Each week in Download Code, Daniel Kaszor looks inside the business of video games with news, analysis and a peek at the week’s major releases.

Last week I got a chance to try some of the games on Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s new WiiU console which is set to launch this fall. Here are six things I think you need to know after my hands-on experience.

1.The WiiU isn’t just a new controller for the Wii. It’s a brand new console with much higher graphical fidelity than the Wii and looks good on your HD television .

What it isn’t, though, is especially more powerful than either the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3, both of which have been on the market for more than half a decade. That said, the WiiU will give you a lot more visual bang for your buck than your old Wii, and this is the first time that many classic Nintendo characters such as Mario appear in HD.

2. The controller works really well, but feels a bit flimsy sometimes.

The WiiU’s controller is the core new experience from the console. It’s essentially a regular game controller with a touch screen in the middle. The controller itself isn’t a game system — all of the graphics that appear on the touchscreen are being beamed wirelessly from the WiiU — but there isn’t any delay from the transmission between the controller and the main console. However, the screen may not be quite up to par with what you’re used to seeing on your iPhone or Android phone. It uses an older form of touch technology (the same used on the portable DS) and not the glass screens of modern smartphones. This is probably a measure so that the console isn’t too expensive out of the box.

3. Asymmetrical social gaming is a staple of the WiiU gameplay .

Nintendo is really selling the idea of social gaming; not “social” as in selling virtual pigs on Facebook, but rather people getting together in a living room together to play a game. The addition of the second screen on the touch gamepad means you can have experiences where one player is interacting with the game in a very different way than the rest of the players. The best examples of this at the event were some of the NintendoLand mini-games, particularly one where the gamepad player played as a ghost chasing the other players. Another highlight in this same vein was Rayman Legends , where one player could play the game as a traditional platformer, while the other could help the first player out by using the touch screen.

4. All of your old Wii controllers work with the new system, and it’s unclear exactly what’s going to be in the box when the WiiU ships .

Wii remotes work perfectly well with the new WiiU. In fact, some games, such as NintendoLand , are best with four Wii controllers and a gamepad for a five player experience. At this point though, it’s unclear exactly what will be in the box with the WiiU. The Nintendo representative at the event indicated that key details, including what comes packed in with the WiiU and how much it will cost, are still up in the air. It will certainly ship with the touchscreen gamepad, and it’s possible — but nowhere near certain — there will be a pack-in game (likely NintendoLand ). Less likely, but still possible, is the chance that the system will also come with a standard Wii remote. It’s notable that at the event, the Wii remote sensor bars on hand were actually from Wiis, not WiiUs.

5. The coolest looking game at the event was not in Nintendo’s E3 press conference .

Project P-1oo is a game where you control a team of superheroes all at once. Making simple gestures on the touch pad arranges them together for specific attacks. It all works surprisingly well, it’s something you can’t do on any other system, and it’s something pretty much anyone can figure out after a few gestures.

6. Despite all this cool stuff, the WiiU’s future is still murky .

The thing hanging over the WiiU is that in a year or so Sony and Microsoft will release brand new consoles and — since it’s based on seven-year-old technological benchmarks — the WiiU may be left in the dust. It’s entirely possible that the same thing that happened with the Wii — namely support for the system among third party developers dropping away — will happen with the WiiU. However, even if the system only lasts a year or two, I think there will likely be enough cool experiences to warrant trying it out.

BONUS: You can’t tell from most of the official pictures of the WiiU, but it is much much longer than the Wii. Seriously, it’s like it was stretched like taffy.

Xenoblade Chronicles is the first truly fresh Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG) to come out in almost six years. And to think, it almost didn’t get released in North America.

It hasn’t been a good console generation for JRPGs. A few games, such as Lost Odyssey and Dragon Quest IX provided enjoyable flashbacks to the genre’s lost glory, but there were few bright lights that didn’t feel like a throwbacks*. And the biggest, flagship JRPGs — namely Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 — made it feel as if the genre’s conventions simply weren’t able to sustain a game anymore.

