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A week has passed and for once it hasn’t been dominated by GTA 5. In fact, after a fortnight of rockstar-level mayhem, the upcoming open-worlder has been as quiet as a mouse – besides giving a glimmer of hope to PC and Wii U fans. Instead it was Nintendo’s turn to dominate the headlines, although there’s plenty the Big N would have gladly done without.
The Wii U launched in the US last Sunday, but the console was never going to be given an easy ride. This week there have been reports of overloaded servers causing the day one system update to download so slowly that users turned off their HD Wii mid-update, creating a $300 door stop in the process.
The bad press continued when it was confirmed that Nintendo Network IDs were tied to the original system and unable to be moved around to other Wii Us. Then came news of a Wii U hack, although this turned out to be much less damaging than it sounded, followed by a couple of devs kicking the console while it was down. First, Metro developer 4A Games said the Wii U CPU is horrible and slow, and then a DICE programmer took to Twitter to state that the Wii U is likely to have a shortened lifespan because of it.
There has, however, been some positive headlines for Nintendo to enjoy. Contrary to what Nintendo told us, the Wii U can use SD cards to store and play games, but only when using a cheap adapter. Nintendo also looks likely to be less cash-strapped than previously believed, after the Regginator revealed that the firm will make a profit from new buyers once they purchase a single software title. And things can’t be all that bad when 5.5 million units are expected to be sold by the end of March 2013.
With the UK launch just one week away, Nintendo finalised the line-up of day one titles, with all 24 available to buy at the official midnight launch taking place at HMV’s Oxford Street store. Be one of the first 100 people in the queue and you’ll get two free games.
Besides Wii U, there were a few other events from this week worth taking another look at. Black Ops 2 shot to the top of the chart but didn’t sell as many units as Modern Warfare 2, 3 or Black Ops 1. And Treyarch decided that it would anger the majority of the game’s player base by unceremoniously removing the Nuketown 2025 playlist – something many people (including Martin) thought was one of the dumbest decisions anyone has made in 2012. Thankfully the map was restored via a new playlist, but not before gamers got super cross and posted harsh words on Twitter and forums.
Peter Molyneux and 22Cans announced a re-invention of Populous, asking for £450,000 to create GODUS – but the timing could have been better. The studio and Moyneux have been receiving a lot of flack over the troubled Curiosity launch, so much so that there’s even a possibility the new Kickstarter project won’t be a success and a publisher may have to be approached.
Other stuff this week includes Star Citizen raising $6.23 million, THQ’s future looking even more bleak, Just Cause’s dev abandoning the current generation for the next, and Angry Birds pop proving more popular than Coca Cola.
The final major game release of 2012 was reviewed this week, and it turned out to be a good’n – Far Cry 3 laid down the Game of the Year Gauntlet earning a very impressive 9/10. Also reviewed this week were Hitman: Absolution, LEGO The Lord of the Rings, PlayStation All-Stars, and The Walking Dead: Episode 5.
That’s pretty much me done. Remember to listen to the podcast and also watch the latest episode of Disc Lickers.
I’m off to spend the evening hovering my mouse over the latest Amazon Black Friday Lightning Deals in the hope of securing a Swarovski Crystal Cat Collar.
