Grab your giant donut or ice cream truck and get ready to stand up and throw it for your country. Vikings are attacking, see, and it’s up to the citizens of 1970s Britain to fight back. With the assistance of The Department of Vikings, you must guide your little vigilante circle around increasingly wacky environments like The Farm, The Pipe Factory, The Museum, Up On The Roof, and, ultimately, Viking Island itself.

In a world full of cinematic gaming opportunities, it’s a delight to play something that is just a lot of fun. When Vikings Attack, by Clever Beans software, is a joyful playspace dedicated to funny sounds, goofy gameplay, and furious multiplayer battling. In short, it’s the wonderful chaser to all those huge, costly triple-A titles you have on your PlayStation 3 already. It’s also available via the PlayStation Network in an on-the-go version for the PlayStation Vita.

What you’ll like

The controls are responsive
When Vikings Attack plays like a brawler, only instead of beating the enemies up, you’re tossing improbably large objects at them. Your health is cleverly represented as the number of little folks in your colored circle. The vikings toss objects and bombs back at you as well, culling your mob of cutesy little village and city folk. Moving your little group of vigilantes about the screen feels good. They dash, turn, and throw stuff easily and quickly whenever you hit the right button.  The learning curve is brief, and the levels designed to allow you to build your muscle memory for each type of control.

The art style and audio sparkle

The whole 1970s Britain theme is adorable, as are the chubby little vigilante characters and horn-wearing vikings. You collect new characters as you move through the themed environments, which have their own specific objects for throwing: shopping carts for the grocery store, planets and spaceships for the museum, and giant donuts at the fair. It’s whimsical and wacky.

The sounds of the little characters picking up different objects is laugh-out-loud funny, with vocalized grunts and “heyUP” sounds everywhere. When you make a particularly good shot, text like “Textbook!” “Good Show,” and “Cracking Good Shot” pop on the screen. My 10-year old son picked these up, repeating them aloud as we played through the entire game together.

It’s surprisingly strategic
At first, beating a level is a matter of tossing as many objects as possible, as fast as possible, at the advancing viking hordes. As it moves forward through its 15 levels, however, the surroundings become as much an opponent as the vikings themselves. The Sorting Office has what feels like miles of moving conveyor belts and buttons that you activate with well-timed shots to start, stop, or reverse direction of the moving walkways. A couple of levels, notably the Pipe Factory and Viking Island, have two players synchronize tactics to direct ordinance toward their foes.

The  three different types of bombs create a deeper gameplay strategy. One type explodes on impact, another bounces off walls and into enemies, while a third type convinces vikings to become vigilantes — or vice versa. Some characters give your mob extra skills, like moving faster, lifting heavier objects than your group size can handle, or throwing things a bit faster. Using these bombs and buffs adds another layer of strategy to single and multiplayer games.

These are instructional films worth watching
Tremendous amount of silly, dry, British humor is on display in When Vikings Attack. The instructional films, each introducing a new element of gameplay or explaining new types of items or environments,  feel like old Cold War public service announcements from the 1970s in Britain, though “The Department of Vikings” made these. They’re fun to watch even after you’ve gleaned the info you need.

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If you missed the original Killzone back in 2004 and have spent the last eight years praying for a chance to play it in glorious high-definition, your wait will be over soon. Today on the Official PlayStation Blog, Sony announced their next multi-game PlayStation 3 collection: The Killzone Trilogy.

Maintaining a pattern established by releasing HD remakes of all of their other popular franchises that began on the PlayStation 2, the Killzone Trilogy will feature an updated version of the original game with 720p graphics and Trophy support, as well as Killzones 2 and 3 and all the multiplayer map packs that Sony released for the two games. Plus, if you already have the sequels (or refuse to own them for some reason), the first game will be available as a separate download on the PlayStation Network.

The collection’s box art (which you can see below) proudly touts PlayStation Move and 3D TV compatibility, but it isn’t clear if that refers to all three games or only Killzone 3 (which already supported Move and 3D). We’ve reached out to Sony for clarification but have not yet received a response.

I’ve also asked Sony whether or not the Killzone Trilogy will allow Remote Play on PS Vita (like the God of War and Shadow Of The Colossus/Ico collections) and will update this story when we have an answer.

