every day. There are many ways to do that. Not everyone has a chance to sit down and play a three-hour video game every day, but they may want to access the web every day. They may want to watch TV every day. So having an application like Nintendo TVii increases the probability that consumers will turn on the system every day, use it every day, and interact with it every day.

Nintendo TVii is a great innovation. It differentiates ourselves from other consoles in a couple different ways: First of all…the vision is you can find, you can watch, and you can interact with TV like you’ve never been able to before. Starting with “find,” the gamepad allows you a very intuitive way to search for content regardless of its source. Whether it’s VOD, whether it’s live TV, coming from Direct TV or your normal cable provider, or any recorded content that you have, it searches all possible sources and displays for you what your options are. So it makes TV for me more fun and more intuitive, and easier to find something.

Once I find something you can activate it right from the gamepad controller, you can turn on that program, and it starts displaying on your TV. Then the interesting part begins, you can interact with that content  in ways you haven’t been able to before on a gaming console. You can share thoughts about the program you’re watching, you can let your friends know about that content and if they’re not watching it at that time you can message them and say, “Hey, great show here, you may want to turn it on,” and you can chat back and forth. So it integrates the social and interactive component with TV in a way that hasn’t been possible before.

Next: Wii U as Nintendo’s tablet stab, and the mystery of the tablet gamepad’s battery life

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This morning, Nintendo finally announced the price and launch date for its upcoming Wii U video game console as well as its new TVii feature that lets you use it as a Netflix/Hulu/Tivo/whatever box. Of course, you can also play video games on the Wii U, and we have the complete list of the system’s launch window games, as well as screenshots of many of them.

The Wii U console is in stores Nov. 18, with the basic version costing $300 and the deluxe $350; for specifics on each package, see our story from this morning.

Now, the system’s “launch window” extends from when the Wii U comes out all the way until March of next year. That means a few of these might not actually be available in 2012, but Nintendo still includes them in the “launch window.” It makes sense if you try not to think about it too much.

Either way, check out the list and gallery below to see all of the games you’ll be playing on your hot new Wii U … at some point within the next six or seven months.

• Funky Barn
• NBA 2K13
• 007 Legends
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II
• Transformers Prime
• Wipeout 3
• Skylanders Giants
• Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013
• Rapala Pro Bass Fishing
• Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
• Rise of the Guardians: The Video Game
• Ben 10: Omniverse
• Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
• Mass Effect 3
• Madden NFL 13
• FIFA Soccer 13
• Trine 2: Director’s Cut
• Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
• Zumba Fitness Core
• Jett Tailfin
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U Edition
• Tank! Tank! Tank!
• Nintendo Land
• New Super Mario Bros. U
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
• Sing Party
• Lego City: Undercover
• Wii Fit U
• Game & Wario
• Pikmin 3
• The Wonderful 101
• Aliens: Colonial Marines
• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
• Nano Assault Neo
• Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
• Darksiders II
• Wheel of Fortune
• Jeopardy!
• Toki Tori 2
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Just Dance 4
• Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth
• Rabbids Land
• ESPN Sports Connection
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
• ZombiU
• Rayman Legends
• Scribblenauts Unlimited
• Game Party Champions
• Batman: Arkham City — Armored Edition

The gallery is below, but if you prefer your pictures to move and have sound, take a look at these Wii U launch trailers.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The sensory smorgasbord of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) heaved itself upon the video game industry for three straight days, and GamesBeat’s intrepid crew enthusiastically hit showfloors, conference halls, and meeting rooms to offer our readers piles of previews, interviews, and news.

What follows below is our collected coverage during the show. You’ll find everything here sorted into categories for easy navigability.

Awards

Who needs stickers? We analyzed, judged, and sorted our top picks for the show’s offerings directly for you. Take a look — the results might surprise you.

GamesBeat’s E3 2012 Game of the Show…plus staff picks – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

The GamesBeat E3 non-award awards: The least prestigious awards in the industry – by GamesBeat staff

The coolest technologies we saw at E3 2012 – by Dean Takahashi

The best family games of E3 – by GamesBeat staff

The top 8 trends of E3, from bows to brutality – by Mike Minotti

The top 15 swag shirts of E3 2012 – by Rus McLaughlin

Previews

You’ve found the beating heart of E3′s overwhelming magic. Whether from observatory impressions or direct, hands-on experiences, GamesBeat discussed and dissected a sizable stable of upcoming games and hardware.

Hands-on

Hitman Absolution lets you perform hits in giant crowds – by Dean Takahashi

Metro Last Light fights shooter fatigue with deeper single player – by Dean Takahashi

Crysis 3 brings the jungle, gun hacking, and silent stealth kills to Manhattan – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Dead Space 3, coming with drop-in cooperative play – by Dean Takahashi

Sleeping Dogs turns Hong Kong crime movies into a video game – by Dean Takahashi

From the creator of Portal, Quantum Conundrum caters to physics-based puzzle gamers – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom remakes hack-slash-shoot-grapple formula with upcoming DmC: Devil May Cry – by Dean Takahashi

Capcom shows three playable characters for Resident Evil 6 – by Dean Takahashi

Finding similarities between Arma III and Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – by Omri Petitte

Neverwinter’s user-generated content could elevate it above the competition – by Stefanie Fogel