It’s in that environment Xenoblade appears, a game that feels on the one hand modern, playable, fun and expansive while on the other hand firmly tied into tradition of story-driven, linear JRPGs that a generation grew up playing in the 1990s and early 2000s.

[np-related]

That the game comes is exclusive to the Wii, a system based around almost 10-year-old hardware, and not known for anything overly complex, just goes to show that good game design is more a product of a developer and less a function of what a console is capable of on a technical level.

My praise for Xenoblade starts with its story and scenario: The game takes place on a world where all that exists is an endless ocean and two giant gods locked in endless battle. Eventually the gods kill each other and entire human societies grow on their corpses. From there, we follow the story of a rag-tag group of human heroes who live on the first god, the Bionis, on a quest to battle the robotic denizens of the other god, the Mechonis. The character interaction, while not at the level of something like Mass Effect 3 , certainly towers over the irritating and anger inducing protagonists at the heart of the two Final Fantasy XIII games. The story mildly reminded me, at least tonally, of a slightly more serious version of Avatar: The Last Airbender .

Of course, story is only the beginning of with a JRPG. What makes Xenoblade stand out is how the world feels huge and alive. Each zone offers an open and expansive world to explore. Gone are the small and relatively linear areas from past genre games, instead Xenoblade offers up vast plains and huge caves. In that way, it’s slightly reminiscent of last year’s Skyrim , but the gameplay is more directed here. You never get the feeling that you can do anything, but that none of it means anything, like you sometimes do in the American game.

The vastness of each of these zones doesn’t just come from their size. Each location is filled to the brim with dozens of different types of creatures each inhabiting the world in an organic way. Some of the little monsters attack you on sight, but many of them just let you go about your business and only give you grief if you start a fight with them.

Part of this is because of the structure: Each major zone offers a core set of story missions to do, while also offering a set of side quests to complete at your leisure. If you just want to rush through the game, that option is open to you (though it may make things a bit harder), or if you want to explore, there are plenty of things for you to find and do. In a way, the structure is lightly like a Massively Multiplayer RPG such as World of Warcraft , but single player. However, unlike other attempts to produce games in that manner, such as with the recent Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning , Xenoblade merges the tradition of a single player RPG with wide open worlds into something that feels natural; it feels more like a single-player game that cherry-picked the best aspects of an MMO (namely the scope and some of the quest structure) without sacrificing the strong story-driven narrative that’s at the heart of the genre**.

This success really falls on the back of Tetsuya Takahashi and his team at Monolith Soft. Takahashi lead the development of two other franchises before now, Xenogears and Xenosaga , and what’s impressive is how he seems to have gotten over some of his artistic quirks in making Xenoblade ( Xenoblade is not related to the other two games except for the Takahashi’s involvement). Gone are the tortured heroes, sometimes obtuse philosophical ramblings and interesting but tedious battle systems. Still there are the expansive world building and flare for epic storytelling.

Which isn’t to say that Xenoblade is perfect. The battle system, a frantic real-time affair, is hard to grasp without playing for a few hours, and the game throws you into it right away. The questing system would probably have been more fun if it mapped out your objectives, slightly more; sometimes hunting around for a particular monster takes a lot of time. The game, clocking in between 60 and 80 hours, is perhaps too long for some.

The graphics, on the other hand, are gorgeous, and not just for a Wii game. If you took Xenoblade and increased its resolution it would look perfectly at home on the PS3 or Xbox 360 with no other upgrades.

Of course, the fact that the game is on Wii means it inherited other problems, namely it almost didn’t come out here. This is partially due to how much the influence JRPG has shrunk in North America since Final Fantasy VII galloped into the mainstream in 1997 and partially due to how much the core gaming audience has abandoned the Wii.