What we do know is that the Killzone Trilogy Collection will be available for the PlayStation 3 on October 23 for $39.99. For more information, check out the Official PlayStation Blog’s announcement, which also contains a trailer showcasing the franchise’s history of rousing space Nazi rallies.

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Don’t be fooled by any poorly written notes you might find that say otherwise: Zombies are definitely invading a pair of popular digital pinball games next week, and they almost certainly are trying to eat your brains. Luckily, you can fend them off in the new Plants vs. Zombies-themed DLC table for Zen Pinball 2 (playable on both PlayStation 3 and PS Vita) and Pinball FX2 for Xbox 360.

Based on PopCap’s popular lawn-defense game, the downloadable table will have players using adorable plants and adorable plant-related powers to hold back an ever-approaching horde of the undead (who are also surprisingly adorable). In the original game, you do this by strategically placing your plants in order to create an impenetrable anti-zombie defense. Here, you accomplish it by whacking the zombies with pinballs.

The Plants vs. Zombies table is available as a download next week, with the Playstation Network version (playable on PS3 and Vita) available for $2.99 and the Xbox 360 version for 240 Microsoft points (which actually comes out to $3). You can see the game’s trailer below:

We’ve also received word from someone (who assured us that they were definitely not a zombie) that the table is very easy and the best way to get a high score is to simply let the zombies win … but they could just be a zombie trying to eat our brains.

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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 first Transformers toys came on the market almost 30 years ago, so why has this brand of toy robots captivated kids (and adult kids) for so long?

Because it changes.

Like the robots themselves, the Transformers brand has never turned away from doing something else. After the original toy line and cartoon started to lose popularity, Hasbro introduced new toys in slightly different colors. As people got tired of that, they created a new computer-generated cartoon where the robots turn into animals. Then came more cartoons, more toys, and finally Michael Bay’s series of awful movies. They all feature the same core similarities, but they are all different in some way. While being recognizable as something Transformers-related, they still changed things.

It is fitting, then, that the greatest strength of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is the way that it embraces this desire for change. Almost every level in the campaign focuses on a different character, each character has distinct abilities that require you to constantly alter your playstyle, and each character has their own goals and motivations that drive the plot in several different directions.

Also, each character can literally change into a different thing at the press of a button. But that’s a pretty obvious one.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

The story

Set directly after the events of 2010′s War For Cybertron, the game opens with the Autobots’ fighting off a Decepticon attack on their ship as they approach a space portal of some kind that will, hopefully, transport them to a planet that is more suitable for sustaining life than their own. Just as things for the Autobots are looking hopelessly dire (Decepticon leader Megatron is pointing a giant gun at Autobot leader Optimus Prime), the game flashes back to a few days prior to illustrate how everyone got to that point.

From there, the game splits each of its chapters into a smaller subplot that detail how a different character spend their final days on the planet Cybertron. Optimus needs to destroy a series of Decepticon artillery guns with the help of city-sized robot Metroplex, Cliffjumper investigates what Decepticon scientist Shockwave is working on, and Starscream has to find a way to maintain command of an increasingly frustrated army that would rather kill him than follow him. Each of them views the same conflict from different angles, which — here’s that theme again — changes how you look at the war. It’s rare for a shooter to force you to see things from the point of view of an enemy faction you’ve spent half the game mowing down, but that’s what happens in Fall of Cybertron.

Also, the game embraces one of the most appealing (yet overlooked) aspects of the original cartoon: the careful balance between serious war story and the inherent ridiculousness in alien robots that are also cars. Oddly enough, it’s the Autobot side that seems to skew toward the grim and gritty this time around, with the traditionally cruel and evil Decepticons providing the occasional comic relief.

The gameplay

Fall of Cybertron is, at its heart, Gears of War without the cover mechanics — at least in terms of how the shooting works. It’s nothing special, but it’s perfectly functional. It has a few clever weapons that are fun to use (one that shoots electricity that is excellent for clearing out a room of insect robots), but it’s almost always a better idea to use the more straightforward options (shotguns, sniper rifles, and so on.).

