Wii U’s WaraWara Plaza Clarified For North Americans

Earlier today, we shared a pair of videos from the most recent Nintendo Direct, which digs deeper into the upcoming Wii U. We now how the console will handle multiple users, as well as what it'll be like to unbox the thing.

Well yet another video, specifically for their North American customers, has just been posted. One that details yet another previously unknown facet of the Wii U's online experience.

This one is hosted by Bill Trinen, whose primary duty is localizing games, but who has also become a high profile personality, as both Shigeru Miyamoto's translator at press events and representative of Nintendo's products as whole:

Some might recall Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explaining how each start up of the system will requite a network update, which didn't sound too pretty. But after all that nonsense, users will be thrust into the WaraWara Plaza, which was originally Japanese term for the meeting place that greets the player, and which is now the universal term.

Trinen indicates that if a player owns a particular title, relevant comments made by others will be broadcasted via their Miis, who will be seen hanging around, near the game's icon. It's not quite clear if those other users shown in the video are all friends of the player or simply random folk that the player has no real connection.

Trinen does state that comments displayed will be selected from an overall pool, which leads one to believe that this is the latter scenario. In that case, this might be a method for players to meet new people. Which is quite the bold move for Nintendo, which has had such a walled garden experience when it comes to online interactivity.

And finally, we get see Wii U Chat in action. The application was only lightly touched upon in the past, so it's nice to see a nice full on demonstration. Seems fairly straightforward and simple.