<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>TechCategory: Nintendo &#124; Tech &#124; TIME.com</title>
	<atom:link href="http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://techland.time.com</link>
	<description>News and reviews from the world of gadgets, gear, apps and the web</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 13:20:10 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.com/</generator>
<cloud domain='techland.time.com' port='80' path='/?rsscloud=notify' registerProcedure='' protocol='http-post' />
<image>
		<url>http://0.gravatar.com/blavatar/8e491cfd8b726ddb4ef11517aea44032?s=96&#038;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png</url>
		<title>TechCategory: Nintendo &#124; Tech &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com</link>
	</image>
	<atom:link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="http://techland.time.com/osd.xml" title="Tech" />
	<atom:link rel='hub' href='http://techland.time.com/?pushpress=hub'/>
		<item>
		<title>If You Expect Jaw-Dropping Things from Nintendo Direct, You&#8217;re Missing the Point</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/if-you-expect-jaw-dropping-things-from-nintendo-direct-youre-missing-the-point/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/if-you-expect-jaw-dropping-things-from-nintendo-direct-youre-missing-the-point/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 18:48:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo Direct]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Satoru Iwata]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=162964</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I caught my first Nintendo Direct last year, just before E3. It was somewhat&#8230;unexpected. Instead of crazy editing, hipster quips and frenetic sizzle reels, Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata stood beneath a picture with the Japanese characters for a phrase that he explained meant &#8220;creating something unique,&#8221; addressing viewers in English and speaking slowly with long pauses at the end of sentences. You might even have called the tone struck as he introduced and elaborated on the Wii U something approaching &#8220;dignified.&#8221; This was Nintendo working to define itself as definitively unlike its rowdier rivals. The latest of these briefs aired this morning, a full 30 minutes packed with information about several upcoming games, some of it stuff we already knew, some of it stuff we didn&#8217;t, but none of it significant in the &#8220;Look, a new Super Mario Galaxy game!&#8221; sense. We heard a little about some new Sega games (a lovely-looking Mario and Sonic Winter Olympics game that made me think Diddy Kong Racing meets SSX; plus a new Sonic-series action/adventure/platformer dubbed Sonic: Lost World), were walked through snippets of upcoming or recently released games including Mario &#38; Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move and Animal Crossing: New Leaf, finally got a release date for The Wonderful 101 (Sep. 15), learned about a Luigi-based rethink of New Super Mario Bros. U that existing owners of the latter can download on June 20 for $20 (or, if you don&#8217;t own New Super Mario Bros. U, buy standalone on Aug. 25 for $30) and had a fairly detailed look at Pikmin 3, Shigeru Miyamoto&#8217;s forthcoming real-time strategy opus. And yet I wonder how many people watching today&#8217;s show walked away disappointed, like the dopamine-starved blogosphere after some press-concocted Apple fantasy part fails to materialize during a WWDC keynote. Judged as such, you&#8217;d probably find most of these Nintendo Direct videos boring. You&#8217;ve tuned in hoping to spy something jaw-dropping instead of merely explanatory (or, you know, insightful), something like footage from a new Zelda game, Shigeru Miyamoto decapitating a Master Chief mannequin with his mock Link-sword or some wildly unexpected add-on<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=162964&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/if-you-expect-jaw-dropping-things-from-nintendo-direct-youre-missing-the-point/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Opinion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/opinion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nintendo-direct.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nintendo-direct.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nintendo-direct.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">nintendo-direct</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>EA Isn&#8217;t Making Wii U Games: Do You Care?</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/ea-isnt-making-wii-u-games-do-you-care/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/ea-isnt-making-wii-u-games-do-you-care/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 13:45:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[electronic arts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=162952</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;re reading that correctly: Electronic Arts, one of the world&#8217;s largest gaming companies with billions in annual revenue, just confirmed that it&#8217;s not designing games for Nintendo&#8217;s Wii U. Speaking to Kotaku, EA spokesperson Jeff Brown said &#8220;We have no games in development for the Wii U currently.&#8221; I assume Brown&#8217;s talking about this now to soften the reaction when EA showcases its product lineup at E3 next month. And yes, Brown&#8217;s hedging with that word, &#8220;currently,&#8221; but as we know, original games can take years to bring off. Even ports require significant effort, especially if you have to figure out how to rejigger a game to take advantage of an idiosyncratic peripheral like the Wii U GamePad. If EA truly has nothing in the pipeline for Wii U, you&#8217;re looking at a year, probably more, for something &#8212; casual, core, family, whatever &#8212; to appear, and that&#8217;s if EA or one of its subsidiaries signed on to something today. Remember this? Kotaku did. It&#8217;s Ex-EA CEO John Riccitiello, speaking at E3 2011 about the Wii U. What Nintendo&#8217;s new console delivers speaks directly to the players of EA Sports and EA Games. Nintendo&#8217;s new console will produce brilliant high-definition graphics and new gameplay opportunities. We look forward to seeing great EA content on this new platform. How times have changed. While EA has released Wii U games, specifically ports of FIFA 13, Madden 13, Mass Effect 3 and Need for Speed Most Wanted, Brown told Kotaku that those early games were simply EA wrapping up its E3 2011 obligations. (EA confirmed earlier this month that Madden 14 would skip the Wii U this year.) From a business standpoint, whoever this reflects poorly on (at least one friend&#8217;s reaction was &#8220;These guys are jerks, man&#8221;), it&#8217;s bad news for Nintendo. Whatever you think of EA&#8217;s games or the company&#8217;s business practices overall, it owns some of the industry&#8217;s biggest ticket franchises, including Madden, NHL, FIFA, Battlefield, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, Dragon Age, The Sims and most recently, the exclusive rights to develop future<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=162952&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/05/17/ea-isnt-making-wii-u-games-do-you-care/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Opinion</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/opinion/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ea-sports.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ea-sports.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ea-sports.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Tony Parker-  NBA LIVE 09</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo Hammers GameStop with Lower-Cost Refurbished 3DS, DSi XL Game Systems</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/29/nintendo-hammers-gamestop-with-lower-cost-refurbished-3ds-dsi-xl-game-systems/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/29/nintendo-hammers-gamestop-with-lower-cost-refurbished-3ds-dsi-xl-game-systems/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:00:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[3ds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DSi XL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gamestop]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=161255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In a move that ought to surprise no one, Nintendo has started selling refurbished versions of its handheld game systems online, specifically the 3DS and DSi XL. It&#8217;s a strategy at least as old as computer retail: Dell was offering refurbished desktops and laptops back in the 1990s (and still does, apparently). Apple&#8217;s had a certified refurbished store for ages. So what&#8217;s interesting here isn&#8217;t that Nintendo would jump into the refurbished market, it&#8217;s that the company is underselling GameStop &#8212; presently the go-to retailer for used anything games-related &#8212; by fairly significant margins. Take the standalone 3DS: Nintendo&#8217;s selling it for $130, while GameStop&#8217;s selling it for $160. (Note that a new 3DS goes for $170; GameStop&#8217;s long been criticized for selling used goods at fractionally less-than-new prices.) Or take the DSi XL: Nintendo sells it for $100, while GameStop&#8217;s selling it for $110. According to Nintendo&#8217;s store info page, these are &#8220;authentic&#8221; products that Nintendo&#8217;s had &#8220;cleaned, tested, and inspected to meet Nintendo’s high standards.&#8221; Pick one up and you get a one-year warranty, the same as Nintendo offers on brand new versions. The company guarantees these products&#8217; full functionality, but notes that they may have &#8220;minor cosmetic blemishes.&#8221; Will Nintendo eventually add its Wii and Wii U game consoles to the store? Could rivals Microsoft and Sony follow suit (Microsoft already has a refurbished PC-related program in place, and Sony seems to sell everything but used PlayStation systems through its refurbished store page)? Who knows, but imagine the damage it could do to a retailer like GameStop, especially as the software side transitions to direct download, day one availability.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=161255&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/29/nintendo-hammers-gamestop-with-lower-cost-refurbished-3ds-dsi-xl-game-systems/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/nintendo-3ds.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/nintendo-3ds.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/nintendo-3ds.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">nintendo-3ds</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo Just Made the Wii U a Whole Lot Speedier</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/26/nintendo-just-made-the-wii-u-a-whole-lot-speedier/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/26/nintendo-just-made-the-wii-u-a-whole-lot-speedier/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:12:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system update]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=161124</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We had to wait roughly five months, but here it is, Wii U owners: the performance boost Nintendo promised earlier this year to remedy those crippling lag times when loading into or out of the console&#8217;s main menu. It&#8217;s not clear how big the update is (Nintendo hides that info), but it took about 30 minutes to come down over my cable connection (not small, then) and a few more to install. Besides greasing the Wii U&#8217;s virtual wheels, Nintendo says the update improves system stability and adds a bunch of stuff we&#8217;ll go over in a moment. It also preps the system for the &#8220;imminent&#8221; Wii U Virtual Console and Wii U Panorama View features. Let&#8217;s talk through the performance improvement, since that&#8217;s probably why you&#8217;re reading this. Other consoles have had slow user interfaces at launch, it&#8217;s true, but never one as slow as the Wii U&#8217;s. Prior to the update, launching something like &#8220;System Settings&#8221; from the main menu took about 15 seconds; after the update, it takes just eight. Exiting back to the Wii U Menu used to take on average 30 seconds; after the update, it takes around 18. Loading a game like LEGO City Undercover still takes a godawful 2 minutes, 18 seconds to load (1 minute, 9 seconds to bring up the start screen, another 1 minute, 9 seconds to load your saved game &#8212; incroyable!), but backing out to the Wii Menu, which used to take over 20 seconds, now takes about 10. All in all a respectable speedup, though still much slower than backing out of an application on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 (or, for that matter, an iOS-, Android-, Windows- or OS X-based device). The reason, presumably, is WaraWara Plaza: all those fake little Miis milling around, relentlessly pitching Nintendo products. I prefer just the screenful of icons without the faux-crowd myself, especially if it&#8217;d knock the load times down more. Perhaps an option to bypass WaraWara Plaza in the next update, Nintendo? But okay, there&#8217;s plenty more to celebrate here. From<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=161124&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/26/nintendo-just-made-the-wii-u-a-whole-lot-speedier/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-nintendo</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Finally, an Official The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Sequel</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/17/finally-an-official-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-past-sequel/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/17/finally-an-official-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-past-sequel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:45:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[3ds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[a link to the past]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sequel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zelda]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=160450</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Strap in, Nintendo- and Zelda-philes, because you definitely weren&#8217;t expecting this: a sequel to &#8212; that&#8217;s right, not a remake of &#8212; Super Nintendo phenom The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Wilder still, it&#8217;s due out this holiday for the Nintendo 3DS. I realize many of you venerate The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as the series&#8217; apotheosis, and I&#8217;m generally with you, but some of us remember the top-down SNES 2D A Link to the Past at least as fondly. I was still in undergrad when it came out, tapping away in a tiny dorm room on a cheap color tube. The second time I played through it was with a friend, summer of 1992 &#8212; back then you had to roll your own rules for co-op, something like &#8220;I play until I clear a dungeon, then you play until you clear one,&#8221; etc. (What nerds.) My third and final foray through the game was spring 1995, just after graduating (and sick with mono); it was Zelda or the Dragonlance Gold Box games on my PC &#8212; no contest, I chose Zelda. Give Nintendo its due: not a remake! Instead of trotting out a high-def version of an older title (like the upcoming The Wind Waker) or a 3D-fied port of whatever fan favorite (like the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time), we&#8217;re getting something entirely new (that is, a new story and new dungeons) set in the same game world. And while it&#8217;ll be top-down, it&#8217;ll use the 3DS&#8217;s 3D capabilities &#8220;to reinvigorate the flat 2D world&#8221; by adding &#8220;a sense of height and volume.