DmC: Devil May Cry is full of swagger…and F-bombs – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed leaves Mario Kart in its dust…and wake…and vapor trail – by Mike Minotti

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is an anime you can actually play – by Eduardo Moutinho

Sony Online Entertainment’s PlanetSide 2 – by Rob LeFebvre

Slice, dice, and julienne enemies in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Eduardo Moutinho

Medal of Honor: Warfighter deploys fire teams to the front lines – by Eduardo Moutinho

Hell Yeah! is like Metroid with a chainsaw jetpack-riding demon bunny – by Mike Minotti

Dead or Alive 5 wants to deliver a power blow to the competition – by Eduardo Moutinho

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s simplicity is just what consoles need – by Omri Petitte

Hands-off

Just what kind of game is Star Wars 1313? – by Dean Takahashi

Warner Bros. confirms LEGO: Lord of the Rings video game – by Dean Takahashi

EA’s cute The Act romance game exploits iPad’s touchscreen for unique gameplay – by Dean Takahashi

Turn the snow crimson with redcoat blood in Assassin’s Creed III – by Dean Takahashi

Far Cry 3 demo leads you deeper into drug-induced insanity – by Dean Takahashi

Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls is one of the best games of E3 – by Dean Takahashi

The 5 different games you’ll be playing in Dishonored – by Sebastian Haley

Final Fantasy XIV brings new gameplay and western sensibilities to venerable franchise – by Rob LeFebvre

Windows 8 works hard to meet the needs of all gamers – by Rob LeFebvre

A trio of Mario games strengthen Nintendo’s 3DS lineup – by Mike Minotti

OnLive’s MultiView spectating entices multiplayer and co-op gamers – by Omri Petitte

Player choice matters in The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – by Stefanie Fogel

The Last of Us is even smarter than you think – by Rus McLaughlin

Star Wars 1313 is a game of firsts for the sci-fi franchise – by Eduardo Moutinho

The adventure-game renaissance continues with The Cave – by Eduardo Moutinho

Heroes and villains join forces in Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion – by Mike Minotti

007 Legends proves personality makes or breaks a game – by Omri Petitte

Breaking down what’s exactly new in God of War: Ascension – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Turning technology against your friends in Watch Dogs – by Omri Petitte

Interviews

Chasing after the wayward developer or evasive executive amid a sea of journalists and industry luminaries didn’t slake our interview appetite, and we nabbed a slew of thoughtful talks with members across various gaming companies. Take a look.

Why Ubisoft is pouring a lot of resources into Wii U games – by Dean Takahashi

Harvest Moon creator wants to spread happiness with his new game – by Jacob Lopez

How Shenmue’s lead programmer rescued a bad game – by Jacob Lopez

The Last Story developer talks Operation Rainfall, reason for cover system, and Wii U – by Jacob Lopez

With 1.3B tanks obliterated and 30M players, Wargaming.net plans to conquer the online gaming world – by Dean Takahashi

Even Scribblenauts’ creator is surprised by the things people make in his new game – by Jacob Lopez

The Witcher developer CD Projekt RED wants to set new standards with Cyberpunk – by Stefanie Fogel

Japan’s Gree moves mobile gaming into the spotlight at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

THQ’s Brian Farrell talks about looking for a bottom and staging a comeback – by Dean Takahashi

Crytek says CryEngine 3 already does awesome graphics as good as Unreal Engine 4 – by Dean Takahashi

Our opinions

During the craze-filled days of E3, our minds typically busied themselves with ensuring our legs avoided snapping off our torsos and running away with yelping noises. But sometimes, a cohesive thought miraculously coalesced within our overloaded brainpans. Our hands shakily reached for the keyboard, keys started tapping, and well…these are the results.

The DeanBeat: What to expect at E3 – by Dean Takahashi

4 ways developers will use SmartGlass to enhance Xbox 360 experiences – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Nintendo’s Wii U: Safe on first, weak on third-party – by Rus McLaughlin

Why Nintendo will have a tough time adding a second GamePad tablet controller to the Wii U – by Dean Takahashi

Tomb Raider is not torture porn – by Rus McLaughlin

Would it be a mistake for E3 to move out of LA? – by Dean Takahashi

Bored, impressed, and giddy: Our final thoughts on E3 2012 – by Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Move over, consoles – mobile is the future – by Rob LeFebvre

Microsoft’s E3 2012: Analysis of 16,000+ comments shows Halo 4, South Park impressed, rest did not – by Andrew Hiscock

Sony’s E3 2012: Analysis shows “shotgun blast” won big, Wonderbook lost – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo’s E3 2012: Reactions show hardcore gamers lost faith in Wii U – by Andrew Hiscock

Memes

All it takes is one memorable quote, one Freudian slip, or some facepalm-worthy banter to prompt the Internet community’s creative and unrestrained hand at animated gifs, a worshipful use of Impact font, and hastily jangled Photoshop edits. Here’s what we’ve found.

