Friend finder

It's no surprise that Katsuya Eguchi, the creator of Animal Crossing and hardware producer on Wii U, is already thinking about how to combine the two. Speaking at last night's developer roundtable, Eguchi mused on how Wii U's Miiverse social network could enhance Animal Crossing's community.

Eguchi said in the past people have had a hard time finding friends to share Animal Crossing with, and we'd agree: unless you know them in real life or frequent online messageboards and social networks, your Animal Crossing: Wild World probably feels more wilderness than Wild World. Now thanks to Miiverse, you should have a much easier time making friends and expanding your online community.

Eguchi said Miiverse is "a reliable and easy system to find friends online and become friends with them" thanks to each game having its own messageboard accessed during gameplay. A built-in friend request would certainly make adding new friends much easier, letting you share your Animal Crossing Wii U town with others around the world.

As the series' creator, of course Eguchi understands the fact you need to know who you're dealing with before you let them tread among your carefully planned town:

You want to be able to trust somebody before you become friends with them.

Sounds like AC's walled garden online will survive, but at least you'll be able to find more people to invite.

Nintendo Land has an Animal Crossing minigame called Sweet Day where four players try to gather (or 'steal') sweets while running away from Booker and Copper. You also get to dress your Mii as Tangy, which is good enough for the Animal Crossing nuts in the Nintendo Life office.

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Crash course

Nintendo's registered domains for some of the minigames we'll see in Nintendo Land as well as a domain for September Wii release Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition.

Here's what the domain Bokoblins at Nintendo have been registering this week:

animalcrossingsweetday.com
donkeykongscrashcourse.com
gameandwario.com
kirbydreamcollection.com
kirbysdreamcollection.com
legendofzeldabattlequest.com
luigisghostmansion.com
luigismansiondarkmoon.com
papermariostickerstar.com
takamarusninjacastle.com
thelegendofzeldabattlequest.com
wiiuexperience.com
wiiufitmeter.com
wiiupanoramaview.com

It's interesting Nintendo registered a domain for Game & Wario considering it's said to be a temporary title, but then again so is the Wii U Panorama View, so Nintendo may just be covering its bases here.

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All white on the night

We saw a whole lot of the black Wii U console during yesterday's E3 conference, but according to a Nintendo representative the dark shade might not be available at launch.

Destructoid reports a booth representative as saying the system will launch in white, with the black option available "someday".

It took years for the black Wii to follow its white counterpart, but hopefully we won't be waiting quite so long for a dark Wii U. Let us know which colour console you prefer in our Facebook poll.

[image:1]White...[/image]
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Keep it flowing

Nintendo's confirmed it's working on a system to transfer Wii save data, WiiWare and Virtual Console purchases from your Wii console to the new Wii U.

The good news came during last night's developer roundtable in a Q&A section, a Nintendo producer saying:

We are readying the system to be able to transfer saves and everything you've bought.

The producer didn't say anything about the logistics of the transfer — so we don't know if you'll have to keep your Wii console to send your content to Wii U — but at least Nintendo's working on it.

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Rejoice!

Nintendo of America has confirmed you can transfer your Wii Virtual Console purchases to the Wii U.

Executive Scott Moffitt told ABC News you'll be able to move across past VC purchases and play them on the Wii U. Moffitt said there'll be a lot of restructuring necessary — Wii U will support multiple online user accounts for instance — but at least you won't need to shell out on buying Super Mario 64 for the fourth time.

We imagine the Wii U GamePad will be enough to play your collection of classic titles, but as Wii U uses all Wii controllers you might want to hang on to your Classic Controller all the same.

Thanks to Daniel for the tip!

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7/10?

The dust has settled on Nintendo's E3 2012 press conference. Here in the Nintendo Life offices the pizza boxes have been pushed to one side and we've taken a few minutes to collect our thoughts and summarise how we think it went.