However, what redeems the combat is the same thing that makes this a Transformers game: You can turn into a car/truck/jet/tank whenever you want. No other game out there gives you the mobility options available in Fall of Cybertron. In the middle of a big gunfight and need to run away to find some ammo? Transform. Need to get somewhere fast? Don’t use the Gears of War-esque roadie run. Just transform.

Then there’s the multiplayer mode, where the mobility options you have in the campaign are given to everyone. If that doesn’t seem like a big deal, just look at any other game ever and think about what would happen if you could turn into a jet and fly away at any moment. It has the potential to completely change every enemy encounter, whether you’re playing online or off.

Once again, the strength comes in the form of encouraging you to change at every opportunity.

The fan service 

If you don’t know the difference between Unicron and a unicorn, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. This is just for the nerds.

While the developers at High Moon were evidently very careful to make Fall of Cybertron a game that anyone could enjoy –  regardless of Transformers-related knowledge — they are still fans of the brand, and it shows. The devs included countless Easter eggs and nods to the original cartoon, not to mention several direct quotes lifted from the original animated Transformers movie. Basically, if you’ve ever accused someone of being full of cesium salami, you’ll get plenty of nostalgia-fueled smiles out of this game.

The Transformers’ three-decade history is one of the brand’s greatest assets. The characters that Hasbro created back in the ’80s are so simple and archetypal that it’s no wonder they’ve become iconic. When the same voice actor who portrays Optimus Prime in the cartoon returns for the game, or when Starscream demands to know who is disrupting his coronation ceremony,  it doesn’t feel like pandering. It feels like High Moon is proving how much it understands this franchise. This might not seem like a big deal to someone who isn’t already a Transformers fan, but it goes a long way toward explaining why so many people are.

WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE

It has a few hiccups

While I didn’t encounter anything that broke the game, a few technical glitches stuck out. Near the end of the game, I ran into a lot of situations where the game would prompt me to hit a button, but the text wouldn’t actually appear, or maybe the text would appear, but hitting the correct button would do nothing.

It also has a fair amount of texture pop-in, where a level would begin and my character would look like a muddy pile of clay for a few moments before everything had finished loading properly.

It can get a bit shallow

People prone to using clichés will remind you that “a rolling stone gathers no moss.” Now, let’s replace the stone with “a robot that is also a car” and the moss with “depth” and we’ll see the one big downside to the game’s penchant for constantly changing. Since you’re always doing different things, the game never spends enough time on any one thing to really elaborate on it.

A good example of this is in the level where you play as Grimlock, the space T-Rex. Unlike every other character, Grimlock’s combat is all melee-based, and he cannot transform whenever he wants, only when he has caused enough destruction to fill a special meter. The Grimlock stage is the most radical change in all of Fall of Cybertron, but once you get the hang of hitting guys with a sword or picking them up and throwing them, it starts to feel a little light. It’s still fun, and it would take a long time for the appeal of playing as a giant robot dinosaur to wear off, but after a while you’ll be wondering if that’s really all there is to it.

The problem is most pronounced in that specific level, but it does pop up in a lot of the others. It forces the game to rely on its plot and the hook of how fun it is to transform, but if the game were any longer than it is, this shallowness would bring it down more and more.

CONCLUSION

Aside from some minor technical problems, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is a great game. The reason it is great is not despite its connection to the long-running toy line, but because of it. It’s great because it embraces the same idea that made Transformers popular back in 1984 and has kept them popular ever since: It changes.

The gameplay doesn’t stay in the same place for too long, different characters require different strategies, and the storyline necessitates a willingness on behalf of the player to embrace change along with it. Sure, since the game is constantly on the move in every possible way it means that any one aspect might be a little too shallow, but who cares? In a few minutes you’ll be doing something different…but just as fun.

If Fall of Cybertron has one lesson that it’s trying to convey, it’s the same thing that players will quickly learn upon trying out the multiplayer mode: Keep moving, adapt, and be willing to change. Otherwise, you’ll probably blow up.

Score: 89 /100

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PC on August 24. The publisher provided GamesBeat with an Xbox 360 copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

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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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For the last few years, Activision has delighted gamers with the elaborate and absurd bonuses that it includes in the various Call of Duty collectors’ editions. Modern Warfare 2 came with night-vision goggles, Black Ops came with a remote-controlled spy car, and now shooter fans will be wondering “where the hell am I going to put that thing?” again when they see what’s in the Black Ops II Care Package: a toy attack drone (dubbed the MQ-27 Dragonfire) with a gun on it.

Yes, really.

OK, it’s probably not a real gun, and it’s technically just a remote-controlled helicopter. But it is supposed to look like an attack drone, so you can probably use it to freak out your neighbors pretty easily. Joining the Dragonfire in the Care Package are the Nuketown 2025 and Nuketown Zombies in-game maps, both of which are based on a classic stage from the original Black Ops (and one of which contains zombies), as well as a SteelBook case, two collectible coins, exclusive weapon skins and player card backgrounds (so people in multiplayer will be envious of your fancy special edition), and a copy of the soundtrack.

PlayStation 3 owners will also get two dynamic themes, while the Xbox 360 version includes a pair of avatar items: a zombie costume and something called a CLAW that looks like a small robot hippo … but probably isn’t one. PC gamers will have to settle for the Digital Deluxe Edition, which drops the helicopter, SteelBook, and coins in favor of a free copy of Call of Duty: World at War.

If for some crazy reason you don’t need or want a toy attack drone, Activision also has the Hardened Edition. It contains all of the same bonuses as the Care Package, but without the Dragonfire, making it less crazy and less likely to warm a shelf in your local Best Buy in a few months.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops II collectors’ editions are available for preorder now. The Care Package is $180 (attack drones are expensive), with the Hardened and Digital Deluxe Editions set at $80.

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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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According to an image found on some versions of Transformers: Fall of Cybertron’s instruction manual, which fans have posted on the official Facebook page, the game will receive a trio of downloadable content packs over the next two months.

The image (seen below in full), which seems to only appear on copies of the manual accompanying the European version of the game, shows a list of three DLC packs and their respective release dates.

Astute gamers who have already picked up their copies (or who have decided to browse a game’s DLC without purchasing it, for some reason) will notice that the first collection, the Havok Pack, is already available for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It gives players access to five iconic Transformers characters for use in the multiplayer mode: Ultra Magnus, Zeta Prime, Wheeljack, Blast Off, and Perceptor. If you’re not nerdy enough to recognize those names, all you need to know is that they’re all robots that can turn into either a car, a spaceship, or a…microscope (in the original cartoon, at least).

The second pack, dubbed Dinobot Destructor, will evidently be available on September 11 and unlocks the Dinobots for multiplayer. Again, if that means nothing to you, the Dinobots are robots that turn into dinosaurs. They are so awesome.

The interesting thing about the third pack, which is due on September 25 and is called Massive Fury, is that — in addition to more multiplayer characters — it contains the “retro” Optimus Prime and Bruticus skins that were previously only available to those who preordered the game from GameStop and Amazon, respectively. It’s unclear whether or not this means people who already own the preorder bonuses will need to purchase them again to get the other characters, but the Havok Pack is also available piecemeal, so odds are good that Transformers fans won’t be forced to double-dip.

We’ve reached out to publisher Activision for more information, including details on price and dates, but have not heard back at this time.

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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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Update: Konami has confirmed that a demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance will still be included with the Zone of the Enders HD collection.

Gamers eager to cut enemy soldiers in half, then cut those halves into halves, and then cut those halves into further halves, will finally get their chance to step into Raiden’s cyborg shoes when Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance arrives in stores on February 19, 2013 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Revengeance is the first title that the traditional Metal Gear developers at Kojima Productions and Platinum Games (the studio behind Bayonetta and Vanquish) have worked on together, as well as the first time that anyone has been forced to use the word “revengeance” in a serious context…well, as serious as Metal Gear can get.

The game is set three years after Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and focuses on Raiden (the secret protagonist from Metal Gear Solid 2 and current awesome cyborg ninja) as he tries to slice a bunch of rogue mercenaries into small, bloody pieces.

Earlier this year, Konami announced that those who purchase the Zone of the Enders HD collection would receive early access to the Revengeance demo. We reached out to the studio to clarify that this is still the case, but as of this writing we have not heard back.

“Dad!” A plaintive cry split the morning; I came to in a panic.

“What?!” I cried, fully expecting that a child was dying.