The best memes of E3 – by Jeff Grubb

Remember these crazy memes from past E3s? – by Jeff Grubb

The wildest memes from the Microsoft E3 press conference – by Jeff Grubb

Silly memes inspired by Sony’s E3 press event – by Jeff Grubb

Aisha Tyler: Ubisoft’s meme machine – by Rus McLaughlin

The oddest Nintendo E3 gifs and Photoshops from the Internet – by Jeff Grubb

Galleries

We snapped plenty of pictures while attending parties, pressers, and meandering the showfloor. Direct your eyeballs upon these galleries, and enjoy the view!

The big gallery of E3′s huge banners – by Mike Minotti

E3 2012 will get your hands up – by Evan Killham

Our editor-in-chief’s E3 adventure – by Evan Killham

The many costumes of E3 2012 – by Jacob Lopez

Retro games have a place at E3, too – by Jasmine Rea

Videos

Dubstep. A beleaguered Lara Croft. Ham-handed hosts. No, this isn’t the latest entry in Alex Trebek’s dream diary — it’s some of our E3 video and trailer content below. Enjoy!

Tomb Raider trailer shows how Lara Croft feels sorry for shooting you – by Dean Takahashi

Konami pre-E3 2012 event: More Castlevania and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – by Jasmine Rea

Ubisoft shows strong commitment to the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

6 awkward moments from the E3 press briefings – by Evan Killham

Why we wub wub wub E3 2012: The dubstep of E3 – by Jacob Lopez

Press conferences

Surprises and snooze-fests alike emanated from E3′s five major press briefings held by Microsoft, Electronic Arts (EA), Ubisoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Check out all the announcements and debuts here.

Microsoft (video)

Halo 4 trailer video shows Forerunners, new tech – by Rob LeFebvre

New Splinter Cell: Blacklist borrows from Uncharted – by Jeff Grubb

Gears of War: Judgment sets Sera on fire (again) – by Rus McLaughlin

Microsoft previews Xbox Music at E3 press conference – by Rob LeFebvre

Forza Horizon brings street racing to the franchise – by Jasmine Rea

Microsoft introduces Xbox SmartGlass to integrate smartphones and tablets with Xbox 360 – by Dean Takahashi

Nike+ Kinect Training brings in-depth fitness measuring to Xbox 360 – by Jeff Grubb

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer coming to Xbox 360 this fall – by Jacob Lopez

Usher hits the stage to announce Dance Central 3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Xbox Live is getting Nickelodeon, Machinima, and tons of live sports – by Tom Cheredar

Kinect voice commands hit EA Sports flagship titles – by Eduardo Moutinho

South Park creators introduce their game and playfully mock Microsoft – by Jeff Grubb

New Xbox 360 games coming from Signal Studios, Twisted Pixel, and…Gore Verbinski? – by Stefanie Fogel

Microsoft E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Electronic Arts (video)

SimCity Social: If this free-to-play game is too good, will you pay $60 for the full PC version? – by Dean Takahashi

EA reveals Battlefield 3 Premium and fields “15 million players worldwide” – by Omri Petitte

Star Wars: The Old Republic gets new planet, new species, and free trial – by Jacob Lopez

EA nabs UFC from THQ – by Jeff Grubb

Medal of Honor: Warfighter’s beautiful carnage – by Rus McLaughlin

EA shows off Need for Speed: Most Wanted at E3 – by Rob LeFebvre

Ubisoft (video)

Rayman Legends rhythmically runs to the Wii U – by Eduardo Moutinho

You are the network in Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs – by Rus McLaughlin

Here’s where that Watch Dogs cube-head QR code goes – by Jeff Grubb

Sony (video)

Experimental developer Quantic Dream reveals the haunted life of Jody Holmes in Beyond – by Jasmine Rea

Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy Bouncer join PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale – by Mike Minotti

J.K. Rowling is writing PlayStation’s Wonderbook – by Rus McLaughlin

Sony announces Assassin’s Creed III Vita and PS3 bundles with exclusive content – by Jeff Grubb

Sony brings down the house with The Last of Us demo – by Dean Takahashi

Sony E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

Nintendo (video)

Social networking comes to Wii U, Miiverse will interface with PCs and phones – by Jasmine Rea

First look at action-strategy game Pikmin 3 – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo confirms 23 games at E3, video streaming, and more for Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Wii Fit U will make you sweatier, livelier, and happier – by Rob LeFebvre

Brag to the Miiverse and take on new modes in New Super Mario Bros. U – by Eduardo Moutinho

Zombify your face with ZombiU for the Wii U – by Mike Minotti

Nintendo bets big on “asymmetric” tablet-based gameplay – one player against several – by Dean Takahashi

Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition utilizes Wii U’s GamePad screen – by Omri Petitte

Nintendo details 3DS Mario titles, Luigi’s Mansion, and third-party games – by Jeff Grubb

Nintendo Land brings asymmetrical multiplayer to Wii U – by Jasmine Rea

Nintendo’s E3 2012 press conference recap…in limerick form – by Andrew Hiscock

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Right after the GamesBeat staff got back from the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) last week, we started wondering if we were all at the same event. Despite a combined 38 years of experience attending the annual game-industry trade show, lead writer Dean Takahashi, culture editor Sebastian Haley, and I (GamesBeat’s editor-in-chief) came away from the 2012 edition with drastically differing opinions on what we saw.

