Nintendo President Satoru Iwata recently made several announcements about the future of the company’s latest gaming console, the Wii U. In the latest Nintendo Direct video, an exclusive broadcast of the latest Nintendo news, Iwata described game franchises that longtime players will recognize and new players can also enjoy. These games will take advantage of the second screen on the Wii U’s GamePad controller, giving players a brand new playing experience.
No stranger to Nintendo, there will be two new Mario games – one will be a 3D Mario action game and the other will be a new installment of Mario Kart. This Mario Kart is planned to be playable at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June.
The team behind Kirby’s Epic Yarn (for Wii) is working on a similar game, except this time with Yoshi. The game, titled Yarn Yoshi, will be the first game with Yoshi as the main character since Yoshi’s Story released in 1998 for Nintendo 64. This game will be set in a world of yarn, fabric and textiles.
Eiji Aonuma, producer of The Legend of Zelda series, revealed that there would be two new Zelda games for the Wii U. Later this year, there will be an HD remake of Wind Waker, originally released in 2002 on the Nintendo GameCube.
Other game announcements include Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, a new game from Monolith Soft, a new Wii Party, and new features added to Wii Fit U.
Iwata also announced that a spring system update would add the Virtual Console software to the Wii U’s Nintendo eShop. Virtual Console will allow players to download and play classic Nintendo games (for consoles such as the NES, Super NES and Game Boy Advance) on the Wii U. One classic game will also be available for 30 cents from now until July in the Nintendo eShop for Wii U in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the NES.
There will be two major system updates, one in spring and one in summer. Nintendo also plans to make the Miiverse software go mobile and let users browse from their smart phones.
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