&#8221; The teaser shows Link jumping between levels, for instance, in a way that might well benefit from stereoscopy as a puzzle-solving mechanic. And then there&#8217;s the weird, possibly innovative, predictably unexpected Nintendo twist: Link turning into a flat 2D drawing capable of sliding around on 3D walls or slipping between jail bars like a colorized shadow. &#8220;By moving in the walls, your viewpoint changes, and you can see the connections within the area that you couldn&#8217;t<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=160450&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/04/17/finally-an-official-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-past-sequel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/zelda-link-to-past-sequel.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/zelda-link-to-past-sequel.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/zelda-link-to-past-sequel.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zelda-link-to-past-sequel</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>WATCH: The Wii U&#8217;s Nifty New Speed Trick</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/27/watch-the-wii-us-nifty-new-speed-trick/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/27/watch-the-wii-us-nifty-new-speed-trick/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:21:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system update]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=159009</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will wonders never cease? Nintendo&#8217;s Wii U, presently the slowest video game console when it comes to opening and closing apps &#8212; possibly in the history of video game consoles &#8212; was apparently just doused in heavy water vapors. No really, check out the video above. You know how the Wii U can&#8217;t turn on a dime or a quarter or a semi-sized hubcap? Nintendo&#8217;s apparently fixed that, and they&#8217;re offering documentary proof. When I reviewed the Wii U back in November, I noted the following timings: From the main menu, tapping “System Settings” took 14 seconds to load. Exiting back to the Wii U Menu took another 20 seconds. Again, from the main menu, tapping the Netflix icon took 33 seconds to load (for this, I blame Netflix, since it’s equally slow to load on my Xbox 360, PS3 and Apple TV), but exiting back to the Wii U Menu took an unbelievable 30 seconds to load. I tested this repeatedly with everything else and consistently clocked 20-30 seconds whenever reloading the Wii U Menu. You see the problem. Launch and exit a dozen apps in an hour and you’ll spend roughly as many minutes staring at load screens. The Wii U’s icon-driven, multi-screen menu system may look like iOS, but it’s nothing like it performance-wise. So basically if you&#8217;re a Wii U user, you&#8217;ve been living with a dog-slow system from a navigational perspective for months. Nintendo promised a while back that it would remedy this in a major April update. The video above illustrates what we can probably expect when that update hits. Judging from the video, the speedup delivers: a wait-time drop from 21.5 seconds to just 8.3 (that&#8217;s according to my iPhone&#8217;s stopwatch, clicking &#8220;start&#8221; as soon as the person in the video tapped &#8220;Wii U Menu&#8221; and &#8220;stop&#8221; the second the menu icons finally appeared). While eight seconds is still a leap from something like iOS&#8217;s ability to instantaneously back out of an app, I&#8217;ll take it. I&#8217;d still like to know, however, why it<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=159009&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/27/watch-the-wii-us-nifty-new-speed-trick/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Videos</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/videos-reviews-features/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wii-u-menu-load-times.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wii-u-menu-load-times.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wii-u-menu-load-times.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-menu-load-times</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>What&#8217;s Going On with Nintendo&#8217;s Wii U?</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/15/whats-going-on-with-nintendos-wii-u/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/15/whats-going-on-with-nintendos-wii-u/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NPD Group]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=158222</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Last night, as part of its time-honored monthly ritual, retail-tracker NPD Group released its estimates of February&#8217;s video game hardware and software sales. As usual, the company excluded specific console numbers. NPD backpedaled from showing us this data a few years ago, I&#8217;ve always assumed, because of pressure from the various players to frame their numbers in the best possible light. Recall all the years the Wii decimated the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in monthly units sold, or more recently, the unbroken stretch Microsoft&#8216;s Xbox 360 has been lapping everyone: blogs and message boards flock to make hay of this stuff, and &#8220;systems wars&#8221; wonks then complete the feedback loop. These days you have to dig to find anything really construable as bad news about a specific company in NPD&#8217;s figures, with its analysts doing their best to give each player an attaboy. At worst, you&#8217;ll find bits of overall industry gloom &#8212; inescapable, really, since the recession finally caught up to the industry (albeit belatedly, and after years of unprecedented growth). And so this month&#8217;s look back at February was another barrel of disappointment from a retail standpoint, with year-on-year declines in hardware sales (-36%), software (-27%) and accessories (-3%) for an overall 25% decline. But wait, what about digital? NPD says that if you add $90 million for used game sales and rentals, plus digital sales (full games, add-ons, microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps and social network games) of $319 million, the total consumer spend for February would be just under $1.2 billion. NPD&#8217;s tracking of these newer markets has been incremental as it works with industry players to reveal this stuff, so you can&#8217;t really compare February 2013 with February 2012&#8242;s total consumer spend of $1.09 billion, but &#8212; assuming online transactions have only increased over the past 12 months &#8212; it seems reasonable to wonder, as we&#8217;ve been for years now, whether the downturn (if indeed it still is a downturn) is less than it seems. After all, NPD says its &#8220;new physical retail sales&#8221; figures only<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=158222&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/15/whats-going-on-with-nintendos-wii-u/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/top10_gadgets_wiiu.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/top10_gadgets_wiiu.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/top10_gadgets_wiiu.