Here’s what we thought of this year’s E3:

Sebastian Haley, culture editor:

I might be alone on this, but E3 was a disheartening experience for me this year. Sure, I’ll buy and love Borderlands 2, Dishonored, and a ton of other games that were shown off, but everything was just so iterative — from the countless sea of sequels and spin-offs, to even the press conferences that seemed to focus less and less on what gamers like myself actually want.

After years of being the punchline of the Internet, why is it so hard to make a good E3 press conference? Microsoft gave carte blanche to Nike and ESPN to talk as long as they wanted, but when it came time to show off the only three original intellectual properties (IPs) in the entire lineup, if you blinked you would have missed it. And even if you didn’t blink, you’d still have no idea what the games were even about. Then Usher and Joe Montana come out for awkward performances, and that’s supposed to make things better?

The industry more or less seems to be on autopilot, and I can only hope it’s saving up all its energy for a massive 2013. But again, maybe that’s just me.

Dishonored

Dean Takahashi, lead news writer:

The game industry didn’t have such a bad showing at E3. The traditional game publishers showed off new original games such as Beyond: Two Souls, The Last of Us, The Unfinished Swan, Dishonored, Warface, Hawken, World of Warplanes, and Watch Dogs. New technologies such as Unreal Engine 4, facial animation, SmartGlass, the Wii U, and Sony’s Wonderbook were cool. The staple franchises such as Assassin’s Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Tomb Raider, SimCity, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, and Crysis 3 will keep gamers delighted and busy in the next year.

But like Sebastian, I also have high expectations of game makers in the core console market. And I’m not sure they have done enough to shield themselves from the disruption that is hitting their industry. This E3 was an in-between year. Next-generation consoles are in the works, but only Nintendo showed off its cards, and they weren’t very disruptive this time around.

From the outside, the game industry is under pressure. Apple is one of the driving forces of the real disruption, but it isn’t alone. Samsung announced at the show that it will create its own cloud gaming service in partnership with Gaikai and Nvidia. It will in effect become a fourth major platform for game makers, launching a cloud-based game service that could threaten the core console business. Apple and Samsung could bring cheap, high-quality games into the living room that could compete quite nicely against $60 games that come with the number “3″ or “4″ after their names.

This is a very real threat. At E3, I didn’t see a masterstroke to deal with it. There was innovation, but not enough of it to make a difference.

The Last of Us

Dan “Shoe” Hsu, editor-in-chief:

Last year’s E3 only gave me one stick-with-me moment: the BioShock Infinite demo. It left me near breathless, and even though I don’t smoke, I felt like I needed a cigarette after watching it.

Nothing this year quite matched that, but three games came awfully close, all from my personal top 3 games of E3: Watch Dogs, The Last of Us, and Dishonored. I saw The Last of Us on the last day of the show, and it just put the biggest smile on my face. Right when that amazing, frightening, tension-filled demo finished, it cemented this E3 as one of the best in recent years for me. So I’m quite surprised at Sebastian’s reaction — this show was amazing! When was the last time so many new IPs surprised and wowed us like this? We’re always complaining about the sequel parades (and rightfully so), but it’s up to us to look past the flashy hype of the Call of Duties of the world to champion original games like the ones I just mentioned.

Nintendo Land and ZombiU on the Wii U were both pleasant surprises as well (though the latter proved to me that first-pers0n-shooter controls will take a lot of hand-eye-coordination reconditioning due to the controller’s new layout — a reconditioning I’m not sure I want to commit to). Even the known quantities got me excited again: I honestly thought I was over Halo and Gears of War, but both Halo 4 and the overrun mode in Gears of War: Judgment were a lot of fun to play in multiplayer.

I went into my 16th E3 jaded and thinking I’ve seen and experienced it all. I left a surprised, giddy gamer.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The team of heroes that make up the GamesBeat squad have disassembled after conquering another Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. If you’re looking for full coverage, head to our E3 hub. For now, we’ve returned to our families who have asked us for our thoughts about the show.

Here is the list of GamesBeat’s ten favorite family games of E3 2012:

Nintendo Land
Wii U – Nintendo
Holiday 2012

When the Wii launched in North America, Nintendo included Wii Sports with the system and marched in a golden era of family gaming. The big publisher is hoping that Nintendo Land will have a similar effect. The minigame collection will feature Zelda and Animal Crossing themed events that showcase the functionality of the Wii U GamePad.

In Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, for example, four players control ghost hunters while the person holding the GamePad controls a specter. The hunters try to weaken the ghost with their flashlights, while the ghost tries to weaken the players by sneaking up behind them. The rest of Nintendo Land follows this same pattern of asynchronous multiplayer where the player with the GamePad takes on an entirely different role in relation to the others with standard Wii remotes.

Game & Wario
Wii U – Nintendo
Holiday 2012

Not content with a single minigame collection, Nintendo is also working on Game & Wario. The yellow Mario villain is bringing his warped sense of style to the Wii U with a horde of small games that take advantage of the GamePad. Events like “Arrow” will have players firing a bow from the touchscreen at enemies on the television.  In “Shutter,” gamers will use the GamePad to take pictures of on-screen criminals before a timer runs out.

If you like your minigames with a bit more quirk, then your family may prefer this over Nintendo Land.

