GameCube controllers compatible with Super Smash Bros on Wii U

Don't worry Smash Bros. fans, those that were going to look for conversions to play the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. with a GameCube controller won't have to far.

Nintendo revealed on their Twitter account that there will be a converter box that will make GameCube controllers playable with the new Super Smash Bros. title on any Wii U system.

Get excited! The #WiiU version of #SmashBros. will be playable with GameCube controllers. pic.twitter.com/nmyj9QMsuU
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 29, 2014

A couple thoughts on this new contraption. First, there's a question of whether or not it will come with the game. It would be wise to bundle this with the game and add $20 to the price tag, there's going to be countless Smash Bros. fanatics that will pick something like this up anyway. We all know those people that refuse to move on to the Wiimote controls.

While this reeks of another one-and-done Nintendo add-on peripheral, it's a welcome addition for those that want to play old Wii games and use the GameCube controllers on the compatible games. I mean, Nintendo would let people do that right. Is the Wii U even backward compatible with the Wii? I honestly have no idea what this system is yet.

More interesting in the whole picture is the SSB logo on the GameCube controller. Is Nintendo going to re-release GameCube controllers with that on it? Considering that GameCube is now two generations old, you would think that the majority of people that have GameCube controllers would like some refreshed gamepads that aren't half-broken, littered with Cheeto crums, or have endless stains of Bud Light and Mountain Dew all over them.

Re-releasing the GCN pads would be a good move, as well as kicking out the market of 3rd party companies that are probably thriving on selling those gamepads.

Wreck-It Ralph sequel in the works according to movie's composer

A sequel to Wreck-It Ralph could very well be on the horizon after the original movie's composer, Henry Jackman, spilled the beans that the story is in development.



Jackman told Collider (via VG247) that the popular video game-based movie that multiple people were currently working on the script, but didn't fess up more than that.

“I don’t know any more other than a story is indeed being written. Just the movie itself I thought was a fantastically imaginative and creative piece of work. Rich [Moore], the director, actually got involved in the writing There was another writer and I can’t remember his name [Phil Johnston]. Just as a concept, it would be almost remiss of them not to write another one. It’s a great idea and it’s a great character.”

Wreck-It Ralph was a critical success in late 2012, receiving a score of 86% at Rotten Tomatoes, and it raked in $189.4 million in the box office. There was highly any doubt that a sequel would be coming, especially when director Rich Moore talked about throwing around ideas for the sequel over a year ago.

The greatest part about that is Moore wants to add in Mario to the second movie. He couldn't fit Nintendo's mascot into the first one, despite many people assuming the video game giant just restricted the creators to add him in.

Mario last hit Hollywood way back in 1993 with a summer "blockbuster." Despite my guilty pleasure for that horrendous movie, it would be nice to see Mario back in motion pictures in a much better way.

Sony believes they 'really have to keep PS3 alive'

Sony believes that there is still at least two to four years left for the PlayStation 3.


PlayStation marketing executive John Koller talked to Gamespot on Tuesday about PlayStation 4's early dominance in the new generation of consoles and about the future of the PS Vita.

He also brought up the future of the PS3, and it's all good news to those that still have it as their primary console.

Two, three, four years; we think there's time left in the platform. It depends on the content. We have a good lineup this year and it looks like a good lineup next year. We need to keep fueling that. We really have to keep PS3 alive.

It was always very doubtful that PS3 would see the life that PlayStation 2 had, especially with the slow start after the Xbox 360 dominated the gaming market.

But to see the PS3 overcome its incredibly high price tag, issues with 3rd party ports, and believing that Sony had a clunker on its hands (similar to what Nintendo is dealing with in the Wii U), it's a bit of a triumph that the PS3 will still be able to retain itself behind the new PS4.

Sony has to be careful not to give too much attention to the PS3 this year. This week, they had nothing new released on the PS4, and the PS3 lineup for this year is even making myself wait until purchasing a PS4 until at least this upcoming holiday season (or until I get a job in the game journalism industry, whichever comes first).

What are your thoughts on Sony continuing to support the PS3 for years to come?

Image credit: Flickr

Michael Pachter: Saying Sony's first-party library is large 'is a stretch'

Game analyst Michael Pachter has something to say nearly every day, and he follows up his bashing of Sony's PlayStation Now but saying that they don't have a large amount of first-party games to make the service successful.

