Horizons
Nintendo Wii Mini bound for Canada. Why not the US?
Nintendo will debut a slimmed-down Wii Mini console in Canada in December, the Japanese gaming company has confirmed.
The Wii Mini, which will sell for $99, is powered by the same aging innards as the current Wii console. But the device gets a compact chassis about the size of an external hard drive, a killer red and black paint job, and a matching red controller and nunchuk.
"Its family-friendly design has no Internet capabilities," Nintendo reps said in a press statement, "and does not play Nintendo GameCube games."
The Mini ships on Dec. 7.
Now on to the big question: Why isn't Nintendo launching a Wii Mini south of the border, too? Nintendo, for its part, has said only that "no information is available about its potential availability in other territories in the future," which may mean we're not ever going to see a Wii Mini in the US.
"Perhaps a quiet, limited relaunch is a good thing," says Dan Milano of ABC, "saving less knowledgeable parents and relatives from picking up the wrong 'new Wii' and causing Christmas morning disappointment."
Well, maybe. But the "quiet" Canadian launch probably has less to do with potential brand confusion than it does simple marketing logic: Nintendo doesn't want anything to detract American consumers from the release of the Wii U. That console, which hit shelves late last month, and which received generally favorable reviews, has been positioned by Nintendo as the future of home gaming.
"In the end, our competitors need to react to what we're doing in the marketplace and need to figure out what their innovation will be," Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime said in a recently interview (hat tip to the Guardian). It's likely that faster processors and pretty pictures won't be enough to motivate consumers. They need to react to what we've done and we need to continue innovating with the Wii U and we will."
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A holiday shopper hunts for iPhone accessories at the Apple Store in San Francisco in late November. Strong iPhone sales have helped vault iOS back over Google's Android in the US. (Reuters)
iPhone 5 helps Apple's iOS topple Android in the US
Apple's iOS has toppled Google's Android operating system in the US, according to a new study from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
Spurred on by strong iPhone 5 sales, Apple currently dominates 48.1 percent of the American smartphone market, Kantar Worldpanel says. By comparison, Android has approximately 46.7 percent. In other words, there are more iPhone 5, 4S, 4, and maybe even 3GS handsets in the US than all of the Android phones from Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and others.
"The last time we saw iOS overtake Android in the US was when the iPhone 4S was released and Apple managed to retain its lead for three consecutive [quarters]," Dominic Sunnebo of Kantar Worldpanel ComTech wrote in a press statement today. "This time we predict that Apple will beat its previous high of 49.3 percent and achieve its highest ever share of the US smartphone market within the next two [quarters]."
So what's behind the big numbers for Apple? Well, buzz probably has a lot to do with it. The long-awaited iPhone 5 launched in late September to an unprecedented marketing push from Apple, and a corresponding groundswell of press. For several weeks, even if you didn't follow the tech world that closely, it was really hard to avoid mention of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, the new mobile operating system.
But over at ZDNet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has a different theory. What if, he wonders, the whole thing has to do with the relative accessibility of Apple devices and the iOS ecosystem?
"Let's face it, from the outside there's little to separate one black rectangle from another other than screen size," Kingsley-Hughes notes. "What separates them from each other is not how they look, but how they work, and if more people are buying Android devices than iOS devices, but more iOS users are using them to do real stuff like shopping, that's down to the software – both the operating system itself, and maybe the apps."
Android or iOS user? Drop us a line in the comments section. And for more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
Coffee cups with Google logos are seen at the new Google office in Toronto in November. (Reuters)
Google and ICOA: The big deal that wasn't
Earlier today, word trickled out that Mountain View megalith Google would snap up ICOA, a Wi-Fi provider based in Warwick, R.I. The move was seen as an effort by Google to increase its network capability.
"As the amount of data traffic increases," one analyst wrote in Computerworld, "so has also the importance of Wi-Fi as a way to offload cellular networks."