Dance Central 3
Xbox 360 – Harmonix
Quarter 3 2012

Everybody dances. Sure, maybe your dad shouldn’t (Pops, we don’t want to see you do the alligator again!), but everybody loves getting down. Which explains why so many people love controlling their music games by busting a move. Dance Central, the Xbox 360 Kinect’s marquee game, returns for a third attempt. This time, developer Harmonix is including a story mode which will have dancers traveling in a time machine to fix historical dance steps. Does that sound crazy? Well, free your mind and your butt will follow!

Just Dance 4
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/Wii – Ubisoft
October 9, 2012

Want to shake your money-maker but don’t own a Kinect? Well, Just Dance 4 is available on Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The sound track will feature over 40 hits. Confirmed songs include Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass,” The B-52′s “Rock Lobster,” and Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West.”

New Super Mario Bros. U
Wii U – Nintendo
Holiday 2012

A new Nintendo system used to guarantee a new Mario game. While that is no longer a certainty, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Wii U is launching with a followup to one of the Wii’s best-selling games. Four players control Mario, Luigi, two toads, or their own Mii with the Wiimotes while a fifth player aids by creating blocks and stunning enemies using the GamePad’s touchscreen. Although, reports from our team on the E3 floor suggest that they had more fun when they were using the GamePad powers to impede and annoy the other players.

Rayman Legends
Wii U – Nintendo
Holiday 2012

Many fans and critics consider Rayman Origins to be one of the best games of 2011. This Wii U sequel will bring a lot of the same platforming elements into an equally colorful world. Legends ups the family friendliness by including a fifth playable character controlled with the Wii U GamePad’s touchscreen. While up to four other players can run and jump around the side-scrolling environments, the GamePad player can tap on the screen to activate objects and mop up collectibles.

Scribblenauts Unlimited
Wii U – 5th Cell
Holiday 2012

The main character from the previous Scribblenauts has a new world to explore. This time, instead of a bunch of self-contained levels, the magic-notebook wielding Maxwell will have a much more open world to explore. For the unaware, Scribblenauts allows players to summon a seemingly endless variety of creatures and objects simply by typing in the word. Unlimited allows players to combine multiple objects into one hybrid. Just be careful. I’m pretty sure that combinations such as “winged bears” and “walking snakes” are harbingers of the apocalypse.

LEGO City: Undercover
Wii U/3DS – TT Games
Holiday 2012

Lego has locked itself together with TT Games and publisher Nintendo to make a Grand Theft Auto clone based on the building-block company’s most popular play set, the city police station. Players will take the role of undercover cop Chase McCain who will be busting criminals all across Lego City. McCain can swap out his own parts to become other characters and gain new powers.

Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
Wii/Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 – Junction Point Studios
November 18, 2012

Disney’s world-famous Mickey Mouse returns for a second adventure on the Wii. This time, the classic character is expanding his digital presence to Microsoft and Sony’s consoles. The first game suffered from a poor camera and a complete lack of voice acting. Lead developer Warren Spector claims that they’ve fixed the camera and that the game will be fully voiced.

Since the end of the events in the first game, Mickey has teamed up with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit (who was a villain in the first game) to help save Wasteland, which is Oswald’s home. If Spector’s tam at Junction Point has truly fixed the camera, then this could be one of the best family games of the year.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion
3DS – Dreamrift
November 18, 2012

Disney will release a portable adventure starring the round-eared rodent for the 3DS on the same day as the console counterpart. The title will be a tribute to the Sega Gensis game Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion, which many fans believe is the mascot’s greatest video game. Power of Illusion will be a side-scrolling platformer that takes place after the events of the first Epic Mickey. The “illusions” of other Disney character will make an appearance including Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Beast from Beauty and the Beast.

Please vote for your favorite in our poll and explain your view in the comments.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Scott Moffitt is the executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo. He’s got a tough job because video game marketing is changing. Nintendo is trying to sell its 3DS gaming handheld in the face of huge competition from Apple. And he had to create desire in the mass market to purchase the upcoming Wii U video game console. We caught up with him at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video game trade show yesterday. Here’s an edited transcript.

GamesBeat: How was it going up on stage today?

Scott Moffitt: It was great, yeah, fun to be there. Fun to kind of actually get to talk at E3. Last year was my first E3, and I was more of an observer. My responsibility was both sales and marketing, so I met with a lot of retailers last year. I took the opportunity to meet with all of our retail partners. It was fun this year to get to meet more of the media and people like yourself.

GamesBeat: I got to watch someone play ZombiU, and I played the Wii Fit U Super Mario Bros. The booths are all pretty crowded, so a lot of them I just had to look. And after the keynote we saw Nintendo Land.

Moffitt: Okay, yeah. Did you get to see all five attractions?

GamesBeat: Yeah, two or three of them. There’s 23 games — I guess you’re not counting the 12 Nintendo Land mini games, right?

Moffitt: Well, we should be clear, yeah, that is one game. It’s multiple experiences within one game. Our belief is that Nintendo Land is the game that will help consumers understand not only the new integrated second screen controller, which we call the game pad, but also this asymmetric gameplay that it enables. We think this asymmetric gameplay is the revolution now. And we think that game is one of the ones that really best exemplifies how asymmetric gameplay can happen and what it does for gaming.

