Topic: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

[Anth0ny]

 GameStop NA Wii U Promotion Officially Begins August 13th

Images of a GameStop Wii U advertisement have been circulating the internet today, and we now have confirmation of the “official” plans for the promotion. Since I have good relations with GameStop management, I can confirm that these are official Nintendo-made advertisements that are intended to go on display in GameStop stores on August 13th (though some stores may obviously have put theirs up early).
 
 I can also confirm that there is currently no SKU in the GameStop system for a Wii U pre-order, but I’m told it is likely that pre-orders will begin the same day or shortly after. With in-store advertising and official pre-orders just around the corner, it seems as though we’ve gotten our first sign that Nintendo will soon release the big news we’ve all been waiting for: Wii U’s price, release date, and other official launch details.

Source: http://gengame.net/2012/08/gamestop-na-wii-u-promotion-officially-begins-august-13th/


Can we expect a surprise Nintendo Direct on August 13th? I kinda doubt it since it's pre 3DS XL launch in North America, but we'll see.

[tendoboy1984]

I think the next Nintendo Direct will be broadcast about 1 week after NSMB2 and the 3DS XL have launched. That will give those products some time to be in the spotlight before Nintendo hypes up the Wii U launch.

[Luigi Dude]

Since Nintendo will probably have their big Wii U conference in September, I doubt we'll get another Nintendo Direct until after that.  Nintendo's going to wait until they have a big audience with the media at their September conference to finally reveal the price and release date for the Wii U as well as reveal more games coming out on the system.

If we do get a Nintendo Direct this month it'll just be for upcoming 3DS games coming out this Fall since the September conference will probably be all about the Wii U so they might want to get 3DS info out of the way before that.  That's the only way I see a Nintendo Direct happening before the big conference.

[Kytim89]

Resident Evil 6 will be announced as a Wii U launch title. Capcom has had more than enough time to port it over and tack in motion controls. If this happens then I will buy the Wii U for sure.

[Kairon]

Resident Evil 6 will be announced as a Wii U launch title. Capcom has had more than enough time to port it over and tack in motion controls. If this happens then I will buy the Wii U for sure.

I'll only believe it if Caterkiller tells me to.

[MysticGohan]

Caterkiller, please tell him! Make it up if you have to, just because he'll listen to you lol.

[shingi_70]

Glad Nintendo didn't get in bed with EA. One of the biggest mistakes Microsoft ever made was getting rid of the XSN sports games and letting EA use their own servers instead of Microsoft's. Probably the biggest thing I dislike about pan and hopefully the Wii U nonlinear system isn't like that. Rather have nintendo handle all that but like Sony that probably wont happen.

[Caterkiller]

Hahaha, you guys are silly.

When BlackNMild was in town we talked about RE6 every day. If I remember correctly when he was talking with people behind the scenes at E3 the prospect of it coming to Wii U was discussed, but nothing confirmed.

My bet? It will come out for Wii U. Only a guess though.

[MysticGohan]

Hahaha, you guys are silly.

When BlackNMild was in town we talked about RE6 every day. If I remember correctly when he was talking with people behind the scenes at E3 the prospect of it coming to Wii U was discussed, but nothing confirmed.

My bet? It will come out for Wii U. Only a guess though.

That's an almost Semi-Confirmed RE6 coming to Wii U straight from Cata

[BlkPaladin]

For those who are wondering about the possible achievement/trophy system the WiiU has optionally in place. I guess Ubisoft hinted at it plans in the GamesCon promo videos for Rabbid Land and and Sports Connection. In Sports Connection it is a corny display but if you watch the couch in the Rabbid's trailer there are a pile of trophies that slowly build up on the right.

Sports Connection Vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GGFFkWZ-tWU

Rabbids Land:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SzU8MJRULOY

EDIT: ok they work.

[Mannypon]

That sports connection actually doesn't look too bad.  If its anything like wii sports and provides me with more than just 18 holes of golf and online play, I'm there.  I loved wii sports golf and only wished there were more holes and online tournaments. 

[BlkPaladin]

Here is soemthing else from GamesCon it seem the title Cars will have what they are calling Wii U accomplishments and are on the same chart as the 360's game score and PS3 trophies.

http://mynintendonews.com/2012/08/16/wii-u-to-have-achievement-system-called-wii-u-accomplishments/#comment-282255

[TJ Spyke]

I think every multiplatform Wii U game will have these since the developer already put the effort in to create them for the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 versions. Platform exclusive games might not always since the rumor was Nintendo would make it optional. I love achievements, so I hope this is true.

[BlkPaladin]

Well it is my conjecture seeing these three things that each game that supports it will give you some short of trinkets for the various accomplishments in the game. For example: Sport Connection trophies look a little like Heismans and the ones in the Rabbids look like gold cups with a R forged in them.