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">top10_gadgets_wiiu</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Miyamoto: I Couldn&#8217;t Have Imagined Where We&#8217;ve Ended Up</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/08/miyamoto-i-couldnt-have-imagined-where-weve-ended-up/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/08/miyamoto-i-couldnt-have-imagined-where-weve-ended-up/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:29:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME Interviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shigeru Miyamoto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u gamepad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=157822</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where do you go when you&#8217;re arguably history&#8217;s most famous video game designer in a medium that&#8217;s witnessed explosive growth since its halcyon days? Back to the drawing board, says Nintendo&#8217;s Shigeru Miyamoto, who told me that after three decades designing new ways to play, the fundamental things (still) apply. I spoke with Miyamoto by phone earlier this week in a broad-ranging interview about the Wii U as well as his approach to game design. Part one is here; this is part two. Given the proliferation of devices like tablets and smartphones, do you see the Wii U&#8217;s ecosystem eventually becoming a complementary technology, where it interacts with these devices, or does it remain standalone? When you&#8217;re talking about a hardware ecosystem, Nintendo views the stability of that ecosystem as paramount, as well as our ability to ensure that everyone who uses it has access to all of the features the ecosystem can offer. That&#8217;s important because then from a developer or designer standpoint, you have the ability to choose which of those features you&#8217;re going to leverage in the product or service that you&#8217;re developing. For example, with Nintendo 3DS, developers can choose to leverage the 3D visuals and know that everyone who owns a 3DS can take advantage of those 3D visuals. Similarly, they understand that everybody who owns a Wii U has access to the functionality of that second screen on the Wii U GamePad. The more that you take one device and try to build in compatibility with other devices through software, the greater challenge you have from a development standpoint in maintaining stability between those different systems, and you also run into the challenge that not everybody is going to have access to those features you&#8217;re trying to create. So for this current generation of hardware, our belief is that Wii U is going to offer the most stable and consistent environment to which developers can bring their ideas. In the long term, and I mean very long term technology changes and advances, it&#8217;s possible<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=157822&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/08/miyamoto-i-couldnt-have-imagined-where-weve-ended-up/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>TIME Interviews</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/time-interviews/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto-mario-kart.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto-mario-kart.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto-mario-kart.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">shigeru-miyamoto-mario-kart</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Miyamoto: The Wii U GamePad Gives Us Advantages over Tablets, Smartphones</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/07/miyamoto-the-wii-u-gamepad-gives-us-advantages-over-tablets-smartphones/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/07/miyamoto-the-wii-u-gamepad-gives-us-advantages-over-tablets-smartphones/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:13:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME Interviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shigeru Miyamoto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u gamepad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=157781</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Forget Nintendo&#8217;s lackluster January console sales, forget worries about dwindling interest in game consoles in general &#8212; Shigeru Miyamoto clearly believes in the Wii U, and he&#8217;s thinking well beyond its appeal to traditional gamers. The man whose iconic video game franchises &#8212; Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Pikmin and more &#8211; have for decades inspired the games industry views the Wii U&#8217;s sui generis GamePad as the Wii U&#8217;s saving grace, arguing that its synchronous streaming technology should insulate it from the tablet/smartphone threat while fundamentally reconceptualizing the decades-old viewing/playing dynamic in living rooms. I spoke with Miyamoto by phone earlier this week in a broad-ranging interview about the Wii U as well as his approach to game design. This is part one; part two is here. What part of the Wii U&#8217;s hardware do you find the most inspiring and why? From a gameplay perspective, what interests me most are the new types of play you can create using the Wii U GamePad as either a second or fifth screen when you&#8217;re playing split-screen multiplayer. At the same time, one of the other things I find particularly interesting is, it used to be that when you were playing you had to choose whether you would use the television to watch TV or play games. With Wii U and the Wii U GamePad you can do both at the same time. Similarly, there used to be particular activities that you would perform on your computer, like browsing the Internet, and you would have these different functionalities or features that you would use different devices for. But with Wii U and the Wii U GamePad you can now bring these together in one device, and I think that&#8217;s ultimately going to make your TV, when it&#8217;s connected to Wii U, a more useful thing in the household. I asked this of Cindy Gordon in September, but I&#8217;m curious to hear your thoughts. The Wii U GamePad as a secondary screen seems to have been inspired by the Nintendo DS. In fact I’ve<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=157781&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/07/miyamoto-the-wii-u-gamepad-gives-us-advantages-over-tablets-smartphones/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>TIME Interviews</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/time-interviews/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/shigeru-miyamoto.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">shigeru-miyamoto</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>LEGO City Undercover Q&amp;A: &#8216;It&#8217;s Like a Whole LEGO Game on Top of a City&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/06/lego-city-undercover-qa-its-like-a-whole-lego-game-on-top-of-a-city/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/06/lego-city-undercover-qa-its-like-a-whole-lego-game-on-top-of-a-city/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:45:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Game Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME Interviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lego]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LEGO City Undercover]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=157717</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A policeman pokes his school-bus-yellow head from the side of a Hummer, waving a pair of handcuffs like a cowboy winding up a lariat. A Snidely Whiplash-mustachioed bandit in domino mask and knit hat races a red convertible down a highway, smashing through a police barricade as hundred-dollar bills go flying like confetti. No, I&#8217;m not playing a LEGO video game; I&#8217;m actually describing the cover shot of LEGO&#8217;s official tie-in play kit for LEGO City Undercover, a medium-sized cardboard box harboring 283 tiny discrete pieces of colorful, LEGO-ized plastic. It&#8217;s a reminder of just how broad-reaching the LEGO-verse is, and the LEGO City series is just the latest incarnation of one of LEGO&#8217;s oldest, most popular building-block sets &#8212; one that dates back to the 1970s. It&#8217;s also the inspiration behind both upcoming Nintendo-exclusive games LEGO City Undercover for Wii U (out March 18) and LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins for 3DS (out April 21). I spoke with TT Games executive producer Loz Doyle about both games last week. For those who&#8217;ve never played a LEGO game, tell us a little about LEGO City Undercover and how it&#8217;s being utilized uniquely on the Wii U. This is by far the biggest LEGO game we&#8217;ve done, and while it&#8217;s quite easy to say that, it&#8217;s also completely packed with gameplay. With our last two games we had quite a big hub area. In LEGO Batman 2 we had a big city, and then LEGO Lord of the Rings obviously had Middle-earth, but they were both very much hub-based as a means to access the levels and go after unlocks. With LEGO City Undercover, the game takes place in the city, so it&#8217;s all about the city itself. We have some levels as well, 15 in all, but the majority of the gameplay and story takes place in the city itself. That&#8217;s a big departure for us, to basically do it the other way around. It&#8217;s also our first open-world game as well as our first non-IP game, which meant that we<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=157717&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/03/06/lego-city-undercover-qa-its-like-a-whole-lego-game-on-top-of-a-city/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>TIME Interviews</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/reviews-features/time-interviews/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-splash.