Nintendo came out with a surprise Nintendo Direct Mini today, offering a spattering of information on new and upcoming 3DS and Wii U games. It was mostly a rundown for fans who follow Directs, but they did share some new information, which will be our focus here. For example, here's a screenshot of the bad guys from Wonderful 101:
For Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Nintendo has added new social features so that screenshots can easily be shared to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. They also showed a new trailer for Mario and Luigi: Dream Team, which will be coming out on August 11. Finally, they talked briefly about Shin Megami Tensei IV, including the $ 30 promotion with Fire Emblem Awakening as well as the special deluxe edition.
Nintendo has also announced new features for Nintendo Zone, currently available in 29,000 locations, such as Best Buy, Simon Malls, Future Shop, and Oingo and AT&T hotspots. Nintendo Zone will now allow you to Streetpass with the last people who passed by said location, so that you will be able to collect more Streetpasses from people even when they've already left said Nintendo Zone locations. They also announced the four new Streetpass Mii Plaza games, available for $ 5 each $ 5 for all four games.
Moving on to Wii U, Nintendo spent considerable time dicussing Pikmin 3 and Wonderful 101, before capping off the Direct with the official announcement of Earthbound's release to the eShop (Please read our Earthbound coverage here).
Pikmin 3 is coming out on August 4, and will have online scoreboards, allowing you to compare high scores in Mission Mode, as well as completion time and Pikmin grown in Story Mode. While it's not the online multiplayer we hoped for, it certainly looks good in presentation.
Pikmin 3 is getting a major promotion similar to what Nintendo did at E3, as 200+ Gamestop locations in the US and Canada are going to have demo kiosks for fans to get an early try of the game. Furthermore, fans can prepurchase the game then and there, and when they do, they'll get to play the game a day early online. Implicitly, Nintendo is giving people incentive to buy the game digitally.
About Wonderful 101, the new trailer finally reveals long mysterious story elements. Similar to the Incredibles, or Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, the heroes in Wonderful 101 also double as secret agents, a secret organization tasked by the UN to fight off an intergalactic invasion. They also revealed the new Unite Build ability, which allows a hero to analyze a structure's built to duplicate it. The game is getting a major promotion on Comic Con as well as its own Nintendo Direct prior to release on September 15.
You can faintly see a shift coming in Directs from 3DS to Wii U games. There may be more 3DS games on the horizon, but Wii U got a lot of love for this one, especially for Pikmin 3. Nintendo must be hoping it defies expectations with a clear push towards non-core gamers.
Have twenty minutes? You can check out the Direct for yourself below:
