Remember when the Xbox 360 came out?  That was a year earlier than the PlayStation 3 release, and it played out well for Microsoft.  It let Microsoft take the lead on their sales and in some ways define the market for new consoles.  Nintendo probably has a similar aim with their early release, which was confirmed during an investor meeting.  Not only will the console be released by the holiday season, but it will also be unveiled at E3.

As of right now, the current generation Wii is a bit behind the current generation Xbox and PlayStation, which has made things hard on Nintendo.  It makes sense for them to want to finally catch up and get a leg up on the competition.  What could the drawbacks of the early release be?  One drawback is that Nintendo won’t have as much time to develop the console and take advantage of new technology.  As such, the Wii U may not be as amazing as the eventual Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4.  But by then Nintendo will have reaped a lot of profits—and probably continued to develop the Wii U.  So perhaps the early release makes sense regardless.  Even though the decision will come with some drawbacks, it should offer Nintendo a chance to get back in the game, as it were.

Finally, we’re going to see multiple user account support on Wii U.  We’ll also finally be seeing direct digital downloads of software offered through the online service.  This falls in line with the recent improvements which Nintendo made to its 3DS eShop service.  The eShop now offers digital downloads of demos of games which can be purchased in stores.  You can also finally store your credit card number for future purchases and download games while your system is in sleep mode.

Iwata explains the new developments.  “This concept was built into the design of the Nintendo 3DS, and we already have the necessary infrastructure.  We will prepare the same infrastructure for the Wii U. However, we have not decided the concrete timing of when we will start it. The decision must be made by taking into consideration such factors as the relationship with the wholesalers and retailers, and the best way to be embraced by consumers, as well as the environment surrounding the market and consumers, such as the required memory capacity on consumers’ SD memory cards. However, as an option for the future, the significance of this business field will increase.”

At the conference, Iwata confirmed that Nintendo will launch the Wii U in four major markets by the end of 2012—Japan, Europe, the US, and Australia.  An exact date for release still hasn’t been specified.  Meanwhile, we still have no idea when Sony and Microsoft are planning to unveil their next consoles.  While Nintendo’s Wii has fallen way behind on the times, Nintendo has stated that Wii U is not just their answer to the current generation of consoles but the future generation as well.  Perhaps Sony and Microsoft will want to get in on the action and will show a little more movement on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 by the end of the year.  Regardless, we now know a little more of what we can expect from the Wii U as regards its online capabilities.

We do know a couple other things about the development of the game—although it doesn’t lend a lot to our understanding of the game itself.  For instance, we know that Damien Bernard is the lead level designer for the mysterious card game.  We know Bernard’s work from Just Dance and Just Dance 2.  From glancing at Bernard’s LinkedIn profile, we see a listing for Wii U, but no further detailed.  Keeping an eye on the LinkedIn profile may fill in some of the missing information with time though.

Ubisoft is working on a few other titles for the Wii U.  One game which we know a fair amount about at this point is called Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online.  This title was revealed last year at the E3 convention.  The game is going to be action-based and will run in the third person perspective.  We know it’s coming out later this year, but we have yet to hear a definite release date.  The game will include a unique weapons rental feature which gives players access to specific weapons for limited time periods.  The PC version which will run on windows will be free.

This was the first year since 2007 that Nintendo failed to sell 7 million console units in the US.  Indeed, in 2008 the company sold 10 million Wii consoles, and sold almost as many the next year.  In 2010 those numbers dropped dramatically to 7 million units.  As of last year, they have plunged again to just a fraction of their original sales.

Aren’t lagging sales just par the course with an old console?  To some extent, yes—but then again, Sony and Microsoft have proved that it doesn’t have to be this way.  Sony is probably going to sell 15 million units by the time their fiscal year ends in March.  Sony’s sales have actually increased over the years.  Microsoft set sales records for its Xbox 360 just last holiday season.

Why are Nintendo’s sales figures so bad?  It is probably because the Wii is so far behind the current generation of competing consoles that it seems archaic in many respects.  It can’t support HD graphics, motion gaming, and it has a very sparse third-party game library.  Considering that the Wii was a surprise to many when it first came out, perhaps we’ll find that Nintendo is about to make a comeback with the Wii U.  We don’t know a lot about the Wii U yet, but we do know it’ll include HD graphics and will be designed to rival current and new technology in the console world.  Perhaps Nintendo can rise out of their slump yet.