GamesBeat: I guess the second controller was somewhat of a surprise, sort of like confirmation of rumors that were out there. What was the thinking for doing that? Maybe re-assessing and then deciding, yeah, we’d better do this after all?

Moffitt: I would say it’s not so much that. I would say that, to be clear, we are showing games at the show here that really only require one game pad. But it’s possible to imagine that games could be enriched by having two game pads. And some consumers might desire games where both players could have the same information on their screens or could have the same experience on their screens.

GamesBeat: I think of Madden and…

Moffitt: Yeah, that’s a perfect example. There are others that are easy to imagine. So it’s coming to that realization, that yeah, there could be some great experiences that could be brought to life with two controllers. We announced that it could possibly work, even though we don’t have the experiences here to show it. Our preference, honestly, would be to release that kind of information when you have the games to prove it. We try to offer proof points when we offer new technology. But we went ahead and confirmed it today and announced it.

GamesBeat: I guess some people wondered if you would have to sort of ratchet down the performance level of the main game in order to accommodate one more tablet, because it seems like there’s one processor and graphics system that is supporting not only the main display, but the tablet display. It seems like supporting three displays wouldn’t be that easy, so maybe there’s a tradeoff in performance.

Moffitt: I don’t know about that, because we don’t have the games here to show it. It would certainly depend on the game, and probably what was being displayed.

GamesBeat: If that reasoning turns out to be plausible, if you do want to go to two, then you might have to think of a game that is not going to stress the system out.

Moffitt: I would say I don’t know. We don’t have the games. So we’re just speculating on hypotheticals that I don’t know the answer to.

GamesBeat: How far back, then, does the idea of the asymmetric gameplay go? Is that a central idea that started the thinking towards the console?

Moffitt: The thinking for Wii U began a couple of years ago with one simple question: How can we bring something new and interesting to gaming? That led to motion control in the Wii. Technology progressed and flat screens and second touch pad controls happened on the DS. That could have been one inspiration. But I think it goes back to, what can we bring to gaming that will change the paradigm and create interesting new gameplay mechanics? It really starts with that simple question. There probably were a number of types of technologies considered. This one looked like it would have great promise. And so this is the idea that was brought forward. I would say that with Wii U, it incorporates, certainly, motion control gaming, and we want all of your readers to understand that they can still play all their Wii games on Wii U — it’s backward compatible — as well as many of the accessories they’ve purchased over the years for Wii. Their Wii Balance Boards, their Nunchuks, their Wii Remote controllers, all those accessories are useful on Wii U. That enables asymmetric gameplay. You can use all those accessories, and then a different player can use the new controller to have a different experience. Certainly Animal Crossing, if you’ve played Animal Crossing Sweet Day, if you’ve tried Zelda Battle Quest or Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, all of them show how fun it can be when one person in the family, or one gamer, has the game pad and the other people have their standard motion control accessories.

GamesBeat: I think that the media reaction last year was sort of puzzled. I don’t know if it was as bad as the reaction to the original Wii, but I think everybody sort of was blindsided by the popularity of the Wii. Nintendo had faith, I guess, that this was the right way to go. Are you feeling some of the same thing this time around, too? The skeptics say, “I don’t understand this thing. What’s it going to do for games?” Did you guys have something to show or prove, to convince them that they’re wrong again? 

Moffitt: I’d say that the reaction I’ve heard, talking to some people, has been really positive. So I think the industry is ready for innovation in gaming. I think they’re excited that we’re bringing true innovation and not just playing the graphics and memory arms race. I do believe that the reaction I’ve heard from retailers, from consumers, as well as from analysts, is that there’s great appreciation for the innovation we’re bringing. I think the idea of Wii U changing and transforming three pillars of home entertainment is pretty exciting. We’ve talked a lot today about how it can change gaming. You saw the unveil of the 20-plus games that will be available at launch and how many of them can be richer, deeper experiences using a game pad. The second pillar is, of course, social, and how it’s going to transform how consumers and players connect with one another, with the Miiverse. And then the third pillar, which we really only touched the tip of the iceberg of today, is how it will transform and enhance entertainment. So we revealed the partnerships with Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube. There’s more to come there. We wanted to focus this presentation on gaming, because that’s what this audience really cares about, and that’s what your readers care about. But down the road, very soon, we will unveil more of the vision in the third pillar, which is entertainment.

GamesBeat: The Miiverse seemed like it was organized around the interest graph. Facebook is always organized around the friend graph, so this seems like a different kind of social network. I guess it’s starting to get proven out in the market. Pinterest or whatever, some things are really catching on because of the interest graph.

Moffitt: Yeah, I think it really has. It’s one of the more unique aspects of Wii U; it’s built right into the system. When you turn on your Wii U, you’re going to see the Mii Plaza, and you’re going to see these icons of games and entertainment that your Miis are congregating around. Your Mii will be there and all of your friends’ Miis and your family’s Miis and people in your region as well as people around the world that have similar interests. They’ll be congregating around those icons, and that congregation is an indication of interest. So if there’s popularity around an icon that you haven’t yet experienced, you can go there and discover what all those people are talking about and what they’re enjoying that you may want to go enjoy as well. They can also interact and communicate with one another using a suite of social media tools. You can post your gameplay screens; for example, you can post some of your game accomplishments. You can post a question. You can get help for a part of a game you might be stuck in. The way I think about it is, it’s a network that’s organized all around gaming and entertainment, rather than Facebook, which might be organized around other things, and gaming is a small part of it. To build on that, we also revealed that it’s a browser-based network. So even though initially, at launch, it will work just on the device itself, in the future you’ll be able to access the Miiverse from your smartphone, from your tablet, from your PC at work; you can access the Miiverse and interact and check on the activities that are going on in the Miiverse from afar.