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-splash.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-splash.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">lego-city-undercover-splash</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-2.jpg?w=358" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">lego-city-undercover-2</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-3.jpg?w=358" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">lego-city-undercover-3</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lego-city-undercover-4.jpg?w=358" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">lego-city-undercover-4</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/30/are-weak-wii-u-sales-a-bellwether-of-shifting-game-demographics/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/30/are-weak-wii-u-sales-a-bellwether-of-shifting-game-demographics/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:26:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[casual gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[core gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=155843</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold 3 million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just 4 million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same time frame, a number that&#8217;s down by roughly a third from original expectations. The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales. (MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday) You can look at this in any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there&#8217;s no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: it was the world&#8217;s first fully motion-control-driven game system — a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who&#8217;d never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history. The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though lacking the Wii&#8217;s novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony&#8217;s imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo&#8217;s just mining Apple territory with the Wii U&#8217;s tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: with its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn&#8217;t be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo&#8217;s original dual-screen DS — a handheld that predated Apple&#8217;s tablet by six years. Another explanation for the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=155843&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/30/are-weak-wii-u-sales-a-bellwether-of-shifting-game-demographics/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Wii U Deluxe</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo Reaches into Wii U Grab Bag, Pulls Out Some Vague, Some Fascinating Promises</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/24/nintendo-reaches-into-wii-u-grab-bag-pulls-out-some-vague-some-fascinating-promises/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/24/nintendo-reaches-into-wii-u-grab-bag-pulls-out-some-vague-some-fascinating-promises/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:30:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wii u]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=155540</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s been a ho-hum 2013 for Nintendo&#8217;s Wii U so far: some carry-over posturing about scads of &#8220;launch window&#8221; titles, but less than a handful of games with bankable release dates. When I checked the hopper for January, February and March, I counted four, maybe five Wii U titles with firm dates, all of them at least a month or two off. That&#8217;s not how you move systems, and Nintendo ran damage control Wednesday morning by trotting out company president Satoru Iwata in a broad-ranging (and reaching) &#8220;Wii U Direct&#8221; video effort to soothe jittery system owners and would-be buyers still waiting for slam dunks. Call it Nintendo circling its wagons&#8230;or maybe just an &#8220;if you squint you can make it out on the horizon&#8221; wagon-train parade. (MORE: Mostly Piano, Not Pretender: Yamaha’s AvantGrand N2 a Year Later) &#8220;In past Nintendo dialogues, we have focused more on games releasing in the near future, but it&#8217;s still early in 2013, so I&#8217;d like to change the format a little bit,&#8221; said Iwata before launching into a sneak preview of what Nintendo has cooking. For starters, Iwata says the Wii U will see at least two major system updates this year: one in the spring, another during the summer. Arguably the most important of these involves a desperately needed fix for the crazy-long time it takes to launch apps or reload the Wii U Menu &#8212; a process that can take up to 30 seconds. Imagine if each time you backed out of an iOS app it took half a minute to bring up iOS&#8217;s icon overlay. That&#8217;d be insane, and it&#8217;s a shame quality control didn&#8217;t view load times as prohibitive enough to remedy before the launch in November. Thank goodness Nintendo&#8217;s working to put things right. Iwata also mentioned finally debuting the long-awaited Wii U Virtual Console &#8211; Nintendo&#8217;s vehicle to sell old-school NES and Super NES games &#8211; just after the spring system update. The Virtual Console&#8217;s been missing in action since the Wii U launched, despite its longstanding availability on the original Wii.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=155540&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2013/01/24/nintendo-reaches-into-wii-u-grab-bag-pulls-out-some-vague-some-fascinating-promises/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wii-u-yoshi-game.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wii-u-yoshi-game.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wii-u-yoshi-game.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-yoshi-game</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>How Netflix Built Its Wii U App: First, It Built a Fake GamePad</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/12/24/how-netflix-built-its-wii-u-app-a-fake-gamepad/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/12/24/how-netflix-built-its-wii-u-app-a-fake-gamepad/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2012 21:27:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Harry McCracken</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technologizer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Video]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://timenerdworld.wordpress.com/?p=153932</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the principal things that&#8217;s new about Nintendo&#8217;s Wii U gaming console is its WiiTV feature. WiiTV wasn&#8217;t quite ready when the console shipped last month, though &#8212; and even the version which is now available is a work in progress. But one Wii U video feature was ready for the console&#8217;s launch: Netflix. On one level, that wasn&#8217;t surprising. You can stream Netflix to more than 800 different devices; it&#8217;s pretty much a baseline capability for an Internet-connected entertainment gadget, and it&#8217;s worthy of note when something doesn&#8217;t have it. Netflix&#8217;s timely arrival on the Wii U did mean, however, that Netflix had to design, create and test the app well before the console was actually available. And creating a Netflix app for Wii U presented some new challenges, since this gaming system&#8217;s user interface is such a departure from the Wii and other consoles. I recently visited the company and learned about the