The only problem: Google isn't actually interested in ICOA, and may not have entered talks with the company at all. In a feistily-worded message to TechCrunch this afternoon, ICOA CEO George Strouthopoulos called the rumors "NOT TRUE" (the caps are his).
"Never had any discussions with any potential acquirers! This is absolutely false!" Strouthopoulos wrote. "Someone, I guess a stock promoter with a dubious interest, is disseminating wrong, false and misleading info in the PR circles."
Google has separately denied the rumors in an interview with Mashable.
So what happened, exactly? Well, the whole mess can be traced to this press release, which was published on PRWeb.com, and which states that in acquiring ICOA, Google is looking to "further diversify it's already impressive portfolio of companies."
PRWeb doesn't exactly have a lot of barriers to entry, or a particularly rigorous approval and verification process: Users simply sign up for a free account and post away. Reps for the site haven't yet explained how the erroneous ICOA/Google press release got up there, but it's not unreasonable to assume, as ICOA's Strouthopoulos argued, that the whole thing was an elaborate attempt to drive up stock prices.
Updates when we have them.
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
The Samsung Galaxy Note II is selling well, Samsung said this week. (Samsung)
Galaxy Note II hits 5 million mark in two months
Samsung has unloaded 5 million Samsung Galaxy Note II handsets in approximately two months, the South Korean company announced this week.
Not bad for a device that occupies the murky middle ground between small tablet and super-sized smartphone. As we noted recently, the display on the Galaxy Note II measures 5.5 inches, corner to diagonal corner, which is an inch and a half larger than the already-pretty-big 4-inch display on the new Apple iPhone 5. (For an extra point of comparison, the Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display.) It even comes with a stylus to help navigate all that screen space.
In his review of Note II, Jared Newman of Time Magazine called the Galaxy Note II something of a "trade-off" – more apps, more room for a bigger battery, but a little less easy to flick around.
"The biggest problem with the Galaxy Note II is the one that’s inherent to its size: You cannot comfortably use it with one hand," Newman wrote. "Sure, you can flip through the home screen and scroll through apps with your thumb, but good luck tapping something at the top of the screen, or reaching beyond the home button to either the back or menu buttons (depending on which hand you’re using)."
Question: Does the success of the Galaxy Note II, a close cousin of the best-selling Samsung Galaxy S III, portend a rosy future for the "phablet" market? After all, plenty of other manufacturers have gotten into the game in recent months, including HTC, which recently released a very big smartphone called the Droid DNA (more on that here).
The answer, in our opinion, is a qualified yes. There is obviously a market for plus-sized smart phones, although demand lags behind demand for more conventionally sized devices.
"Despite hitting the 5 million figure," writes Zack Whittaker of CNET, "the Note 2's sales are way behind that of the Galaxy S III: Samsung sold 20 million of its flagship smartphone in the first 100 days after its launch."
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
A screenshot from Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition. (Nintendo)
Nintendo Wii U game roundup: Super Mario, Batman, ZombiU
It’s finally here – the Wii U.
Gamers have anxiously waited for Nintendo’s newest console. But now comes the important question: Are the new Wii U games reason enough to buy the new system right now?
It’s no surprise that one of the first games released for Wii U revolves around the heroic adventures of Nintendo’s most beloved brothers, Mario and Luigi. In New Super Mario Bros. U, the Bros. have to once again save Princess Peach from the evil clutches of Bowser and the Koopalings. Get ready for an old-school, side-scrolling game in the style of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the classic games that defined the Mario series.
Richard George of IGN says the new title “captures that carefree adventure many of us felt as kids.” The game still has a lot of challenge to it, he says. However, the weak graphics and “irritating, chaotic, bouncy multiplayer mode” from the Wii game still exist.
Is this the “same old Mario”? You bet, says Mr. George. For some fans, that's all they need to hear. But the Wii U game brings something new to the platform, a Challenge Mode. Here, players are thrown into levels with near-impossible tasks, such as traversing an entire level without killing an enemy or not touching the ground.