In fact, it would be unlikely that Xenoblade would have ever made it out here were it not for the loud and persuasive Operation Rainfall : an initiative that saw fans putting money down on a long abandoned Amazon.com pre-order placeholder page, basically showing Nintendo that releasing the game would be worth their time.

Unlike so past fan campaigns which have rallied around titles of questionable quality, Xenoblade feels like the effort was worth it. It’s the kind of game that anyone who loved JRPGs in the past should buy and it might even convince some people who think the JRPGs are tired and hokey.

It proves the genre and the Wii aren’t quite dead yet.

—

Optional Content (if you want to complete your questlog, read these nerdy footnotes)

* You could make the argument that there are two exceptions to this other than Xenoblade : Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls and Monster Hunter .

I exclude the “Souls” games because while they are unarguably innovative, fresh and different, I feel almost none of the JRPG DNA in those games; they feel like their own freaky and different thing. That may be an arbitrary distinction, but I would find it hard to recommendation a Souls game to someone just because they like other JRPGs. They might like it, but there would be very little connection between the experiences. It would be like someone asking for a better tasting orange and me giving them a steak.

As for Monster Hunter , the argument can be made that it does move the genre forward, but the games have found little penetration outside of Japan, mostly for their insistence on local, non-online multiplayer. So, again, it fails the recommendation test in my mind. Monster Hunter could, still, break out here, though.

** In many ways, Xenoblade succeeded experimenting with the same concepts that 2006’s Final Fantasy XII struggled with, namely taking the strengths of MMOs and moving them to a JRPG. For all that FFXII succeeded in creating an interesting skeleton for further development, it alienated a lot of traditional JRPG players. Xenoblade doesn’t feel nearly as alienating in that way. (For clarity, Final Fantasy XII and XIII are, of course, two separate games that are totally different from each other that came out five years apart on different generations of systems. Where FFXII was flawed but interesting, FFXIII was flawed and aggravating.)

By Patrick O’Rourke

Rhythm Heaven Fever is absolutely bizarre.

One of the last major Wii releases, it’s the kind of game that only appeals to a very specific audience. It’s quirky, interesting, and at times also amazingly unforgiving and frustrating.

The game features over 50 rhythm related mini games. For the most part, these games are all relatively ridiculous and feature extremely cute characterized animals, occasionally catchy retro video game music and impossibly difficult rhythm tasks. Some of these mini games are entertaining but there are many that feel like they are almost impossible to complete. I personally commend anyone that’s able to get past the game that forces you to high five cute monkeys on a clock to an impossible beat.

Rhythm Heaven Fever also just might be one of the simplest games I’ve ever played. Every single mini game is controlled by pressing either the Wiimote’s A or B button to the beat of animation and music. Occasionally to spice things up, you’ll have to press both buttons at the same time. Some harder mini games feature alternating beats that seem to require having some sort of formal musical knowledge (otherwise I have no idea how anyone could possible complete them).

At times, having the ability to feel the game’s music is extremely important and some games are impossible to complete if you don’t have this ability. Following auditory and visual cues is also essential to being successful in Rhythm Heaven Fever’s later extremely difficult levels. When a mini game is completed (sometimes this isn’t an easy task) and a required score is achieved, a new game is unlocked.

In many ways, these mini games seem ridiculous, but that’s also part of the game’s charm. For example, one game has you pressing A in time with two monkeys who are continually throwing golf balls at your character. You need to make your character swing his golf club in time with the golf balls. This might sound easy, but it isn’t. In another mini game, your character is sitting on a park bench on a date. All of a sudden soccer balls, footballs and basketballs start bouncing past and you are informed that you need to press A every time a ball zooms past your foot. If you fail, your date leaves the park bench unsatisfied. Neither of these mini games makes sense. They’re crazy, but that’s also why they are so fun.