process from the team responsible for the Wii U app, including Director of Product Innovation Chris Jaffe. The degree of collaboration between Netflix and the hardware companies whose devices it supports varies from project to project. In this case, Netflix worked on its own: The only guidelines it had from Nintendo were a few general parameters such as how the app should allow the user to get back to the Wii U home screen. The team knew that it had to make its service make sense on the Wii U&#8217;s GamePad &#8212; the console&#8217;s unique touch-screen controller, which serves as a satellite for the HDTV and behaves a little differently in every Wii U game and app. So it considered its options. Should the TV be the primary display for choosing and controlling streaming video playback? Should the GamePad? Or should they duplicate each other, an approach which Netflix calls mirroring? It wasn&#8217;t clear. When something isn&#8217;t obvious, Netflix likes to do some testing with real live Netflix customers. But there was a catch: The company didn&#8217;t yet have a working Wii U or a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=153932&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/12/24/how-netflix-built-its-wii-u-app-a-fake-gamepad/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Web Video</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/apps-web/web-video-apps-web/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wpid-photo-dec-24-2012-115-pm.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wpid-photo-dec-24-2012-115-pm.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wpid-photo-dec-24-2012-115-pm.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Netflix Wii U GamePad</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/bcbb1f0eb75769461771734a70f25ed2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">hmccracken</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wpid-photo-dec-24-2012-1211-pm.jpg" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Netflix Wii U GamePad</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wpid-photo-dec-24-2012-144-pm.jpg" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Netflix on Wii U</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>&#8216;Wii Mini&#8217; Outed by Nintendo as Canada Exclusive, Won&#8217;t Connect to Internet</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/27/wii-mini-outed-by-nintendo-as-canada-exclusive-wont-connect-to-internet/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/27/wii-mini-outed-by-nintendo-as-canada-exclusive-wont-connect-to-internet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:23:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=152063</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Best Buy Canada front page ad let the cat out of the bag before Nintendo had a chance to: Following its (by all accounts) successful launch of the Wii U, Nintendo says it&#8217;ll launch a pint-sized version of the plain-vanilla Wii. The kicker: It&#8217;ll be exclusive to Canada. According to the ad, which was live early this morning, the &#8220;Wii mini&#8221; (that&#8217;s lowercase &#8220;m&#8221; just like Apple&#8217;s iPad mini &#8212; coincidence?) arrives on Dec. 7. That&#8217;s a week from this coming Friday. Nintendo followed a few hours later, confirming all of the above with an official splash page touting the new candy-apple-red system for $99.99. And here&#8217;s the part that&#8217;s just bizarre: It won&#8217;t connect to the Internet. That&#8217;s right: No Wi-Fi, no online features in games, nada. So much for WiiWare downloads, the Virtual Console, the Internet Channel and so forth. And like last year&#8217;s Wii redesign, the Wii mini won&#8217;t play GameCube games. So what do you get for $100 (just $30 less than a new Wii bundled with Wii Sports and Sports Resort)? A tinier top-loading Wii, a sensor bar, the Nunchuk and a Wii Remote Plus. That probably explains why Nintendo isn&#8217;t announcing the system stateside at this point. Who&#8217;d want a neutered Wii, even for $100 (though I can&#8217;t imagine why Canadians would, either)? Why, for instance, would you think not being able to play hundreds of games for nearly a dozen vintage systems justifies saving $30? It&#8217;s hard to see the sense here. Everyone knows what a Wii is, whether they&#8217;ve played one or not. By introducing a newer, cheaper alternative that would have at least retained Internet connectivity, Nintendo could have increased the probability that someone looking for a casual, family-oriented, impulse-priced console would spring for a Wii, as opposed, say, to something like Microsoft&#8217;s much more expensive, entry-level 4GB Xbox 360 ($200) or frankly anything else in console-dom, from a price standpoint. Instead, we get the puzzling Wii mini, a cuter, slightly less expensive offline box, that &#8212; unlike Apple&#8217;s iPad mini &#8212; is clearly not &#8221;every inch a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=152063&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/27/wii-mini-outed-by-nintendo-as-canada-exclusive-wont-connect-to-internet/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-mini1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-mini1.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-mini1.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-mini</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Wii U&#8217;s Messy Online Debut: What to Expect if You Just Bought One</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/23/the-wii-us-messy-online-debut-what-to-expect-if-you-just-bought-one/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/23/the-wii-us-messy-online-debut-what-to-expect-if-you-just-bought-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 23 Nov 2012 10:45:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151821</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Color me a fan of the Wii U as a game machine, especially with launch games like NintendoLand &#8211; a clever carnival of games that showcases the new tablet-style GamePad, or New Super Mario Bros. U &#8211; old-school Mario in gobsmacking high-definition. But as the lucky few who snagged one of Nintendo&#8217;s sold-out systems already know, it&#8217;s missing half its marbles out of the box. You have to download a monster update to add all the features Nintendo bragged about pre-launch, from Miiverse to eShop to Netflix. And even after you do, you&#8217;ll be missing promised extras, like Nintendo&#8217;s interactive live TV service &#8212; delayed at the last minute until some unspecified date in December. Consider the following list of issues you&#8217;ll have to deal with at startup, in case you&#8217;re planning to hunt for a Wii U today (Black Friday) or in the near future. (MORE: Too Late to Grab a Wii U on Black Friday? Not According to Nintendo) The Wii U comes half-baked out of the box. Miiverse, eShop, the Internet browser and TVii are missing in action, as is functionality for Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube and Amazon Instant Video. You&#8217;ll need to download a system update and separate application updates to get any of these features and services working. The system update is both necessary and enormous. Rumors of just how big vary (I&#8217;ve heard upwards of 5 GB, to as little as 1 GB). Either way, it&#8217;s substantial &#8212; it took my system nearly three hours to download when Nintendo rolled it out on Nov. 18, then another 10 or 15 minutes to get it installed. Word to the wise: Don&#8217;t turn your system off in the middle of the update, just to be safe. My Internet connection dropped while the update was downloading on my review unit, which thankfully had no impact on the process (when I restarted the update, it picked up where it left off, no problem), but an L.A. Times writer reported bricking his Wii U after stopping the update short. Says Nintendo: &#8220;It may take an hour or more to perform the system update<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151821&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/23/the-wii-us-messy-online-debut-what-to-expect-if-you-just-bought-one/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-deluxe1.