From Game Revolution:

On the latest episode of the Bonus Round, Geoff Keighly responded to Pachter's PlayStation Now bashing by bringing up the fact that the company has plenty of in-house content to put on the service. "But you know, Sony has a lot of first-party content," Keighley explained, to which Pachter replied: "A lot is a stretch. Thirty. They have thirty games."

THIRTY games? Apparently Pachter should at least look his information up on Wikipedia, which lists far more than 30 games on the PlayStation 3 list alone.

In comparison to the competition, Sony takes laps around it with exclusive content. Microsoft doesn't offer the vast library of exclusive games that varies in genre. Nintendo has been remaking the same games since the N64 era.

Also, that number is even more wrong if the entire catalog of PlayStation games dating back to the original PlayStation is in effect.

Of course, Pachter also said that PS4 and Xbox 720 One games would be 70 dollars brand new.

China lifts ban on PlayStation 4 and other video games

After 14 years, China finally lifts their ban on video games.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all able to sell their consoles in the Chinese market after a ban was lifted on foreign video game consoles.

From Gamespot:

Reuters reports that the Chinese State Council now allows the big three console manufacturers to make consoles within Shanghai's free trade zone and then sell them in China, provided they get government approval.

According to the report, the ban began in 2000 "following concerns about potential harm to the physical and mental development of children."

This is a big moment for all three companies, considering there are approximately 1.36 billion people in China as of today, or 19.1 percent of the world's population.

As soon as the government approves the ban lift, expect company executives to see bags of cash rolling in.

Sony Computer executive Jack Tretton on the PlayStation 4 launch

Before Sony's PlayStation 4 launch event last week, Forbes caught up with Sony Computer Entertainment of America executive, Jack Tretton, on the buildup to the eventual successful launch of their next-generation system.

All three systems will be in battle this holiday season. Microsoft will try to win over gamers that use their consoles more for multimedia and Nintendo hopes that their classic mascot franchises of Mario and Zelda will get people to buy the Wii U.

Tretton gave his thoughts on the PS4 launch that turned out to be Sony's best in history for their PlayStation consoles and on the multimedia front of the system.

On the buildup to the PS4 launch:

We’ve never been in better shape. I mean, everything’s really lined up for us; the development community, the excitement from the gamers, the launch lineup that we have, the technology’s great, the manufacturing yields have been great.

On how different the launch is from PS3 to PS4:

There’s never gonna be a bigger spotlight on the gaming industry, so if somebody wants a PlayStation 4 and is willing to go and buy one, it kills me if you don’t have one to give to them. And we may run into that, but it won’t be for lack of effort.

On Microsoft's multimedia angle to move units:

We’re already the number-one streaming device for Netflix, so I think people expect and know that we have a lot of great entertainment apps on our platform. That story’s been told and I think it’s established. But the gamers really want to know why they should buy a PlayStation 4, and what the games are gonna look like, so that’s what we’ve been really spending all our time focused on.

On Nintendo's angle of relying on their franchise characters to move units:

We’ve got over 2,000 employees all over the world working to build great games for PlayStation, and games that are not only critically acclaimed, but do great volume. I mentioned The Last Of Us and games like GT6, and we have great games at launch like Knack, and we have games like Infamous: Second Son coming. So I think there are a lot of great franchises that we’ve introduced historically, but there’s new IP you know coming out all the time.

Click here for much more of the interview between Forbes and Tretton.

[Image credit: Flickr]

PlayStation 4 sells over one million units in first 24 hours

Sony announced that it has sold over one million PlayStation 4 units in the first 24 hours of the North American launch.

The PS4 was released in the United States and Canada on Friday, sold at a retail price of $399. Reuters reports that the number meet's Sony's announcement of over a million orders in advance and they expect "2.5 million to 3 million PS4 shipments in the fourth quarter of North America."

Sony Corp had previously announced it had received more than 1 million advance orders for the console. Still, the initial sales figures are Sony's first salvo in a battle brewing with Microsoft Corp's Xbox One console, which goes on sale Nov 22. Sony is also hoping its console can help build a platform for recovery at the Japanese company's money-losing consumer electronics operations.

In comparison to the previous console, Joystiq reports Sony sold only 197,000 PlayStation 3 units in the first two weeks. Also, it's beaten out the Wii U with Nintendo's next-gen console selling 425,000 units in the first week of its release.

With all the excitement surrounding the next-gen consoles, and the economy being healthier than the majority of last generation's life cycle, it shouldn't be hard for Sony to meet their expectation of selling five million units by the end of their fiscal year in March.