Figuring out each mini-game’s cadence and beat is Rhythm Heaven Fever’s greatest challenge and at times it becomes ridiculously frustrating. The short tutorial before each mini game starts, often isn’t enough to understand that particular game’s rhythm. When you finally do figure out a game’s beat, Rhythm Heaven Fever becomes a lot of fun.

The title’s art style is colourful and clean, making it stand out from darker grittier music and rhythm based titles like Guitar Hero or Rockband. Graphically, Rhythm Heaven Fever is very simple, but its distinct art direction works in the title’s favour. It adds to the game’s overall quirky feel.

The game also features a multiplayer mode that allows two people to play through the game’s various titles’ mini games. In this mode, bonus points are awarded for how in sync the two players are over the course of the game.

The big problem is that it’s not really much of a comprehensive video game in the traditional sense. It’s more of a collection of various rhythm fueled strange mini-games and the kind of title you might find in the Android or iPhone appstore. This makes justifying the title’s $29.99 budget price a little difficult. In the end, Rhythm Heaven Fever offers unique experience and I’ve never played a game quite like it.

Follow @Patrick_ORourke
//

Each Tuesday in Download Code, Daniel Kaszor looks inside the business of video games with news, analysis and a peek at the week’s major releases.

It’s been more than six years since Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 kicked off the current generation of home video-game consoles, but to date we have heard an unprecedentedly small number of details about the next generation of console technology.

To put it in perspective, six years after Sony Corp’s Playstation 2 was released in 2000, the Xbox 360 had already been out for a year. As of right now, we know very little about any of the upcoming systems.

The reality is there are precious few details available about what the Big Three have on tap for gamers once the current generation of consoles are ready for the scrap heap. Here’s what we do know:

Nintendo

What’s known?
Nintendo unveiled its WiiU console at last year’s E3 conference, and it was met with both interest and confusion. The new system will be slightly more powerful than the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and will use a controller that integrates both the control functionality of a traditional video-game controller and an iPad-sized touch screen. Games can be streamed to the touch screen from the main console, but the controller must be in local wireless range to the main console for this to work.

When will we know more?
I predict Nintendo will hammer out a better way of communicating what the hardware will look like at the E3 tradeshow in the sumemr. Also, look for the form factor to be slightly refined and rethought (Nintendo did this with the Nintendo DS after debuting it). Nintendo will likely announce a release date at E3.

When will it come out?
Likely holiday 2012. It’s rare for a console to be announced more than two years before its release date, and the WiiU will have a hardware advantage over the 360 and the PS3, but will likely look technologically inferior to whatever followups Microsoft and Sony create. The longer the WiiU gets to play as the technological king, the better for Nintendo. If it does slip past 2012, expect Nintendo to tinker with the insides a bit to give it more of a fighting chance against the new Playstation and Xbox

Microsoft

What’s known?
Not much. Microsoft didn’t announce anything on the Xbox 360 until a week before E3 2005, a mere four-and-a-half months before the console hit store shelves. If Microsoft is indeed working on a new Xbox, don’t expect the company to say anything about it until the E3 the year of the launch. That said, there are a few key rumours: most prominently that the machine will be a huge step up in power over this generation of consoles and it will more tightly integrate the Kinect sensor. Additionally, it’s strongly rumoured that the next Xbox will integrate tightly with Windows 8.

When will we know more?
We will probably hear something more this E3, but nothing official until right before it’s ready for prime time.

When will it come out?
A few months ago I would have bet on 2012, but with the addition of the Kinect, Microsoft has had an amazing year with Xbox 360 hardware. In fact, by most estimates the company sold more this year than any year to date. Microsoft is likely hesitant to cannibalize the hot Xbox 360 market with more expensive hardware. That said, Microsoft understands the advantage of hitting the market first (the 360 came out a year ahead of the PS3 and Wii), and would probably not want to cede too much advantage to Sony or Nintendo by holding off too long. I would say to expect the hardware in fall 2013, although this date is probably the most fluid. Microsoft has the R&D and the money to change this date as the market dictates.