“That even some of the simplest tasks will cause you to throw down your controller in frustration – and then immediately pick it back up to try again – is precisely what the Mario series has needed,” says George. IGN rated it a 91 out of 100.
Game Informer gave the game a 93 out of 100 for its high-definition visuals and freshness as the game progresses.
“New enemies and themes are constantly popping up, and each only appears once or twice,” says Bryan Vore of Game Informer. "A massive sea snake chases you all throughout a water level and never shows up again. The same goes for rare classic enemies like the stomping Sumo Bros, who haven’t surfaced since Super Mario World."
Mr. Vore welcomes the new boost mode, a chance for five people to play simultaneously. This fifth person plays solely on the gamepad screen and can add platforms, stun enemies, and ward off hurtling objects.
“After some practice, a skilled boost player can rescue the bros from certain doom and help them get hidden star coins,” says Vore.
Moving on from Nintendo’s decades-old series, Nintendo seeks to capitalize on the “horror survival” craze with Ubisoft's release of ZombiU.
“ZombiU is unforgiving, and it's expected that you will die,” says Richard Mitchell of Joystiq, who rated ZombiU a 90 out of 100.
According to Mr. Mitchell, the story makes this game standout. Previously predicted by a 16th century alchemist, a disease strikes London, unleashing zombies. Players must solve the ancient quest and find a cure. ZombiU mixes the biblical with the historical, which, as Mitchell notes, the Assassin’s Creed series has done to great effect.
“What's initially most striking about ZombiU is just how intimate its encounters are," he says. "With a few rare exceptions, you aren't mowing down hordes of the infected. Instead, you'll more often face one or two at a time and, believe me, that's enough."
Gamespot, on the other hand, gave ZombiU a 45 out of 100.
Ubisoft's “vision of a zombie-infested London not only fails to create an engaging horror experience, but also falls short of being a good game,” says Maxwell McGee of Gamespot.
According to Mr. McGee, your ability to run is limited and that’s how you die easily – the zombies can keep up with you. The only way to kill the zombies is by luring them one by one and clobbering them with a cricket bat. Also, because the game relies so heavily on combat, firearms are even more scarce than they usually are in traditional zombie games.
ZombiU also changes protagonists. Every time you die, a new character arrives, and the game struggles to remain consistent.
McGee likes using the new gamepad, which keeps track of your inventory and shows a map of where you are and what’s around you.
“Every so often a zombie will shamble into frame, creating slight panic as you tap away,” he says.
While both ZombiU and New Super Mario Bros. U are brand new games, Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition takes a great game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and revamps it for the new system.
There's a new mayor in Gotham, and he’s moved all the bad guys from Blackgate Prison and Arkham Asylum to a sectioned-off slum called Arkham City. However, the genius psychiatrist that runs the place seems to have his own mission. Batman’s job is to make sure that things don’t get out of hand.
So what's new in this Wii U version? Not much, says IGN’s Greg Miller, who rated the game a 95 out of 100.
“For those who played through Batman: Arkham City in 2011, the Armored Edition doesn't offer much in the way of incentives – by and large, this is the same top-notch action/adventure game Rocksteady released last year,” says Mr. Miller.
According to Mr. Miller, the main flaw of this new version is the gamepad controls.
“Moving the real-world object to look for in-game objects is a chore, and better left to the analog sticks,” says Miller.
Ray Carsillo of EGM agrees that Arkham City is an epic game. However, he is only mildly impressed with the Wii U version, and it shows in his 70 out of 100 rating.
“The first flaw that you’ll notice rather quickly is glitches that were never present before — audio suddenly cutting in and out and weird shadows in cutscenes that make many characters look unnatural,” says Mr. Carsillo.
According to Carsillo, the new B.A.T. mode in the Wii U version makes the game too easy.
“Fights where you had to strategize who you’d take out first—as thugs came at you with knives, shields, stun batons, and all other manner of weaponry—are now nullified, as the B.A.T. system makes it so that every enemy can now be taken down in only a couple of hits,” he says.
All three of these games are available now for the Nintendo Wii U.