Considering that third party software will be available at the launch of the Wii U, this prediction doesn’t necessarily make any real-world sense.  In terms of the second part of his comment, we’re pretty sure that Nintendo has already figured this out.  There’s hardly anyone left in the industry who isn’t saying that Nintendo needs to really evolve with the Wii U.  But are they out of the game?  Certainly not.

The rumor comes from an unnamed software developer who has been working with the company.  Apparently the eBook download service will not only sell books but also newspapers, magazines, comics and other publications as well.  There is also a possibility that Nintendo will use the service to distribute official strategy guides, including out of print manuals for old games—for free.  Games downloaded from the app store would all be accompanied by instruction manuals from the eBook store.

How will you be able to read the eBooks which you download from Nintendo’s store?  You’ll be able to read them on a Nintendo 3DS or on the touchscreen controller of the Wii U.  With eBooks becoming more and more prevalent, this could be a great move on Nintendo’s part if the rumors are true.  It’s one more way for Nintendo to gain one up on the competition, and will also provide a new market for eBook writers to target.

The Wii U will be Nintendo’s answer to the next generation of consoles by Sony and Microsoft.  So far an exact release date has yet to be specified, but Nintendo has indicated the Wii U release date will fall somewhere between June and December of this year.  We’ll probably have to wait for the holiday season (Nintendo has previously experimented with releases which fall outside the holiday season and discovered that the holidays are better) to actually get the Wii U, but there’s no reason to wait for the holiday rush to pre-order the console.  The Wii U is a highly anticipated release and there is no doubt that it is going to fly off the shelves when it finally comes out.  Why get stuck waiting for your local store to order more when you can pre-order the console online?

According to CNET, Nintendo is planning to unveil the Wii U prototype at the 2012 CES trade show on January 10-13.  During the trade show attendees will get a chance to try out the new console first hand and see what it has to offer.  So we only have a couple of weeks to wait before we hear all about the Wii U’s features and capabilities.   Perhaps we’ll also receive more news during the trade show about the release date for the finished Wii U—and pre-order information so we can get in on the action.

Nintendo knows that the Wii U will be the future of Wii—if Wii is to have a future.  And that’s why they will be updating the Wii U to compete with the current generation of consoles.  Nintendo did attempt to remedy the problem somewhat when it released the DSi and 3DS handheld consoles, but even these didn’t go far toward resolving the issue of streaming video downloads.  With the Wii U, Nintendo promises it will be doing far more to make its next generation console not only a better gaming platform but an all-around media entertainment center to compete with Xbox and PlayStation.  Part of this effort will take the form of the inclusion of a brand new “app store” for the Wii U.

What else will the Wii U need to do in order to compete with Xbox and PlayStation?  Along with making it easier for users to stream content and add-on, the Wii U will also need to integrate live online features more seamlessly.  And of course it would be helpful if Nintendo can bring something new to the world of console gaming—but right now the Wii is so far behind that Nintendo developers probably have more than enough work on their hands to even keep pace with the competition.  A prototype of the Wii U should appear at the 2012 CES convention later this month.

So will the Wii U come out closer to June or December?  And why not in April or May of this year?  For answer to these questions we can turn to the disappointing sales figures from the 3DS release back in 2011.  The 3DS was released early in the year, following the 2010 holidays, and the result was that while it still overturned the sales record of the previous DS, it failed to achieve the sales which the company hoped for.  Since then Nintendo has learned its lesson about not releasing during the holiday season.  Even huge companies with hugely successful products have poor sales if they aren’t timed right!

Since June is months away from the holidays, it seems likely that following off of that lesson, Nintendo will wait till later in the year to release the Wii U.  They will probably time the release with the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which would be a occasion to unveil the Wii U.  So we still have a while to wait—and a lot of anticipation is sure to build up in the meantime, which will only fuel Nintendo’s sales later in the year.  For now we can look forward to the reports on the Wii U prototype from the guests at the 2012 CES later this month.  Then we’ll know what we have to look forward to!