Sony

What do we know?
Next to nothing. The best that can be surmised is that Sony has learned its lesson from the PS3 and won’t make the machine with difficult to produce proprietary parts and will look for cheaper, off-the-shelf alternatives like they did with the Playstation Vita.

When will we know more?
If the plan is to release the hardware in 2013, then probably at this year’s E3. If the plan is to release it later, then an announcement might slip to next year.

When will it come out?
This one is the toughest to figure out. Sony really wants to make money off of the mature PS3 hardware, which is significantly cheaper to produce than any new system would be. Sony will also have to dedicate most of 2012 and early 2013 to supporting the launch of the portable Playstation Vita platform. My best guess would be that the next Playstation won’t arrive until 2014, but Sony may push the system to come out in 2013 to get the jump on Microsoft, as Sony also understands the boon of getting to market first (the PS2 benefited much from coming out a year ahead of the first Xbox and Gamecube). I would say 2014 most likely, with 2013 as a more remote possibility.

Major Releases this week :
There are no major releases this week.

Each Tuesday in Download Code, Daniel Kaszor looks inside the business of video games with news, analysis and a peek at the week’s major releases.

Going into this morning’s Spaceworld news conference in Japan, Nintendo Co. Ltd. was in a rocky place.

Just four months after releasing its new handheld gaming console, the 3DS, in the United States in March, the Japanese video game giant slashed the price by a whopping US$80, from US$250 to US$170.

As one might expect, the decision raised eyebrows across the gaming industry and angered many of the company’s most loyal fans who shelled out full price for the company’s latest handheld console.

By comparison, consider it took Nintendo almost three years to drop the price of its flagship Wii console by just $50. In that case, company president Satoru Iwata gave himself a 50% pay cut as a response, a clear acknowledgement from management that the system wasn’t catching on like they had hoped.

Then, just this past week, pictures of a new add on for the 3DS leaked in the Japanese games magazine Famitsu . The dock-like device added a second control stick to the handheld, some additional shoulder buttons and substantially increased the size of the 3DS.

Experts wondered: could Nintendo really be planning to overhaul the design of the 3DS before the device was even a year old?

Chatter on the internet exploded with theories that Nintendo might be prepping the market for a re-release of the 3DS, one with a second control stick. This klugey add-on was thought to be a way of placating early adopters, by turning their first-generation hardware into Franken-machines capable of handling new games that would require the second stick.

A few were even saying that an announcement of this new hardware was coming Tuesday at Nintendo’s Spaceworld conference, which would be an admission of failure for the 3DS.

But it didn’t happen.

At Spaceworld, Nintendo did not mention any new hardware. Instead, the company announced a barrage of games, including the surprise announcement that Capcom’s Monster Hunter 4 was coming to the 3DS.

Before this week, new numbered Monster Hunter games came out exclusively on Sony platforms, usually the PSP (PlayStation Portable) handheld.

It’s hard for a North American audience to appreciate how important this shift this is, but in Japan, Monster Hunter 4 coming to Nintendo is roughly the equivalent of the next Halo game breaking its Microsoft exclusivity and coming out on the Playstation 3. Except that Monster Hunter is far more important in Japan than Halo is in North America, with “MoHun” fans most likely having saved the PSP from oblivion.

Nintendo having the the game on its console is a huge win, just as it is a similarly huge blow to Sony and Sony’s upcoming next-generation handheld, the Vita. Although the Japanese gaming market is shrinking — both in real and relative terms — it still holds a key place in the success strategies of Japanese hardware manufacturers, especially in the handheld space. Many Japanese gamers (who live in smaller living spaces) prefer handhelds over the the full-sized home consoles such as the Playstation 3 or even the Wii.

Nintendo’s quick reaction to the 3DS’s underwhelming launch shows exactly how important the handheld space is to the company’s makeup. After ruling the video-game world in the 1980s and early 1990s with the original Nintendo Entertainment System, the company experienced diminishing returns and increased competition on each subsequent home console release until the Wii blew up in 2006.

Despite that, Nintendo was able to maintain profitability over many years where its better selling competitors were bleeding billions of dollars. This was primarily because Nintendo was able to leverage an absolute dominance over the handheld gaming market with the Gameboy and later the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.

In fact, it was likely the power of its handheld division that allowed Nintendo to take a risk with the creation of the Wii and its innovative motion control hardware.

So, the fact that Wii’s graphics appear decidedly dated next to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and that Wii sales are slumping is a much bigger deal than when Nintendo’s last console was entering its twilight years in 2005, since the 3DS isn’t nearly the same rock of profitability the Gameboy and DS were.

Which makes it clear why Nintendo has been so active at fiddling with the 3DS so soon after launch: if it wasn’t going to dominate the market, it needed to be tweaked, pushed and re-positioned until it was.

With a video-game console, success leads to more developers flocking to the system which leads to more success. Failure leads to fewer games, which leads to fewer hardware sales, which leads to fewer games.

Of course, Tuesday’s Monster Hunter announcement only does so much. Although this gives Nintendo a huge boost in Japan, and may cause a ripple effect of new, unrelated games made for the system from now-interested companies, Monster Hunter is a non-starter outside the island, and is fairly meaningless to North America.

Additionally, while this is a black eye to Sony, it’s arguable it isn’t actually Nintendo’s greatest competitor in the handheld space anymore.

Apple Inc. and the iOS platform have taken over a large chunk of the portable video-game market. Middle aged women who used to play Sudoku on their Nintendo DSes now play Angry Birds on their iPhones, and where that mother payed $20-$40 for the Sudoku game, they now pay less than $5 (usually less than $0.99) for an iOS game.

Sony may also be getting its own version of Monster Hunter 4 . In fact the Vita will almost certainly have a version of the game, the question is just when it will come out and which version will be seen as better by the Japanese consumer.

Of course, nothing said on Tuesday makes the chances of a new version of the 3DS hardware any less likely, though this is a fairly clear indication that any new iteration of the system won’t come until after the holiday buying season.

Those caveats aside, the 3DS is looking a lot better today than it was on Monday.

Certain big games make people buy a system, and in Japan there are few series bigger than Monster Hunter .

In other news: Games Coming this week

• The big game for Canada this week is NHL 12. EA’s NHL series, which much like the Madden football franchise, has a legion of fans that just buy the yearly installment and nothing else. Expect it to sell like gangbusters in Canada, but not gain as much traction elsewhere. NHL does have the advantage that, unlike Madden 12, NHL 12 is reviewing rather well. This could help it pick up a few more sales.
• Beyond NHL 12, there aren’t many major releases this week. Keep an eye on sales for The Gunstringer, however, as it is one of the first interesting looking casual-focused Kinect games since the launch blitz last year. How well it sells could be a bellwether for determining if the Kinect will be a long-term success or a flash in the pan.
• Additionally, Star Fox 64 3D, came out this Sunday (Review here). The continued sales might of the remake of Ocarina of Time, may mean Star Fox will have a similar place on the charts.

• Email: dkaszor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: dkaszor

No one is underestimating Nintendo Co. this time.

When the Japanese video game giant launched the Wii console in the fall of 2006, the gaming world raised a curious collective eyebrow. Arriving at the same time as rival Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and a year after Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, the Wii seemed to be an instant underdog.

Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were more powerful, offered better graphics and were designed to appeal to so-called “hard core” video game players, while the Wii’s main attraction was its new fangled motion-sensitive controllers that encouraged gamers to get up off the couch and flail around their living rooms to interact with their game.

At first blush, Nintendo seemed to be outmatched. But that feeling wouldn’t last.