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Wii U Deluxe</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Too Late to Grab a Wii U on Black Friday? Not According to Nintendo</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/21/too-late-to-grab-a-wii-u-on-black-friday-not-according-to-nintendo/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/21/too-late-to-grab-a-wii-u-on-black-friday-not-according-to-nintendo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Game Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151805</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For all the racket about the Wii U being sold out, it really happened months ago, when stores ran through their preorder allotment then slammed the door shut. A few retailers held stock back for the launch, last Sunday, and maybe you even snatched something from that handful, standing in line. If so, consider yourself lucky, friend, because the ship has definitely sailed. I poked around eBay this morning and turned up over 5,000 active listings for Nintendo&#8217;s new console. Some are still trying to sell the thing for $2,000 to $3,000 (or &#8220;best offer&#8221; — the highest-priced listing shows 26 offers since Nov. 6, all of them declined). (MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens) But on average, it looks like eBay&#8217;s prices are surprisingly not insane, with the $350, 32-GB Deluxe model going for just over $400. I&#8217;m also not seeing sellers try to make that up by charging nonsense shipping fees. The only downer buying this way, if you&#8217;re desperate, is that you&#8217;ll have to wait until at least Friday, and that&#8217;s assuming you&#8217;re willing to pay for expedited shipping and your seller&#8217;s on the ball about dispatching the system today. Will Nintendo replenish stock in time for Black Friday? Looks like it, according to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, who promised as much during a CNBC spot Monday morning. &#8220;This is our big new innovation that we launched yesterday,&#8221; says Fils-Aime in the video, adding that the system is &#8220;already well sold through in retail.&#8221; &#8220;[There's] not a lot of stock left until we start replenishing in a couple days&#8217; time,&#8221; he continues, reassuring that the company will have more units to sell between now and Christmas and also that &#8220;we&#8217;ll have more available on Black Friday in retail locations.&#8221; I&#8217;m not sure how much help a system tracker&#8217;s going to be at this point, much less how well any of these actually work. Nowinstock.net reports the Wii U popped up in a few places as recently as yesterday but currently shows nothing available. Another tracker, zooLert, claims<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151805&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/21/too-late-to-grab-a-wii-u-on-black-friday-not-according-to-nintendo/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Nintendo</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/companies-2/nintendo/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-basic.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-basic.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-basic.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-basic</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Wii U Review Redux: Nintendo Adds Miiverse, Netflix, eShop and More</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/19/wii-u-review-redux-nintendo-adds-miiverse-netflix-eshop-and-more/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/19/wii-u-review-redux-nintendo-adds-miiverse-netflix-eshop-and-more/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:13:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Game Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews & Features]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Until Sunday, my Wii U&#8217;s lobby screen came up population: me &#8212; a skinny little guy in a red wool cap and glasses, wandering in a white void, mumbling stuff like &#8220;Been playing NintendoLand&#8221; as effervescent electronica grooved in the background. Nintendo&#8217;s launch day system update ended my seclusion (if not my word balloon soliloquies), dispatching a full company of Miis in multicolored clothing to invade my lobby-space. They scampered across the screen after the system update finished, congregating in little clusters beneath clickable, hovering icons designed to highlight key Wii U features. And then they started talking. &#8220;Connect to the Internet, and play a game with your friends!&#8221; said one, waving its little ball-hand. &#8220;What should I play today?&#8221; asked another, facing no one in particular. &#8220;You never know what you&#8217;ll find until you go online and see!&#8221; said a third, smiling and doing a little victory dance. Of course they&#8217;re just ersatz pals &#8212; cute little Nintendo robots designed to plug the system&#8217;s features and warm up the joint until I&#8217;m able to add actual friends of my own. (MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens) I was worried even these fake friends wouldn&#8217;t make it by Sunday. The Wii U&#8217;s online features were supposed to be ready a while ago, but Nintendo kept pushing the rollout back, right up to launch. My review unit could play games last week and that&#8217;s it. Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Miiverse, Internet browsing, Amazon Instant Video, Nintendo eShop &#8212; all unavailable until Nintendo deployed a massive zero-day update on Sunday that added them. Well, some of them anyway. Netflix, Miiverse, Internet browsing and Nintendo eShop are working at this point, but Hulu Plus, YouTube and Amazon Instant Video are missing in action. Tap their icons in the Wii U&#8217;s menu screen and you&#8217;ll see a note saying you need a software update &#8212; an update that&#8217;s coming no one knows when. What about TVii? Nintendo&#8217;s ballyhooed interactive live TV service was supposed to be one of the console&#8217;s crown jewels,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151634&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/19/wii-u-review-redux-nintendo-adds-miiverse-netflix-eshop-and-more/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-miiverse.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-miiverse.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-miiverse.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-miiverse</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/18/nintendo-wii-u-review-a-tale-of-two-screens/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/18/nintendo-wii-u-review-a-tale-of-two-screens/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Nov 2012 05:01:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Game Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews & Features]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151440</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a theory about Nintendo that goes something like this: Nintendo has the best IP in video gaming, the characters with the highest Q score. Mario, Wario, Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Pokémon, you name it. Add up all the Mario-themed games alone and you&#8217;ve got the bestselling video game franchise of all time. But that&#8217;s just part of the equation &#8212; call it the &#8220;apps&#8221; half, the one where leaping over barrels, butt-stomping bad guys and lighting torches to open doors is lingua franca in gaming-dom. The other half involves the way you interact with Nintendo&#8217;s characters, settings and design tropes. Call it the &#8220;interface&#8221; half. If you have an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, take a look at the controllers. We have Nintendo to thank for popularizing what&#8217;s there: the four-way d-pad (the Nintendo Entertainment System), the diamond configuration face buttons (the Super Nintendo), the thumbstick employed to navigate 3D worlds, trigger