“What happened to Little Big Planet Karting?” Pause.

“What?” Blink. Blink.

“It’s gone!”

I shuffled downstairs, bleary-eyed and hopelessly un-caffeinated, to find my nine-year-old son staring at the television screen, a defeated look in his eyes. The message from the PlayStation 3 console said plainly that the game had expired. The beta was over.

We began to grieve.

Over the last week, my son and daughter (aged 11) have played Little Big Planet Karting beta with a holy joy. This is the game we wanted when we purchased ModNation Racers, the karting game created by United Front Games with support from the original Little Big Planet developers, Media Molecule.

Even though the beta didn’t support split-screen local multiplayer, we had a ton of fun racing the computer, creating our own tracks, sack-persons, and karts, and playing through community built racetracks. These are the three pillars of fun that the original two PlayStation 3 exclusive games brought to the console, and are completely present in the Karting beta.

First up, kart racing in the LBP universe is, in the words of my son, “way better than Mario Kart.” While the mechanics are similar, including drift, boosts, and weaponry scattered about the tracks, everything just feels tighter, more integrated. Little Big Planet has a strong visual identity, and LBP Karting makes extensive use of the same materials and design ethos as the original titles. Bottle caps and spools of thread make up the default kart wheels, corrugated cardboard gets folded into various kart body shapes, and the sack people characters wear all sorts of costumes made of what seems to be real fabric, from shiny faux-reptile to an original brown yarn.

Of course, the kids spent a ton of time goofing off on their wardrobe, faffing about with different hats, pants, skirts, shoes, and accessories. I, on the other hand, appreciated the various pre-set costumes, letting me choose a look without a lot of detailed effort. The karts are equally customizable, and the beta let us try a substantial number of them, including rolling cupcakes, hovering UFOs, and sturdy cardboard tanks.

The weapons on the field can be used offensively or defensively, with a strategy of holding onto the weapon to defend against an opponent’s strike. Power ups included a fast forward button, an electric field, and a giant boxing glove, which sped us along the track, knocking obstacles and other racers out of the way. The integration of the look and use of the standard karting arsenal with the gaming universe itself thrilled both of my kids, and they giggled gleefully every time we found a new weapon.

Then we made our own track. Each of us, one after the other, took control of the track painting system and created fun, wacky, and above all usable variations on the kart racing course. The beta included four different environments to create in, though they all felt a little generic. Which works out fine, as the game truly got out of the way and allowed us to make it look and work exactly how we wanted it to. Since we already had a good idea of how to create karting tracks from Mod Nation Racers, this creation interface was a snap. United Front has done quite a bit of iteration on the track-making feature, making things intuitive and easy while retaining the ultimate customizability of a more complex system.

Before the beta ended, my son had made a track full of twists, turns, over- and underpasses, decorated with hills, ravines, mountains like something out of a hallucination. He switched to the Play mode, revved up his engine, and waited for the countdown.

Three. Two. One. GO!

“Oh, dad,” he said, drifting around a particularly tight corner that he’d created himself scant minutes before, “this is so cool.”

Not bad for a beta, right? We’re looking forward to the full retail game when it releases later this year.

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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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According to the press release, up to 12 players will be able to play together, choosing from three different classes, including Rifleman, Engineer and Scout. They’ll be playing across two unique modes, as well. In Conflict mode, teams will battle in sessions of 15 minutes to complete objectives throughout one of the two maps to earn points. In Saboteur mode, the teams will compete to retrieve a bomb and detonate it at the other team’s base, winning the 10 minute round. The beta will include two maps, called Pipeline and Mill.

Want to get in on the beta? If you own Splinter Cell Conviction on the Xbox 360, pre-order Ghost Recon: Future Soldier on XBox 360 from GameStop, or are a PlayStation Plus member, you’ll be able to hop in on the action on the 19th of April.

Ubisoft also announced a companion service that will allow players to “interact with” Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and future Ghost Recon games from tablets, smartphones and web browsers. This free service, called Ghost Recon Network, will launch with the game on May 22 at the same time as the iOS and Android apps to access it.

Players will use the network to customize and share in-game weapons, track their history and their friends’ in-game status, get exclusive rewards like in-game credits and weapons/weapon skins, build and manage their squad, and access detailed game info and heat maps to become a better player.