James Newton, editor

I wouldn't say this was a classic show for Nintendo — a lot of the right components were there, but they didn't all click for me. Nintendo Land looked interesting — it's a Nintendo theme park with Zelda and Animal Crossing! — but the presentation lacked spark and didn't leave me on a high. Don't get me wrong: Wii U looks great and I'm very excited to try it out next week, but overall the show was more of a glancing blow than a knockout hit.

I have to keep reminding myself that in the bigger picture, today is really just a reintroduction to Wii U. The system's fate doesn't hang on a single day's media coverage, and as it's not out for a good three or four months Nintendo has plenty of time to show us more. Keep the faith, Nintendo fans!

Anthony Dickens, technical director

To me Nintendo had arguably the best press conference of the week, concentrating on games and gaming unlike some other companies. First party titles seem solid, but perhaps not as varied or ground-breaking as some probably were hoping for. Additionally a number of popular Nintendo IP's still haven't been mentioned in today's briefing — we were all expecting to hear what Retro Studios are working on, or news on a Zelda 3DS game.

That said, Nintendo has developed a system that looks like it builds on all the fundamental principals of Wii and should bring the company forward — Nintendo games are now in HD.

Tom Whitehead, features editor

It's been a frantic and, in some ways, strange day. If I think about the Nintendo press conference and its overall E3 efforts today my instinct is that it's had a strong showing. Pikmin 3 finally became a reality, there's yet more Mario on the way, and there's a thoroughly decent third party line-up, with the highlight in my eyes being ZombiU. It's also good news that two GamePads will be supported, even if there's a hit in frame-rate performance.

The only negative, in my eyes, was the way Nintendo put its conference together. The structure and tempo was all wrong, with a terrific start and reasonable middle, before momentum got lost in the slightly ponderous Nintendo Land reveal. While it's understandable that Nintendo targeted an accessible potential system seller at the end, it lost its flow and culminated in a rather poor fireworks ending. That was a shame, as looking at the content of the conference and information that's followed, I think we're looking at a concept with great strength and a real variety and depth to the launch period line-up. To get that positive feeling, I've made the choice to move beyond the conference alone.

Overall, Wii U is exciting, and could be the success story that Nintendo seeks.

Mike Mason, assistant editor

Nintendo's E3 presentation wasn't a bad one, but it was perhaps a little muddled in its message. Everybody was more or less equally looked after when you look at the list of games on show, but the way the presentation was weighted, offering Nintendo Land up as a big final announcement, gave off a slightly different impression.

Put that aside, though. Wii U looks like a fantastic console from what we've seen, but there's a feeling that there's much more left to come. Particular highlights for me were Rayman Legends, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Pikmin 3 and ZombiU, which actually looks like it may have a chance of setting itself apart from all the other zombie games on the market. And let's not forgetLEGO City Undercover — it's LEGO Grand Theft Auto where you play a cop, an open world game filled with all the tongue-in-cheek fun that the toy franchise is known for. What's not to love about that?

What do you make of Nintendo's E3 conference so far? Speak your mind in the comments below. Remember the comments automatically refresh so have at it!

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Waiting for a new challenger

When 3DS was announced, it seemed like publishers rushed to announce their fighting games for the system, but Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is something of a lone wolf on Wii U.

While Warner Bros.' Injustice: Gods Among Us takes a serious look at DC Comics characters, TTT2 went a bit tongue-in-cheek with its trailer, showing Heihachi Mishima eat a Mega Mushroom and lay the smack down (people still say that, right?) on Jin Kazama. Last year's video showed the Wii U GamePad used to draw on characters with a 'mark of shame'; here's hoping that survives in TTT2.

Namco Bandai tells us it'll have exclusive Wii U content, but we don't know what it is yet.