buttons and force feedback system (the Nintendo 64). For all the talk about missed opportunities &#8212; that Nintendo ought to take Mario and Co. multiplatform &#8212; you could argue Nintendo wouldn&#8217;t be Nintendo without its focus on how we play, as much as what we play. (MORE: Nintendo TVii: The Next Big Thing Isn’t Here Yet) Which brings us to the Wii U, Nintendo&#8217;s attempt to sneak what it calls &#8220;asymmetric gaming&#8221; &#8212; playing the same game from different perspectives &#8212; into our living rooms. Out of the box, the system doesn&#8217;t look so different &#8212; a 3.5-pound base station that could pass for a slightly longer, curvier Wii. Flip it around and you&#8217;ll spot its new HDMI port (better late than never). Plug in the Wii-style sensor bar, dust off your old Wii Remote or Balance Board and you&#8217;ll find everything syncs and works just as it did before. Slide a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U into the slot-load optical drive and you&#8217;ll discover what it&#8217;s like to play a Mario sidescroller in stunning high-definition for the very first time. But the showpiece this time<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151440&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/18/nintendo-wii-u-review-a-tale-of-two-screens/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/wii-u-nintendo.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">wii-u-nintendo</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo TVii: The Next Big Thing Isn&#8217;t Here Yet</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-tvii-the-next-big-thing-isnt-here-yet/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-tvii-the-next-big-thing-isnt-here-yet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:45:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Harry McCracken</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Home Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technologizer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151569</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For this week&#8217;s dead-tree TIME issue, I had fun writing about Nintendo&#8217;s new Wii U game console, which hits stores on Sunday. (Subscribers can read the story here.) As the piece discusses, one of several notable things about the Wii U is that it&#8217;s Nintendo&#8217;s first stab at creating a console for the modern era of gaming and entertainment &#8212; the one in which people play games on plenty of devices which aren&#8217;t consoles, and use consoles for plenty of things which aren&#8217;t gaming. The big new non-gaming feature is called Nintendo TVii, and it&#8217;s wildly ambitious: it melds live TV, TiVo recording and streaming video from Amazon, Hulu and Netflix, and lets you search and browse everything from the GamePad touchscreen controller. Basically, it reminds me of what Google TV tried to do. Except Google TV has failed to do it very well. With TVii, the concept gets another chance at success. It turns out, though, that the company needs a little more time. Two days before the Wii U&#8217;s debut, Nintendo has announced that the console&#8217;s streaming-video apps will arrive in the &#8220;coming weeks,&#8221; and that TVii will show up in December as a downloadable update. This isn&#8217;t a completely stunning development. My colleague Matt Peckham has a Wii U review unit, and it doesn&#8217;t have TVii, so we already knew that Nintendo was running into potential deadline danger. I remain hopeful that Nintendo TVii will live up to its potential: like Slate&#8217;s Chris Baker, I think it could be a big deal. (Here&#8217;s an opposing view from Fast Company&#8217;s Mark Wilson, who&#8217;s concerned about the feature&#8217;s button-laden design.) But right now, it&#8217;s not a reason to wrangle yourself one of the first Wii U units &#8212; which might be awfully tough in any event. Let&#8217;s wait and see how it looks when it shows up.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151569&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-tvii-the-next-big-thing-isnt-here-yet/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/nintendotvii.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/nintendotvii.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/nintendotvii.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Nintendo TVii</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/bcbb1f0eb75769461771734a70f25ed2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">hmccracken</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Nintendo Wii U: 15 Points to Consider Before Buying One</title>
		<link>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-wii-u-15-points-to-consider-before-buying-one/</link>
		<comments>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-wii-u-15-points-to-consider-before-buying-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:45:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Matt Peckham</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Game Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nintendo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews & Features]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://techland.time.com/?p=151292</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thinking about picking up a Wii U this Sunday, Nov. 18, when it goes on sale? Already have one preordered? Maybe you&#8217;re planning to brave the lines in hopes of lucking out? It&#8217;s not too late to change your mind, one way or the other. I&#8217;ve had a Wii U for the past week, and while I&#8217;m not allowed to tell you what I think about the system overall until Sunday, I&#8217;ve pulled together a list of points worth considering before you pull the trigger. It&#8217;s pre-sold out, everywhere. Really. Visit the website of any major retailer that carries video games and you&#8217;ll find the Wii U is either long gone or wasn&#8217;t being pre-sold in the first place. The only way to guarantee a system, day one, is to purchase through an auction site like eBay or through retailers that allow third-party sales like Amazon. It&#8217;s likely you&#8217;ll pay dearly if you do, of course &#8212; from $400 or $500 to upwards of $3,000. (MORE: Watch Out, Here Come the Wii U Vultures (Is Anyone Not Sold Out of the Wii U?)) You can always stand in line. Many retailers held units back to have on hand, day one, or simply didn&#8217;t offer pre-sales. You&#8217;ll want to check with your local stores for their launch day plans, but this is arguably the best route to nab a Wii U at launch if you didn&#8217;t preorder and don&#8217;t want to pay scalper prices. Nintendo says it should have plenty to go around. Not on day one, but Nintendo has publicly committed to having more Wii U units in stores during the first week than it did for the Wii six years ago, and it&#8217;s doubled down on that claim by stating it&#8217;ll replenish systems &#8220;much more frequently&#8221; during the holiday than it did for the Wii. The Wii U isn&#8217;t just a Wii plus a DS. It may look like a Wii plus a DS, and it clearly shares second-screen DNA with the DS, but it&#8217;s not a DS. The DS is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=techland.time.com&#038;blog=5290478&#038;post=151292&#038;subd=timenerdworld&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://techland.time.com/2012/11/16/nintendo-wii-u-15-points-to-consider-before-buying-one/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Video Games</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://techland.time.com/category/video-games-2/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/nintendowiiu2.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/nintendowiiu2.jpg?w=240" />
		<media:content url="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/nintendowiiu2.jpg?w=240" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Nintendo Wii U</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/13c760ad52f626fd6e40138d4c10e567?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">mattpeckham</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