A fan purchases one of the first Wii U systems in the world at the midnight launch event at Nintendo World in New York on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012. (Nintendo )
Wii U systems crash. Nintendo blames online update.
The good news: On Sunday, Nintendo officially launched its long-awaited Nintendo Wii U console. The not-so-good news: A firmware update necessary for online play has taken some users hours to download, and in a few cases, has apparently "bricked" the machine – irrevocably breaking it, basically.
According to a handful of tweets and message board posts (hat tip to Ars Technica), the problem occurs if the power or Internet signal cuts off while the 5 GB update is being installed. Among those affected was Ben Fritz, a tech writer for The Los Angeles Times.
"Wii U has stopped functioning before I managed to play a single game. I tried to stop an interminable software update and now... nothing," Fritz tweeted yesterday. "On a related note, anybody in the market for a big black paperweight?" he joked later.
It's worth noting that plenty of folks have criticized Fritz and others for attempting to stop the firmware update at all. As one of Fritz's followers wrote, "It's common sense to not interrupt an update. Surely you should know this."
In an interview with the BBC, Chris Green, a technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group, struck much the same note. "I'm afraid it's a case of 'buyer beware' to those who try to cancel the update part way through – that would mess up any hardware," he said.
Still, the long load times for the firmware update and the widespread bricking reports have cast a pall of sorts over the Wii U launch. Nintendo, for its part, has cautioned users to keep the Wii U running while the system is updating; it's not immediately clear what will happen to consumers who have seen their new device turn into a "big black paperweight," as Fritz put it.
The Wii U has received generally good marks among critics, although some have cautioned holding fire before picking up a machine.
"Wait until the 'launch window' closes at the end of March and the likes of Pikmin 3, Lego City Undercover and a slew of interesting download-only games are available," one reviewer wrote. "With any new console you might be wisest to give it a year, especially if you want to be able to compare it to what Sony and Microsoft have coming next. And if they don't put screens in their controllers, know right now that Nintendo will have at least that excellent advantage over them."
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
Nokia Here Maps app hits iOS and Android
Until this year, Google Maps had been the default mapping app on Apple devices.
But with the release of iOS 6, the latest iteration of Apple's mobile OS, Apple booted Google Maps in favor of its own in-house mapping application.
Which is a problem, since Apple Maps is well behind Google Maps (although to be fair to Apple, the company is doing its best to bring the app up to speed).
A few months later, and we've got a spot of good news: Nokia has released its own mapping app, Here Maps, for iOS and Android. The app is free to download, and offers maps and search capability in approximately 200 countries. Like Google Maps, Nokia Here includes public transit, walking, driving directions.
The maps, pictured here at left, are bright and easy to navigate. The interface is uncluttered and clean.
So, is the Here app actually any good? Well, in a review over at Cult of Mac, Giles Turnbull found some slowness in the software, and some less than optimal detail quality on certain towns.
"Overall though, I’d say Here is a success, and a useful addition to any iPhone," Turnbull writes. "Ultimately people want simple, clear maps, and they were something found wanting in Apple’s own maps when iOS 6 was released. Here provides them, and it costs you nothing. There’s no turn-by-turn navigation, so Apple wins points there. But there are step-by-step walking instructions, so Nokia wins some back."
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
The next Xbox will get an improved Kinect platform and Blu-Ray capability, according to a new report. Here, gamers at a show in Tokyo play the Microsoft Xbox 360. (Reuters)
Next Xbox will include Blu-ray, Kinect 2.0, and AR glasses: report
Xbox World, a video game magazined headquartered in the UK, has published details on what it claims is the next Microsoft Xbox console.
According to the editors at Xbox World, the new device will be called "Xbox," and not, as others have speculated, "Xbox 720." The magazine says the new Xbox will include improved voice controls, an upgraded Kinect platform, Blu-Ray capability, some sort of "innovative controller," and the ability to record and playback broadcast television.
Down the line, augmented reality glasses could even be part of the equation.
