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What an odd week it’s been. The Wii U finally hit UK stores today, but news of the forgotten Wii being re-released in a smaller, sexier form has seen Nintendo’s hardcore squelching through more moisturiser than frustrated boys watching I’m a Celebrity. The Wii Mini is available exclusively in Canada – for this year at least – and jokes aside does look pretty cool. What a shame the unit doesn’t support internet services such as WiiWare and Virtual Console.
Nintendo revealed it sold 400,000 Wii U consoles during its first week in the US, but the figure was easily trumped by PS3’s 525,000 units and Xbox 360’s 750,000 units.
Nintendo is ready for the fight though, with Reggie ‘Crazy Fils(mewithjoy)-Aime telling rivals that to compete they’ll have to do more than create amazing visuals. I don’t know about that Reggie. This generation is getting pretty old in the tooth now, and I’d argue there are plenty of gamers ready to lay down £300 for a significant visual leap – let’s just hope Microsoft and Sony can deliver.
And if rumours are true we won’t have to wait long to find out what MS and Sony have been up to, with the always correct Michael Pachter stating the PS4 will be released in October or November 2013, which coincidentally is the same date that insiders have pinned on the next Xbox.
The week, as always, began with a chart update, which revealed Black Ops 2 to be too strong for Hitman: Absolution, despite the Marmite entry in the second most popular assassin franchise selling almost three times as many copies at launch than Blood Money. Black Ops 2 also managed to top the Xbox LIVE chart and shift more than 200,000 copies in Japan, which is considerably more than Black Ops 1 managed.
GTA 5 may have kept itself out of the headlines, but Rockstar was busy announcing that the franchise as a whole has now shipped over 125 million units worldwide, a milestone it says may never have been reached had it opted to annualise the franchise.
Elsewhere Ubisoft decided to agree with EA and declare the end of a console cycle a bad place to launch new IP, pretty much just as Bethesda was shouting about how amazingly successful new IP Dishonored has proven to be. It remains to be seen if Bungie’s new IP, Destiny, will come to this generation, but leaked details certainly suggest a lot of promise. Likewise, there’s a lot expected from Microsoft’s Black Tusk Studio, which has been tasked with making the firm’s next big entertainment franchise – think Halo, not Dance Central.
Be sure to listen to the latest hilarious edition of The VideoGamer.com Podcast which is packed full of stories from Tom’s time in Mexico. Once you’re done with that – or before if you like it that way – check out the 10th and final episode of Disc Lickers.
Look out for something very exciting next week, when I’ll republish this article, only in miniature and with fewer words.