That was before the Wii went on to become one of the most popular video game consoles in the history of the industry, before the Wii became a staple in living rooms around the world, and before the Wii became the most sought after gift for two consecutive holiday seasons, selling so fast that Nintendo struggled to keep up with demand.

So when Nintendo unveiled a prototype of its latest video game console, the Wii U, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo video game trade show in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the video game world stood up and took notice.

For once again, it appears Nintendo may be on the verge of redefining the video game experience.

The Wii U — which will launch globally in 2012 — is an updated version of the Wii, with more power, better graphics, an improved online experience and a new controller that features a 6-inch touchscreen interface, similar to the technology popularized by Apple Inc.’s iPad.

The new Wii U controller also includes traditional gaming buttons, a camera, microphone and an accelerometer — the same technology that allows Nintendo’s Wii controllers to sense players’ movements.

Designed to close the technology gap between Nintendo’s popular Wii console and rival devices from Microsoft and Sony, the Wii U is also built to appeal to fans of both traditional hard core games, as well as casual gamers looking for more interactive and family friendly titles, according to Satoru Iwata, chief executive and president of Nintendo.

“This is what we intend to create with our new home platform,” Mr. Iwata said during Nintendo’s keynote at E3.

The Wii U will arrive at a key time for Nintendo. While the Wii remains the most popular of the three major video game consoles of the current generation, selling nearly 90 million units as of the end of March 2011, both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are beginning to close the sales gap. Sales of the Wii are down more than 20% each of the past two years despite Nintendo’s decision to slash the price of the device.

At the same time, both Microsoft and Sony have launched motion-sensing gaming technologies to help augment their core consoles and offer similar experiences to the Wii.

While Sony’s Wii-like PlayStation Move controller has proved to be a moderate success, Microsoft’s Kinect technology — which uses a series of cameras to allow users to control games with their bodies, without the need for a controller, is quickly becoming one of the most popular products in the video game industry.

At E3 this week, Microsoft unveiled several new titles that incorporate elements of Kinect into top video game franchies, such as Madden football.

Nintendo plans to bring its most popular video game franchises — including Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda — to the Wii U, but also intends to court hard core gamers (who tend to buy more games than casual gamers) with first person shooter titles like Battlefield 3 as the company aims to position its console as the centre of the connected living room the way both Microsoft and Sony have attempted to do with their respective consoles.

Still, a lot can change before the Wii U launches in 2012, and Nintendo still has many questions to answer — most importantly, what will the new console cost?

But for now, Nintendo has once again thrown down the gauntlet for the rest of the gaming world, boldly declaring the course it plans to chart over the next several years.

Your move, Sony and Microsoft.

Email: mhartley@nationalpost.com, Twitter: @thehartley

Today in technology: Nintendo Co. Ltd. affirms its plans to launch a new flagship console to replace the popular Wii in 2012; investors still gobbling up Facebook stock on private markets; Microsoft Corp. has a new global advertising czar; and Twitter Inc. gets a new home.

Nintendo says Wii successor coming in 2012
On Monday, Japanese video game giant Nintendo unveiled its fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2011 results , then confirmed one of the worst kept secrets on the Internet: that the company is planning to launch a new video game console as early as next year. According to a statement , Nintendo plans to show off a working prototype of the new system at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video game conference in Los Angeles in June.

Nintendo said it hasn’t factored sales of the new console into its fiscal 2012 results, which suggests the new console will not launch until the second quarter of next calendar year at the earliest.

However, there’s still no word on what the new system will be called and what new features it may include. Speculation suggests that the latest console from the company that brought us Super Mario Bros. may be working on including HD graphics or more sophisticated motion-sensing controllers into its new system.

Some reports suggest Nintendo is working on a new controller technology known as “Screen Stream,” that can stream game footage directly from the console to a colour touchscreen on the controller itself. This could allow Nintendo to split individual views from multiplayer games and beam them directly to a player’s controller.

One thing’s for sure, you can bet a Super Mario game will make an appearance shortly after the new system is launched.