GamesBeat: That sounds like an example of openness. Historically, Nintendo has been more closed, and others have sort of pushed the door on openness, right? Is there some recognition there that openness is something that works as well?

Moffitt: I think there’s recognition that consumers do use multiple devices in their lives. So there’s recognition that people may want to check in on their gaming network from afar, and there are some other devices that can help them do that. We do see PCs and the Internet as helpful connective tools that make the Miiverse possible.

GamesBeat: Everybody’s got an interpretation of tablets this year. Is there a reaction you have to hearing about SmartGlass and the Sony cross-platform play with Vita as well? They’re all kind of tablet-ish, and you guys are into it as well.

Moffitt: Yeah. At least the SmartGlass example is conceptual in form, and so it’s hard to react to something that’s just a concept that I haven’t really seen proof points for. What I can tell you is that the Wii U game pad has been in development and is here and real and touchable and demonstratable by you and all of us. It’ll be available for purchase very soon.

GamesBeat: So it’s not quite demonstratable yet?

Moffitt: You can see plenty of examples of that here, where it obviously works and works seamlessly. What makes it different in my mind is that this is connected right out of the gate, right out of the box. You take it home, you turn it on, you power it up, and automatically you’re connected with the Internet, with your game pad, with your gaming system, and your TV. It’s seamlessly designed from the ground up to work together. And we have games that are already designed to take advantage of that second screen controller. So the proof point is there, and it’s fully integrated from the ground up, from design step one, rather than trying to integrate an apparatus or a device that wasn’t necessarily designed to go with your gaming console.

GamesBeat: Nintendo, say, wasn’t first on HD, wasn’t first on this Internet-connected stuff. It seems like part of the strategy is to wait for some of these things to become real and spread across the mainstream, and then to come up with something simple to serve these different sorts of developments. Is there a benefit to being slower to market, but maybe possibly more thoughtful about some of that?

Moffitt: I would say that what Nintendo tries to do is bring innovation to gaming that can enhance the gaming experience. If there’s technology innovation happening out there that may not enhance gameplay or may not make games more fun, more enjoyable, more exciting, or if the technology’s not necessary to make a game more interesting, more enjoyable, more exciting, then we may not be the first to jump on that technology. We believe that true innovation enhances gameplay, and our thought process starts there. Can there be an advantage to incorporating that technology at the right time? Absolutely. And so I think right now, touch screen technology really enables Wii U. And we’re thankful we’ve been able to find a great way to incorporate that into gaming and to make gaming mature and more interesting and more in-depth. If you saw the Batman: Arkham City game today, you can see how much more interesting that makes the Batman game. So yes, it’s a game that was out last year, but we think now the Wii U version becomes, automatically, the most preferred way to play that game. It’s more interesting, more in-depth; you can do things that you can’t do with a controller that doesn’t have a touch screen embedded.

GamesBeat: But context for the competition and the introduction of these new products is always changing, too. The 3DS was very good technology, but it seems like its market impact was blunted by the fact that Apple had done so well with smartphones and tablets. How do you guys look at that and introduce products into a market that is no longer what it once was? It’s no longer just a console market, right? Gaming has spread out to these other areas, too. So whenever you introduce a new product now, it’s not just other consoles you’re competing with.

Moffitt: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. The market continues to evolve. Speaking about 3DS and portable gaming, we’re pleased with our results on 3DS. The 3DS continues to track, to sell at a faster rate than the DS did when it was launched in 2004. We are now getting the content, and you saw a lot more content today. Going forward, we will have an incredibly rich lineup of games coming for this holiday season on 3DS, starting of course with New Super Mario Bros. 2, Paper Mario, and Luigi’s Mansion from our own first party. You saw a tremendous lineup of third-party games there in the reel. So great content coming for 3DS. I think it can help us continue the momentum. Of course, we are competing in a market that has changed from when DS was launched in 2004. It is a more complex market. But we’re finding, for those that really appreciate and desire a deep, immersive gaming experience that they can’t get from a fairly simple iPhone game, they’re still coming to our platforms and still understanding the value and appreciating the value of a dedicated gaming system. So as long as we continue to bring fantastic content in our first-party franchises, and that’s the only place you can play them, I think the fans will still be there.

GamesBeat: How is the Wii U developer support? I was surprised at how interesting and innovative the Rayman game was for Wii U.

Moffitt: That’s going to be a great game.

GamesBeat: Making a musical soundtrack from your button presses… [laughs] That’s pretty cool. Ubisoft is really all the way in on the Wii U. They’ve got eight games coming. So what are some of the other reactions you have from developers?