Microsoft, for its part, has not commented on the Xbox World report, and it's not clear where the magazine obtained its information.
Still, as Andy Robinson of CVG notes, Xbox World has generally been on the money with this kind of thing in the past, and it makes sense that news of the next Xbox – which is probably due sometime in 2013 – would begin to leak out now. Moreover, the details revealed by Xbox World generally line up with what we expect to see in the next wave of consoles: A premium on expanding the realm of video games beyond the traditional two-controller-and-box-set-up.
The next Microsoft and Sony consoles aren't likely to have hugely improved graphics (although the graphics engines will certainly improve), if only because graphics on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are already really good.
Instead, developers and console-makers will work on snagging more casual gamers, and on making the console a Swiss Army knife device: A machine that can be used for playing games, but also watching multimedia content.
In related news, Xbox Live, one of the first online gaming hubs, turns 10 years old this week.
"How time flies!" Larry Hryb, the Director of Programming for Xbox Live, wrote in a blog post. "Ten years ago today, Xbox Live officially launched and today we all celebrate this milestone. On behalf of everyone here on the Xbox team… thank you for your support over the past ten years."
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The Nintendo Wii U shipped on Sunday. Here, the Wii U's GamePad touchscreen controller. (Nintendo)
Nintendo Wii U review roundup
On Sunday, after months of hype and speculation, Nintendo finally unveiled the Wii U, the successor to the top-selling Wii video game console.
The device comes in two versions: a standard edition, with 8 gigabytes of storage, for $299; and a "deluxe" package, with 32 gigabytes of storage and the Nintendo Land game, for $349. The big selling points on the Wii U are the HD graphics – the original Wii lagged woefully behind the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 in this regard – and the touchscreen GamePad controller.
So how does the Wii U stack up to other competitors in the console market? Well, let's go to the reviews.
First up, the controller. It's big, admits David Pierce of The Verge, but it actually handles pretty well.
"[T]hanks to ridges underneath your fingers in the back is quite comfortable to hold as long as it's in both hands – it's a little awkward in one hand, especially when you hold it in portrait mode," Pierce writes, adding that "the whole thing feels a little cheap and flimsy (a common occurrence with Nintendo consoles) though it's plenty sturdy in use. The build quality is one of many sacrifices Nintendo seems to make in the name of creating a lighter, smaller GamePad."
And after a little bit of use, writes Kyle Orland of Ars Technica, the thing only gets better.
"The GamePad's tilt sensitivity precision is probably its most surprising feature," Orland writes."This is best put to use in conjunction with the built-in screen to give you direct control of a first-person camera. Moving the GamePad around and seeing the image on the screen change perspective instantly (and accurately) is like looking through a portal to another world, creating a seamless bit of augmented reality that just isn’t possible on other systems."
With the GamePad, of course, comes the same sort of mobile OS you'd see on a touchscreen smartphone. And surprisingly, notes Kyle Wagner of Gizmodo, for something not made by Apple or Google, the experience is not half-bad.
"Navigating around on the gamepad is more responsive than you expect from a console OS, as are touch events and sensitivity," Wagner writes. "It's not to the level of, say, iOS or Android, but it's miles better than using the touchscreen on a [Nintendo 3DS handheld]. That's all undercut, though, but interminable load times you encounter while switching apps. Maybe that'll be fixed with an early patch (Amazon's Kindle Fire HD had enormous load times for movies and apps just a few days before it launched, but fixed them in time), but for now, it's infuriating."
As we noted last week, Nintendo is launching the Wii U with traditional fare, such as the new Super Mario game, Super Mario Bros. U. But the bulked-up Wii U is also capable of playing big-budget titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Assassin's Creed III, both of which are scheduled to hit shelves this week. And that's mostly a good thing, writes Andrew Hayward of TechRadar.
"Since multiplatform games take up such a large chunk of the launch lineup, its success depends a lot on perspective," Hayward writes. "If you're upgrading from a Wii, you'll find a large number of fantastic HD experiences that simply weren't possible on that dated hardware. For owners of Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or a capable PC, a lot of the lineup may seem like a retread, with only a handful of titles beyond Nintendo's own games really delivering fresh experiences."