Ubisoft is a leading publisher of video games based in France with offices in over 26 countries.

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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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Publishers have turned to a variety of post-release approaches to maximize revenue – Warner Bros. used online passes with Batman: Arkham City and Mortal Kombat, Epic pre-sold “seasons” of downloadable content for Gears of War 3 and Activision created its own subscription service for the highly regarded Modern Warfare 3. Regardless of the means, these digital content packages serve two purposes – first, to provide video game companies with ways to generate additional digital revenue and second, to stem used product purchases.

However, much to the chagrin of consumers, these strategies haven’t always been implemented seamlessly – games have been launched missing codes and glitches have prevented players from accessing content. This is because these post-launch programs were designed as stopgap measures to provide a solution to a problem that was inconceivable when the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched.

“Unfortunately, in 2005 it was impossible to foresee that digital opportunities that exist here today in 2011 and it has been difficult for both Microsoft and Sony to facilitate the necessary technological implementations to foster true digital growth on a base technology designed nearly six years ago,” explains Jesse Divnich, vice president of capital research and communications at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research.

“[Online passes, DLC and subscription services are] part of a structural change of how publishers will recoup their investments,” Peter Warman, CEO at Newzoo, added.

Moving forward, Divnich anticipates the next generation of video game hardware will provide publishers with infrastructure that will better enable them to capitalize on their intellectual properties after their products have hit retail shelves. It’s all about penetration – video game companies want online services that enable them to engage consumers through a variety of digital touchpoints.

“Ultimately, consumers will take their favorite game or parts of it across all screens. Training your character and buying virtual items on your mobile phone during the day, preparing for the battle online with friends on the big screen in the evening,” Warman suggests.

This translates into a revenue rainfall for major publishers. EEDAR estimates the big video game brands will be able to generate 20 to 30 percent additional revenue on their products through new digital initiatives, up from the 10 to 15 percent standard set by current video game hardware.

Divnich says: “It is safe to say we have high expectations that both Microsoft and Sony will continue to implement new technologies and services that will facilitate significant digital growth in the future.”

Moreover, consumers won’t be able to resell this type of content – another win for software manufacturers.

“Cutting out the middle man and preventing second-hand trading is accelerating [the development and adoption of digital revenue models],” Warman asserts.

As many as 51 percent of current-generation console owners purchased post-launch DLC in 2011, up from the 34 percent who did so two years ago, according to a recent EEDAR study, highlighting the growing interest in digital content packages.

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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’s Shigeru Miyamoto said Tuesday that the Wii U would not feature graphics significantly more powerful than current console generations. That’s because the Wii U was intended to strike a balance somewhere between bringing in high-definition graphics and remaining cheap and accessible for gamers, he said.

A formal price for the console has not yet been set. But the Australian price tag, which is also very early, dwarfs those of the most expensive models for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 console initially cost $600 for the top-end model with a 60-gigabyte hard drive. That price tag, seen by many consumers as expensive, was one of the reasons the Wii and Xbox 360 were successful initially.

The Wii U will come out sometime next year, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said. The company unveiled the console at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month. Nintendo wants to include “something for everyone” in the new console, Iwata said. Some hardcore gamers criticized the original Wii for lacking enough content.

Still, the first Wii was a huge success for Nintendo and started the motion gaming craze, leading Sony and Microsoft to also release motion controllers for their home gaming consoles. The Wii sold more than 86 million units and was a smash hit with casual gamers. It has one of the widest install bases in the world and for a long time was the console to beat after it was released, with retail outlets selling the consoles literally minutes after they hit the shelves.

The Wii is credited with bringing home console gaming to more mainstream audiences, particularly casual gamers who wouldn’t typically go for a home gaming console like the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3. It included games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, which were non-traditional titles that sold incredibly well thanks to the immersion of motion controllers and the Wii Balance Board.

The device features a controller with a touch screen, camera and microphone. It looks like the bottom half of the Nintendo 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Portable, with a screen in the center that changes with the game. The controller can display and run games when they aren’t available on the TV. The controller has a 6.2 inch screen and the console is backwards compatible with all Wii devices and Wii games. But the device is not designed to be a portable device, Iwata said.

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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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