Today Nintendo held a small conference announcement presentation. Nintendo calls its ‘Nintendo Direct’ and they have been doing these internet live stream presentations for quite some time now. It’s basically an hour-long presentation on news about new and upcoming software and, well, news.
So, what’s new?! Well the conferences differ depending on region, for example if you live over in Japan the presentation is hosted by Satoru Iwata (President of Nintendo) whereas over the pond in the USA the presentation is hosted by no other than Reggie Fils-Amie, and here in UK/Europe Satoru Shibita is the host. Of course depending on the region you live in depends on what is shown in each direct conference since different regions differ on software line ups, release schedules, currency etc. So having a presentation hosted for each region is a nice gesture.
Since I live in the UK I’ll be talking about the news that was announced for us.
The presentation started on with some ‘Lego City: Undercover‘ gameplay, with Satoru Shibata commentating over gameplay mechanics and features. He announced that the game will be releasing “early 2013” and there will be Lego sets which will contain redeemable codes for the game (nice touch). Next to show was a trailer of the beautiful looking ‘Pikmin 3‘, the trailer didn’t exactly show us anything new but it most definitely showed off the glorious HD visuals and how far the game has come in development, the game has been put down for the second quarter of 2013.
One of the biggest announcements was a piece of software called ‘Wii U Panorama View‘. Essentially this app is a virtual guide, usable to guide the user through many of the worlds most famous landmarks using the Gamepad.
Another big announcement was the showing of Google maps running on the Wii U, it was announced that the application will launch in January of next year and will be free until March 2013. Nintendo did not specify pricing of the app from after March.
There was quite a few announcements today so to make it easier I’ve listed the others below:
‘Scibblenauts: Unlimited‘ is due for release on February 8th
‘Luigi’s Mansion 2‘ is scheduled for March 2013
‘Animal Crossing’ for the 3DS is down for Q2 2013
‘Fire Emblem‘ 3DS is down for April 2013
… and the newly announced ‘Brain Training 3D‘ has been announced for March 8th
All in all a nice direct conference, most of the games have been listed with estimated release dates, though it’s just nice to hear about them, even if we don’t have an exact date for release.
Did you watch today’s Nintendo’s Direct? Which games are you looking forward to? Let us know in the comments below.