And then there's the "Miiverse" – a social network where Wii U games can create custom avatars, chat with buddies, brag about scores, or post messages to Twitter. There's no subscription fee for the Miiverse, but unfortunately, as Matt Peckham of Time found out recently, the whole place is a bit of a ghost town right now.
"I’m genuinely upbeat about Nintendo’s two-screen approach to gaming, but the online angle is a little disappointing," Peckham writes. "A bunch of stuff is still missing, the stuff that’s there has stability issues and when it works, load times are annoying. Now that we’re getting a clearer picture of how the Wii U works with the rest of its features enabled, it’s hard not to see Nov. 18 as overly optimistic – Nintendo corporate putting its 'in time for Black Friday' foot down."
We're going to give the last word on the Wii U to Stephen Totilo of Kotaku. Totilo likes the Wii U, but at this point, he counsels, it's not exactly a must-have.
"Wait until the 'launch window' closes at the end of March and the likes of Pikmin 3, Lego City Undercover and a slew of interesting download-only games are available," he writes. "With any new console you might be wisest to give it a year, especially if you want to be able to compare it to what Sony and Microsoft have coming next. And if they don't put screens in their controllers, know right now that Nintendo will have at least that excellent advantage over them."
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
On Sunday, Nintendo will finally launch its Wii U console. The Wii U includes a touchscreen GamePad controller, pictured here. (Reuters)
Wii U, Nintendo's long-awaited successor to the Wii, hits stores on Sunday
On Sunday, six years after the launch of the original Wii, Nintendo will release its latest console, the Wii U.
The device retails at two price points: $299 gets you a white Wii U with 8 GB of storage, a GamePad controller, and all the necessary accessories. $349, on the other hand, gets you a black Wii U with 32 GB of storage, the accessories and the controller, and a stand, a controller cradle, and the Nintendo Land video game, which the San Francisco Chronicle calls "both [an] introduction and tutorial for the new console."
Side note from the Horizons desk: Committed gamers are almost definitely better off opting for the $349 bundle, if only for the extra storage. If you play a lot of games, you're going to end up forking over a few bucks down the line for memory expansion anyway, right? Better to just get it over with now. Plus, the black "deluxe" console is pretty sweet, in our humble opinion.
The Wii U represents a major leap forward from the Wii. For one, this console is capable of playing HD content, and it's got enough processing power to muscle through the kind of big, graphically-complex titles that currently populate the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ecosystems. (Of course, in this way, Nintendo is only playing catch-up – once Microsoft and Sony release their next consoles, Nintendo likely will be left in the dust all over again.)
There's also the GamePad controller, a bulky, touchscreen affair intended to open a "second portal" into the gaming experience (one player could devise football plays on the GamePad, for instance, out of view of his competitor). Wii U reviews are still trickling out, so we're not sure exactly how the GamePad stacks up, but over at the AP, Lou Kesten points out that the controller is a serious machine unto itself.
"The GamePad looks like the spawn of a tablet computer and a classic game controller. Its surface area is a little smaller than an iPad's," he writes, "but it's about three times as thick, largely because it has hand grips that make it more comfortable over prolonged game sessions. It has an accelerometer and gyroscope for motion-controlled games, as well as a camera, a microphone, speakers, two analog joysticks and a typical array of buttons."
The Wii U launches with a pretty respectable line up of titles, including Black Ops II, FIFA Soccer 13, Transformers Prime, and Super Mario Bros. U.
And the "inventive, challenging" Super Mario Bros. U is definitely worth picking up, says Kyle Orland of Ars Technica. The game, Orland opines, is "the first real Mario title to launch with a home console since the Nintendo 64, the best two-dimensional Mario title in decades, and the first since Super Mario World to really capture the appeal of the 8- and 16-bit classics that came before it."
High praise indeed.
For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.
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