[Image credit: Flickr]

Editorial: Here's the problem with what Nintendo's CEO said about PlayStation 4, Xbox One release

Video games will be the highlight of this holiday shopping season with two brand new consoles being released by Sony and Microsoft. With Nintendo pushing out its console a year ago, it didn't create the same buzz that's been going on between the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases, but they expect that the Wii U will finally get noticed this holiday season and actually begin selling well.

Satoru Iwata, the CEO and president of Nintendo, gave his thoughts on how the upcoming next-generation console releases will give a jolt to the video game industry and actually help the company's year-old Wii U.

"...[T]he competition will heat up because new game consoles will come out and there will be a ‘war of the game consoles’ played out in media articles, we wonder if the target user will actually be the same."

Iwata goes on to list all the games released at the end of this calendar year, like Super Mario 3D World, another Mario and Sonic Olympics game, Wii Party U, Wii Fit U, and Wii Sports Club.

“Thus, in the sense that we attract consumers interested in this category of video games, I think the launch of other video game systems is also good for us because they energize the video game industry as a whole.”

That's an interesting angle to take, but something that's clearly misguided.

To put it in layman's terms, Iwata believes that the family audience, which is what all those new games for the Wii U are aimed for, will all look toward Nintendo's new console instead of trying to compare PS4 and XBO.

Clearly Nintendo has the edge with that audience, but how willing are they to upgrade compared to the gamers that are more "hardcore?" In other words, gamers that actually spend some if not all of their time with video games and people who actually follow video games and do it as a hobby.

Wii Sports is by far the highest-selling game for the Wii, which was bundled with the console at launch. Nearly 50 million units down is Mario Kart Wii, which was later bundled with the Wii in specially marked boxes and was one of the rare games that actually moved consoles.

But those sales show that families are already not buying additional software for the console and are clearly not upgrading. However, the "hardcore" gaming crowd is much more prone to upgrading, especially with emergence of PC gaming thanks to Steam and the annual releases of popular series like Madden, Call of Duty, and Assassin's Creed.

Despite both the PS4 and XBO driving more people to shop video games during the holiday, will they really look at Nintendo's new console and software and decide that it's worth upgrading? They already aren't attracted by Nintendo with their lack of third-party support. And Nintendo's target audience clearly shows that they don't know what the big difference is with just a letter added at the end of a console name that they already own.

Let's not forget that the Wii U released at just $50 less than a brand-new, retailed-price edition of a PS4. Despite a price cut to $299, there's no chance in hell until the Wii U gets under the Wii's retail price of $250 at launch.

Nintendo's stubborn approach to the Wii U won't let that happen anytime soon, and most families will continue to walk past the new console during the holiday season.

[Source: Gamnesia]
[Image credit: Flickr]

Why Sony's Attempt at a Mascot Brawler Failed

I've recently been covering the presumed death of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, a concept that's bewildering due to Nintendo's constant success with its Super Smash Bros. franchise. You'd have to be under a rock to not at least pick up and play a version of SSB for a couple rounds, but not many have even heard of Sony's mascot brawler.

Paul Tassi of Forbes had a great editorial on how Sony botched its attempt at creating a massive selling first party game. Indeed, the PS All-Stars never lived up to what it could have been, and it's largely in thanks to being silently released on the back-end of PlayStation 3's life cycle.

The sales were completely in the tank. Just looking at the numbers are jaw-dropping.

The game was a relative disaster when it should have been a crown jewel in PlayStation’s exclusive line-up. It sold 0.5M copies to Smash Bros. Brawl’s 11M+ on the Wii. Obviously a first run at a PlayStation Smash Bros. wouldn’t unseat the champ, but the battle wasn’t even close.

PlayStation All-Stars was generally the same game as SSB, with the exception of finishing off enemies. I've already talked about how much I dislike the system; killing off players by building up an meter with three different levels of attack just isn't fun. Think about if someone turned the settings to "very high" item appearances with just smash balls. It completely sucks the fun out of what the SSB franchise brought when it comes to knocking enemies out of the arena.

That's why this game failed to appeal to gamers and sell. Nintendo owns the world in four players gathering together for offline multiplayer gaming, and neither Sony nor Microsoft have captured that crowd.

This isn't a genre that translates well for online play, and SSB: Brawl showed that convincingly.

Despite the effort, Tassi hits the nail on the head when it comes to the future of PlayStation All-Stars. Like Sony's other ventures, this one will be completely forgotten a year from now.

I don’t know if the PS All-Stars name or concept can be salvaged. The game was such a let down I’m not sure Sony would waste resources reworking the concept for the PS4, and I don’t know if fans would take the same bait twice after the first game failed to live up to its massive potential.

[Source: Forbes]
[Image credit: Flickr/Community Mag]

Nintendo President Not Worried About Competition with Sony, Microsoft Consoles

With buzz surrounding both Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles, it's looks like the Nintendo will be struggling with its Wii U to compete with in the next-generation system. Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo, doesn't see it that way.

Fils-Aime believes that's an "inaccurate narrative" in his interview with Kotaku. When looking at the actual data, the Wii U hasn't been that far behind in sales when compared to the original Wii back in 2006.

"If you look at it from a U.S. perspective, this point in time vs. where we were with the Wii life stage, there's a difference of about 1 to 1.5 million units. Over a potential lifespan over 40 million-plus units, that's not a lot."

The Wii U is currently suffering a software drought with dropped-off third-party support from launch. But as usual, Fils-Aime believes that Nintendo's upcoming first-party titles will push them in the right direction.

"You know, I think by the end of this holiday, after we've launched Wind Waker, after we've launched Donkey Kong Country, after we've launched Mario 3D World, I think we're going to be in a very good position."

This is the same Nintendo that we've known for years now, forcing sales through remakes, rehashes, and very unoriginal remakes of their IPs. Fans like myself even got tired of it, and even though I still supported the Wii in its dying years, there's much more support and excitement for what Sony will do with its upcoming console.

Microsoft may also be in a better position now after getting rid of its online restrictions and all the new IPs that are coming to the Xbox One.

[Source: Kotaku]
[Image credit: Flickr/Kriisi]

Opinion: How Nintendo Can Save Themselves After Wii U Crisis

Nintendo is in a bit of trouble, and it's time for a completely new model to save the company from becoming Sega 2.

The new console is heading down the same road all of the other Nintendo machines since the N64 -- a loss of third-party support and relying on the company mascots to bail them out in sales.

According to Games Radar, the company is just about ready to pull the basic version of Wii U from stores.

GameStop stores have reportedly been sent the following message from head office: “Nintendo Wii U Basic Recall - Two Week Preparation On Tuesday, 6/18, all stories will need to return all new/unopened Wii U Basic (020359). .. Stores that have 10 or more in stock will receive shipping cartons from the [distribution center]. .. All other stores will need to save shipping cartons for this recall." GameStop hasn’t returned a request for further information, while Nintendo said it wouldn’t comment on its business practices with retailers.

It's time for Nintendo to use a new strategy. First, they need to dissssociate themselves from the "Wii" brand. The name has only lost them money since the initial run and these days people just get bummed out remembering all the potential they thought the console had with its new motion controls.

Apparently Nintendo is trying to market to gullible families that own a Wii and want them to upgrade. That's setting sail to fail. No one is falling for the marketing gimmick of, "Oh hey that family is having so much fun with the Wii U, LET'S UPGRADE CHILDREN!"

What needs to happen is a complete relaunch of the system two years from now. Since people are digging relaunches, Nintendo needs to do a relaunch themselves and call the new system: NES.

The plan is so obvious, it's brilliant. I'm not saying re-release the 25+ year old catalog, but the design should be the old NES system with the same name.

Think about it. Insert the disc into mock NES cartridge. Before putting it in the system, that person has to blow on the cartridge before putting it in. Click the cartidge into place and press the power button. Auto-load the game, and you'll have a selling point compared to newer consoles that have to install the games first.

Make the console as powerful as the Nextbox and PS4. Copy the dual shock controller (they basically did with the Classic Controller Pro anyway) and let games install while people play them to eliminate as many loading times as possible to emulate playing a game on cartridge.

The design of the controller needs to resemble the old NES rectangle while adding on the additional buttons to play next-gen games while retaining the comfort to play old games.

Tack on a one-terabyte hard drive, include greatest hits from the entire Nintendo archive, and give access to the entire Nintendo backlog for downloading to make up for screwing the pooch with overpriced, way too spread out Virtual Console releases.

Stamp a $450 price tag on it and throw it into stores. Afraid no one will buy it? Give a payment plan and offer a free year of Internet service.

Alas, this pipe dream will never come to fruition. It's really not possible, but it's a direction that Nintendo needs to look at. Even if Nintendo had a flop on their hands, nothing was worse than the Virtual Boy and they're still alive and kicking.

But the times of rehashing the same bullshit over and over on different consoles is tedious. If they want to give the players nostalgia, they should go all-in with the console as well.

[Source: Games Radar]

[Photo credit: Flickr/Geoff Parsons]