And you can pick and choose which ones you want to display in the MiiVerse, much like the trophy system on the PS3, and they will be handled in the simular way to what the Mii's do on the 3DS greet the person say something about them and show their accomplishments.

[Louieturkey]

Will Nintendo put this accomplishment system on the 3DS as well?  It seems like it'd be a good idea.

[Caterkiller]

If these accomplishments are a part of the Miiverse system, I think once it hits the 3DS the street pass accomplishments will get expanded into future titles.

[Evan_B]

I hope that the 3DS gets accomplishments. I'm a little upset Kid Icarus' rewards system isn't something I can show off...

But, wouldn't this technically apply to the Nintendo Network and Miiverse? If you can link your 3DS to Miiverse, I don't see why 3DS accomplishments shouldn't be recorded.

[Chozo Ghost]

Integrated Circle Pads and an Accomplishments system are two things Nintendo needs to put into the 3DS ASAP.

[Evan_B]

Integrated Circle Pads and an Accomplishments system are two things Nintendo needs to put into the 3DS ASAP.

The latter, perhaps. But not the former.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Wii U Pre E3 Spec Leak Confirmed!?

What leak is he talking about? Well, It's one I might not have posted about (I'll have to go back and look) as I was @ Caterkiller's house getting FREE Wushu lessons and using what I learned to avoid hollywood homeless and hookers on the street....

But these are the specs that were leased just prior to E3:
http://www.vgleaks.com/world-premiere-wii-u-specs/

Hardware Features

Main Application Processor

PowerPC architecture.
Three cores (fully coherent).
3MB aggregate L2 Cache size.
core 0: 512 KB
core 1: 2048 KB
core 2: 512 KB
Write gatherer per core.
Locked (L1d) cache DMA per core.


Main Memory

Up to 3GB of main memory (CAT-DEVs only). Note: retail machine will have half devkit memory
Please note that the quantity of memory available from the Cafe SDK and Operating System may vary.
Graphics and Video


Modern unified shader architecture.
32MB high-bandwidth eDRAM, supports 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass.
HDMI and component video outputs.
Features

Unified shader architecture executes vertex, geometry, and pixel shaders
Multi-sample anti-aliasing (2, 4, or 8 samples per pixel)
Read from multi-sample surfaces in the shader
128-bit floating point HDR texture filtering
High resolution texture support (up to 8192 x 8192)
Indexed cube map arrays


8 render targets
Independent blend modes per render target
Pixel coverage sample masking
Hierarchical Z/stencil buffer
Early Z test and Fast Z Clear
Lossless Z & stencil compression
2x/4x/8x/16x high quality adaptive anisotropic filtering modes
sRGB filtering (gamma/degamma)
Tessellation unit
Stream out support
Compute shader support
GX2 is a 3D graphics API for the Nintendo Wii U system (also known as Cafe). The API is designed to be as efficient as GX(1) from the Nintendo GameCube and Wii systems. Current features are modeled after OpenGL and the AMD r7xx series of graphics processors. Wii U’s graphics processor is referred to as GPU7.


Sound and Audio

Dedicated 120MHz audio DSP.
Support for 6 channel discrete uncompressed audio (via HDMI).
2 channel audio for the Cafe DRC controller.
Monaural audio for the Cafe Remote controller.


Networking

802.11 b/g/n Wifi.
Peripherals

2 x USB 2.0 host controllers x 2 ports each.
SDCard Slot.
Built-in Storage

512MB SLC NAND for System.
8GB MLC NAND for Applications.
Host PC Bridge

Dedicated Cafe-to-host PC bridge hardware.
Allows File System emulation by host PC.
Provides interface for debugger and logging to host PC.

Just remember that some of these specs can still change at the last minute, such as the final amount of RAM in the system, which is rumored to be upto 2GB (not including the separate OS mem?).

[ThePerm]

i really need to plan a trip to hang out with caterkiller hahah, or plan a trip to get him to come over here.

[Enner]

2 USB ports? Ah, I guess that's enough as the most you'll want is a USB HDD and maybe either a keyboard or a USB LAN adapter.

The AMD r7xx series means the Wii U will sport similar graphics tech that I got nearly 4 years ago for my desktop PC. The Wii U will probably perform better than the Diamond video card I bought on impulse.

[ShyGuy]

Unfortunately that still doesn't give us clock speeds.

[ShyGuy]

two USB controllers with two ports each, for four ports total.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Unfortunately that still doesn't give us clock speeds.

Clock speeds and RAM amounts are the last things to get locked down. They can tweak those right up till the final stages pre actual production