Nintendo revealed today that Miiverse - a social network of sorts for Wii U and 3DS - will be shutting down soon. Given Nintendo's eagerness to stop producing the Wii U once the launch of the Switch was imminent, we probably should have seen this coming next. The disappointing part for many players will be the fact that the Switch doesn't really have a Miiverse of its own, and may not ever have one.
While portable gaming devices have long been in existence, the Nintendo Switch sparked the imagination of many makers and modders. While some of those have resorted to replicating the experience using a Raspberry Pi as the base, modder Banjo Kazooie went down a road less trodden. What he did was to basically stuff an Intel Compute Stick inside the shell of a Wii U handheld to create a gaming PC you can take with you and play on almost anywhere.
If you read our review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you'd know that even though it's one of the best video games ever made, it isn't without its problems. The biggest problems come in the form of occasional frame drops, which happen more frequently when the Nintendo Switch is docked. The Wii U versions isn't safe from this either, so if you've played Breath of the Wild, there's a good chance you've experienced this problem.
The Nintendo Switch may be receiving mixed, though still mostly positive, reviews, its launch title, the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has mostly been earning accolades all around. Praised for its vast, open world, BotW allows gamers to solve a problem in the style they see fit. Sometimes preferring not to solve the problem at all, just speeding through the game from start to finish as fast as possible. Yes, it’s speedrun time and speedrunners are now boasting of being able to finish the game in little less than an hour.
This is it: after years of waiting, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild finally releases tomorrow. As expected, many of the reviews coming in today are positive, but that's par for the course for the Zelda series. The bigger question is whether or not Breath of the Wild can hold its own in a series that's home to such greats as A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and A Link Between Worlds.
If you're a Zelda fan, it's hard not to be excited about the incoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The release is so highly anticipated that it's won the distinction of being Game Informer's cover story for the month of March. With that cover story comes a handful of new images, which reveal some of the environments players will explore and a returning fan favorite character from previous games.
We've got a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to gawk at this morning. Not all of the content we see in this trailer is new, but there are few new shots lurking within. Really, it's just another look at a highly anticipated game, and what will be the Nintendo Switch game to have at launch.
We knew it was coming, but today Nintendo made it official: Wii U production has halted in Japan. Questions over the Wii U's fate caused quite a bit of confusion late last year, as reports of the Wii U's demise were initially met with a Nintendo statement that claimed Wii U production would continue. Just a week after that, however, notices that said the Wii U would soon be exiting production began appearing on Nintendo Japan's website.
If the writing wasn't already on the wall, it is now: Nintendo has revealed what its final game for the Wii U will be. Given Nintendo's own announcement that it will be ending Wii U production in Japan, the fact that it won't support the console with much more first-party software isn't really a shocker. Still, it's further indication that the end is closing in for the Wii U.
With the Nintendo Switch on the horizon, many people will tell you that the console needs a strong launch library out of the gate if it wants to succeed. They're right, of course, but I also think there's a segment that could have a great effect on whether the Switch sinks or swims: retro games. Nintendo's Virtual Console has been around since the Wii, and the Switch will almost certainly have a Virtual Console of its own. While perfecting the Virtual Console may not be as important as a deep and varied games catalog, it still needs to be a key area of focus if the Switch wants to succeed.
Poor Wii U owners didn't have much in way of new games to play over the holidays, but the arrival of Mario Kart 64 on the Virtual Console changes things a bit. Widely regarded as one of the best Nintendo 64 games ever made, there's a good chance that many Wii U owners have a lot of fond memories with this game. You can relive those memories without having to plug in a Nintendo 64 by paying $10, or a discounted rate of $2 if you owned it through the Wii's Virtual Console.
Indie PC hit Stardew Valley will be launching on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 before the year is out, developer ConcernedApe has announced. The console versions were announced shortly after the game launched on PC back in February, but initially, no official timetable was given for release. Now we know that Stardew Valley will land on PS4 on December 13, launching on Xbox One the day after.
