Wii U Friends & More

Little is known about the Wii U at the moment save for the controller. At E3 we weren’t even shown the console until after the conference. Since E3 however Nintendo and a few well known developers have given us an insight to the wonder machine. Firstly Nintendo have confirmed that the disk reader in the Wii U will be a Nintendo Media Optical Disk – such as the ones found for the Wii, however they will have a massive 25GB of storage. This is the same as a single layered Blu-Ray disk. Interestingly though Nintendo have neither confirmed or denied that Wii U will support Blu-Ray. We think chances are slim considering the track record for Nintendo being a gaming machine.

In an interview with Venturebeat, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, he confirmed that the Wii U’s name is here to stay, and the console & controller’s designs are pretty much final. Bad news for the people who wanted a more edgier name. Also in the interview, he did confirm that Wii U is capable of 1080p processing and it is slightly larger than a Wii, however smaller than an Xbox 360; the dimensions are 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide, and 10.5 inches long when lay down. AMD and IBM are producing the chips for the console. The full interview can be read here.

Nintendo have also said that at this stage the Wii U controller will only come packaged with the machine and it supports all of the Wii’s remotes and peripherals such as the balance board & classic controllers. The Wii U controller does not have it’s own processor, which means that only content streamed through the console will be displayed. This is good news as it means the cost of producing the controller is greatly reduced. On the subject of price, Nintendo Head President Satoru Iwata has reportedly told Japanese newspaper Nikkei that the Wii U will cost more than ¥20,000 mark. This is unsurprising but it is worth considering that both the Wii & 3DS launched at ¥25,000 each so it does seem likely that while the Wii U is Nintendo’s most powerful console to date, it will be priced competitively so gamers will buy it.

The final bit of news we have learned with Nintendo’s next console of wonder is that after years of asking and pleading, the dreaded friend code will be no more. This news comes thanks to Ubisoft’s Adrian Blunt. Speaking to MTV on the E3 show floor about how Ghost Recon’s online functionality will work for the Wii U, he said “The first is the ability for individuals to make accounts. Rather than a machine having an account, each individual user has an account.” When pressed if this was the same as a Xbox Gamertag, Blunt replied “Yeah, exactly.” (full article) So it seems that with friend codes now a thing of the past, Nintendo will have a viable online experience with Wii U.

Nintendo’s next machine will be out at some point in 2012, a full line up and pricing details to be announced at the end of this year or early into next year.