Moffitt: Wii U is going to launch with an amazing lineup of content. Both first- and third-party. Certainly you saw on the stage today, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. You saw Darksiders from THQ; you saw Mass Effect 3 from EA. The biggest franchises in gaming are all being re-imagined and reconstituted to take advantage of the Miiverse as well as the Wii U game pad. Current games as well as games that can stand…that can take advantage of the new technology that’s embedded in Wii U, like Batman and Assassin’s Creed. When you see Assassin’s Creed III, I think you’re going to see some things that allow you to play it in a different way and maybe a better way on Wii U than you might on the other consoles. We expect great third-party support, and the lineup that you saw today is a good start. But certainly Ubisoft, Warner Bros., THQ, Disney, Namco, among others, are bringing great content and bringing some of their best franchises to Wii U.

GamesBeat: Any last summary comments?

Moffitt: I’ll just say we’re excited about the transformative power of Wii U and how it can change gameplay. We think the idea of asymmetric gameplay and the Miiverse are new, unique ideas that, again, are going to change the way consumers interact with games, with each other, and with entertainment.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We know how you feel. E3 is in full swing, and you can’t hear yourself think over the non-stop din of news breaking. Who’s going to clean up all of that news, anyway? What if someone cuts himself on a news shard and sues? Don’t worry; it’s taken care of. We’re posting all of GamesBeat’s coverage for each day of E3 in convenient (and lengthy) roundups, and you can keep track of them all by searching for “E3 roundup” in that search bar up there.

Today, Nintendo held the last of E3′s five major press conferences. We got a lot more information about the Wii U hardware and its software lineup, and then the GamesBeat crew descended upon the show floor to get some hands-on time with the biggest games of the show. We also threw in some silly memes, just for fun.

6 awkward moments from the E3 press conferences (videos)

Why Nintendo will have a tough time adding a second gamepad tablet controller to the Wii U

E3 2012: The 5 different games you’ll be playing in Dishonored (preview)

The oddest Nintendo E3 gifs and Photoshops from the Internet

E3 2012: Nintendo’s Wii U: Safe on first, weak on third-party

Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition coming to Steam and with additional content

Capcom shows three playable characters for Resident Evil 6 (hands-on preview)

Ni No Kuni gets an official launch date and new enemy reveal

Capcom remakes hack-slash-shoot-grapple formula with upcoming DmC: Devil May Cry (hands-on preview)

Dragon Ball Z Kinect lets you fight like Saiyan in the privacy of your living room

Tekken Tag 2 wants you to be a better fighting game player

The Wii U game from the Bayonetta developer that Nintendo didn’t show during its E3 event

Aisha Tyler: Ubisoft’s meme machine

Nintendo Land brings asymmetrical multiplayer to Wii U

Nintendo details 3DS Mario titles, Luigi’s Mansion, and third-party games

Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition utilizes Wii U’s GamePad screen

Nintendo bets big on “asymmetric” tablet-based gameplay — one player against several

Zombify your face with ZombiU for the Wii U

Brag to the Miiverse and take on new modes in New Super Mario Bros. U

Wii Fit U will make you sweatier, livelier, and happier

Nintendo confirms 23 games at E3, video streaming, and more for Wii U

First look at action-strategy game Pikmin 3 (gallery)

Social networking comes to Wii U, Miiverse will interface with PCs and phones

From the creator of Portal, Quantum Conundrum caters to physics-based puzzle gamers (hands-on preview)

Sleeping Dogs turns Hong Kong crime movies into a video game (hands-on preview)

Nyko’s Free Fighter arcade fight stick is southpaw-friendly (gallery)

4 ways developers will use SmartGlass to enhance Xbox 360 experiences

Silly memes inspired by Sony’s E3 press event

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo revealed Nintendo Land during its Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) press conference. Twelve iconic Nintendo properties are transformed into theme park attractions and players can compete against each other using their Miis.

Nintendo Land is a multiplayer-focused project designed to take advantage of the Wii U game pad and a new gameplay mechanic called asymmetrical gameplay. The Wii U supports five players at a time, with four playing on the television screen and the fifth using the tablet-like controller. Asymmetrical gameplay pits the game pad user against everyone else.

Players using the Wii U game pad take on a special role. They’re playing the same game, but see a different perspective of the world. During the presentation, Nintendo showed how Luigi’s Ghost Mansion (one of the 12 attractions in Nintendo Land) works to explain asymmetrical gameplay:

Four players using standard controllers are exploring a haunted mansion, equipped with flashlights. The fifth player, using the game pad, controls the ghost. Unlike the other characters, the ghost player can view the entire map. The goal for each player is to use the flashlight to fight the ghost without getting knocked out.

Flashlights not only harm the ghost but help revive fallen players.

This builds off of the Chase Mii demo Nintendo showed at E3 last year where four players chased Mario through a maze. In that demo, the Mario player could see the entire course and get on-screen notifications on the game pad whenever another character was getting too close.

Nintendo Land will have 12 different attractions, some of which will be single player.

Multiplayer attractions:

• Animal Crossing Sweet Day
• Legend of Zelda Battle Quest
• Luigi’s Ghost Mansion: Haunting Hijinks

Single-player attractions:

• Donkey Kong Crash Course
• Takamura’s Ninja Castle

Nintendo Land will launch alongside the Wii U this holiday season. Nintendo did not confirm if it was a pack-in title like Wii Sports, but that seems likely.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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