Investors still pouring money into Facebook
There’s one date that every technology investor in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and around the world has circled on their calendar: April 30, 2012. That’s when Facebook plans to begin publicly disclosing financial results, and it’s safe to say potential investors are keen to get their hands on Facebook’s books . Ever since Facebook and Goldman Sachs struck a deal that would allow the financial institution’s clients to invest in Facebook at a US$50-billion valuation , other investors have continued to jump on board. Earlier this month, T. Rowe Price Inc. disclosed it had purchased US$190-million worth of Facebook shares.

Microsoft looks internally for new ad chief
On Friday, Microsoft revealed it has tapped Frank Holland — a 13-year Microsoft vet — to lead the company’s global advertising sales business, the Advertising & Online organization . As Microsoft continues its push to become a major power broker in online advertising and establish its Bing search engine as a legitimate competitor to Google Inc. , the world’s largest software company has taken a number of steps to essentially build an entire advertising agency within the company. Mr. Holland will report directly to Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

Twitter gets a new home, staying in San Francisco
As Twitter continues to grow in leaps and bounds, it’s no surprise one of the hottest startups in California is fast outgrowing its home. On Friday, Twitter announced it will be moving into a new location just down the street from its current home near the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco to a new location on Market Street . “The city where we have started and grown will remain our future home,” the company said in a blog post. Twitter expects to move into its new offices sometime in mid-2012.

Today in technology: The early 1980s home computing archetype is reinvented for the 21st century as Nintendo Co. prepares to launch its first new gaming console since the motion-controlled Wii, MySpace is sued for releasing user data without consent and Apple Inc. poaches a Microsoft Corp. data centre executive for potentially grandiose purposes.

Commodore 64: back and better than ever
In technology years, the Commodore 64’s original release in 1982 happened centuries ago. Complete with a whopping 64KB (kilobytes) of memory and enough processing power to run first-generation computer games better than rival products of the day such as Apple Inc.’s Apple II, the essentially oversized keyboard was a smash hit at the time. More than 13 million units were sold over its lifetime, making the device still used by some hobbyists today, among the top-selling personal computing devices of all time.

Now, nearly three decades later, the classic C64 has been reborn thanks to the efforts of Commodore USA LLC — a Florida-based company founded just last year solely to relaunch the Commodore brand. Available online as of April 5 for the same starting price as the 1982 original — US$595 — it took less than 24 hours to sell out and the company is currently scrambling to keep up with demand.

Challenging the now infamous statement by Bill Gates, where the Windows inventor once declared “no one will ever need more than 64KB of memory,” the new Commodore 64 features a dual-core Intel Atom 1.8GHz (gigahertz) processor, a blu-ray disc player and a Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset with capacity for up to 4GB (gigabytes) of memory and up to 1TB (terabyte) of storage. All of that is still contained inside the same, now quite retro, 80s shell.

Not a nostalgia lover? Then perhaps Nintendo’s rumoured plan to release the 124 year-old company’s first video game console capable of running full high-definition graphics — its first new console since the massively successful, motion-controlled Wii launched in 2006 — at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in early June will be of more interest.

MySpace sued
From our when-it-rains file, the once dominant, now heavily beleaguered social networking giant MySpace is being accused of sharing user information without asking permission. With a sale to online music giant Vevo.com still in the works, MySpace parent company News Corp. was probably not happy to learn this week that the website was being sued by two New York law firms. The case is seeking class-action status and unspecified damages.

Kevin Timmons joins Apple
The top data center staffer at Microsoft Corp. has reportedly joined the software giant’s chief rival, Apple Inc., for a similar position. Kevin Timmons was general manager of Microsoft’s data centre operations for the past two years, though his role at the world’s largest technology company is expected to go beyond just running data centres. The rumours of his potentially expanded role are particularly interesting, given what Apple is rumoured to be doing with its own data centres.

jberkow@nationalpost.com