NAMCO BANDAI GAMES ANNOUNCES TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2 (WORKING TITLE) AND TANK! TANK! TANK! (WORKING TITLE) FOR THE Wii U SYSTEM

Both Titles to be Available Winter 2012 for the Wii U System

LOS ANGELES, Calif., (June 5, 2012) – Leading video game publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. today announced TEKKEN™ TAG TOURNAMENT 2 (working title) and TANK! TANK! TANK!™ (working title) for the Wii U™ system from Nintendo. The upcoming titles offer their own unique brand of explosive arcade action for video game fans of all ages.

TEKKEN™ TAG TOURNAMENT 2 (working title)

The TEKKEN series smashes its way to Wii U with the largest roster of characters and modes to ever hit a Nintendo console. Based on the TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT™ 2 arcade engine, TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2 for Wii U features stunning graphics, an unparalleled fighting system, online multiplayer and robust customization options. TEKKEN TAG TOURNAMENT 2 for Wii U will also feature exciting exclusive content for the Wii U system, giving the title its own unique flair that will appeal to both hardcore and casual fans of the fighting game genre.

TANK! TANK! TANK! (working title)

Get ready for one of the most bombastic battle-party-games ever with TANK! TANK! TANK! Players will find a fantastic armament of tanks and weapons at their disposal to dispatch the enemy threat, including mechanical insects, gigantic dragons and even other players. Team up with three other friends to battle with or against each other in fully destructible environments in a variety of action-packed story and multiplayer modes where weapons are never in short supply and threats are hiding behind every corner. Players will be able to arm their tanks with lasers, machine guns, missile pods, the dreaded Colossus Missile along with power-ups scattered throughout each map.

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Mystery solved

Last year's LEGO City Stories is now LEGO City Undercover, and judging from the first gameplay trailer below it could be quite special.

The open world genre might be the preserve of the more adult titles these days, but LEGO City Undercover keeps things distinctly family-friendly by having you solve crimes instead of committing them. You can scan areas with the Wii U GamePad to spot hidden criminals before giving chase in vehicles or on foot to apprehend them.

Anyway, we think it looks great, but what do you think?

[youtube:PI9DaepJ_fk]

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So it might be good

Wii was heaven for people who like singing and dancing games, and it looks like Nintendo wants to keep that trend rolling with SiNG (temporary title) on Wii U.

Developed by FreeStyleGames (the DJ Hero people) it's a cross between karaoke and dancing. The Wii U GamePad displays lyrics during karaoke, and can be used as an audio mixer and to create playlists. Two players can sing and two can dance, while the fifth orchestrates the party like a megalomaniac.

It's out at launch so you'll have it in time for your Christmas and New Year parties.

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Party All Night Long

Get the party started with SiNG (working title), a new, interactive musical performance game that will get you and your guests singing and dancing well into the night. With dozens of popular songs to choose from, everyone from novice singers to experienced entertainers will be able to join in the fun. While one person steps up as the main performer, others can dance, sing and clap along with the prompts on the TV screen making sure everyone at the party is rocking out together.

Features:

In "Party" mode, the lead singer uses the Wii U GamePad controller to view lyrics and receive cues, freeing them from the TV and allowing them to interact with the audience, making each performance more engaging and enjoyable.

There's no limit to the number of people who can join in at one time. Audience participation, such as singing, dancing, interacting with the lead singer and playing instrumental sounds with the Wii Remote controllers, is the key to a great performance.

In "Sing" mode, up to two singers' vocal and overall performance quality are evaluated on the TV in real time.

The GamePad can be used as an audio mixer and to create a playlist.

A variety of song selections, from the 60s to current pop hits, makes it easy for players from any generation to put on a show.

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Ryurama

Nintendo will publish Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, reuniting the Big N with Team Ninja.

Ryu Hayabusa's adventures come to a Nintendo home console for the first time since the Super NES days. Ninja Gaiden III on PS3 and Xbox 360 didn't get the best reviews, so we'll be interested to see if Nintendo asks Team Ninja to make any big improvements to the core game.

Either way, the screenshots look glorious, so colour us interested.

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