Interesting. There is a definite pattern from the Wii RPGs that make up "Operation Rainfall". Xenoblade Chronicles is the best (and one of the best Western reviewed Japanese RPGs in many years), the Last Story is a step below Xenoblade Chronicles, and now Pandora's Tower is step below Last Story. Xenonblade Chronicles was the most prominent game to be featured in Operation Rainfall, and its gotten around 140k in sales in the USA for the first week (despite having launched on a Friday rather than the usual Tuesday or for Nintendo games, Sunday). I have a feeling that Last Story won't do as well in the USA thanks to weaker reviewers and less prominence, which could make a North American release of Pandora's Tower less than certain.

There is no excuse for Nintendo to release a home console that is less powerful than 6-7 year old X-Box 360 and Playstation 3. On the other hand, these developers refuse to reveal themselves so you can't really lend any credibility to them. From what I saw at the last E3 with the tech demos the Wii U is likely to be slightly more powerful than the current gen HD consoles, which will be enough IF Nintendo can convince 3rd parties to work on the console and Nintendo works on having a modern online system. I don't think the gap between the Wii U and Sony and Microsoft's next systems will be as big as the current generation because current top the line computers only look moderately better than the current consoles and the next gen consoles will have to match that in order to stay even fairly affordable. A true big "jump" in graphics would be the point in which video game graphics that look like current pre-rended CGI could be processed in real time, but nothing like that for consumers exist yet.

A big question will be on when the Microsoft and Sony release their new consoles? There was a lot of hype of both them coming in 2013, but with both Microsoft and Sony not showing new consoles at E3 this year it kinda puts a damper on everything. The longer it takes for Microsoft and Sony to release there consoles, the easier it will be to justify having Nintendo merely meet the standards of the current HD consoles because that is more time for developers to work with the Wii U and bring out it's potential.

If Gamefreak really beefs up the story (Black and White's story was the best out of the Pokemon franchise but still not as good as nearly all other eastern RPGs) then it will be worth a purchase for many even if the rest of the game is basically like the 3rd version games of past generations.

I think the poor sales of the Vita in Japan are linked to a severe lack of games that would appeal to the Japanese market on the system. In North America (and by extension Europe) the launch line-up for the Vita seems to be much more appealing than the 3DS's launch line up and almost all of them will appeal to western gamers, so I think Vita's first week will out do what the 3DS did in its first week in the West and thereafter sell more than twice as much in the US and slightly to moderately more in Europe than in Japan. The thing is going to be if the high price and pricey propertiety media will hurt the Vita in the long run, which I think will. The 3DS got a massive jump in sales and has held fast once it got a price drop. I don't think Sony could afford such a move as the Vita is more expensive than the 3DS to produce and they are already losing money on each system sold. It is going to be interesting, this portable war.

I agree with this. Other people can handle the legacy titles like Mario and Zelda, but Nintendo desperately needs some new IPs after having none at all for the current generation. Miyamoto is the best person to help create some new franchises.

With the Wii U likely coming out late this year, the chances are pretty high that Tiger Woods 13 will come out for that system. At the very least, if it doesn't come to a Nintendo system this year, then next years game definitely will. I believe that nearly all "hardcore" games by 3rd parties for Nintendo will gravitate towards the Wii U in terms of development this year.

It's extremely unlikely that this will see release outside of Japan. The main series of Pokemon games have been extremely popular in the USA and Europe but side games (as well as other media like the anime) have generally done poorly. A crossover with an obscure Japanese series guarantees that this won't see the light of day outside of Japan.

In terms of if I would buy it? I would have to try it first as I never played a strategy RPG and I would have to see how I like the play style before I committed to a purchase.

It's about time Miyamoto created a new franchise. Mario and Zelda are great but I want to see some new IPs.

Why are all those darn Europeans getting all the good news?

I fully expect the Wii U to launch during the Q4 of 2012, so October, November, or December, with a early-mid launch in November the most likely in my opinion. I never thought at all that the Wii U would see release in the first half of 2012 because for home consoles that never happens.

My bet is that the new game is either the 3rd version for the current 5th generation (and it will almost certainly be played on the 3DS, although there may be some enhancements if played on the 3DS) or a new Pokemon Battle Revolution/Stadium for either the Wii or Wii U.

Monster Hunter Tri was the most popular Monster Hunter game in the USA/Canada and Europe (substantially more than the previous versions) so I think its a given that Monster Hunter 4 will come out in the west. I'm not sure if Monster Hunter Tri G will because the series isn't popular enough that people would be willing to buy a handheld port. The thing is that western gamers prefer fast paced action so the slow methotical approach that the Monster Hunter Series strives for isn't really appealing. I do hope that Monster Hunter become a decent selling series in the West, but I doubt it will become as popular as Street Fighter or Resident Evil.

@James Why are you talking about Rhythm Heaven when this post is about Xenoblade Chronciles?

I hope this rumor turns out to be true, but I haven't heard of specific store only releases for whole games so it seems pretty dubious.

In the USA at least, if Nintendo wants to sell to the widest possible audience, then $250 is the max. It seems that the Wii U is more along the lines of parity to the 360/PS3 rather than clearly exceeding them in terms of processing and graphical power. It is very likely that both the PS3 and 360 will be $200 for the mid-range SKUs, so Nintendo has to price the Wii U to be competive with that. The extra 50 dollars could easily be justifed by the costs of the new controller. A launch price any higher could potentially cripple Nintendo for the entire generation. $300 dollars would be cheap enough for the Nintendo fanboys and fangirls (like everyone who posts comments on Nintendolife! ^_^) but for hardcore gamers, it will be seen as a waste to spend an extra 100 dollars for the Wii U when they can get similiar quality for 100 dollars cheaper with the PS3 or 360. This will especially be true if the rumours on the Wii U having only a 8 gig flash internal hard drive and a potentially messy online system end up to be true. And hardcore gamers who abandoned Nintendo for Sony or Microsoft? I doubt they would come for the Wii U in any situation but there is no chance if the system is $300 dollars. More than $300 dollars and even NIntendo fanboys/girls will balk at buying the system and you have the potential for a Dreamcast like disaster.

It will be very important for the Wii U to build up an install base after it launches, so that it can compete with Sony and Microsoft's next gen consoles (although how much more powerful those systems will be is still a very open question). If its flailing against the current gen consoles, it will outright fail when Sony and Microsoft release their new systems.

I don't know why Nintendo is wasting money on even a limited release of the newest Pokemon movie in theaters. The core games are still popular in the USA but everything else connected to the franchise has fallen massively since the late 90s when Pokemon first came out. There are going to lose money on this.

On 2nd thought, nice for Nintendo to finally release the V-create Victini, as that's the move that really helps it stand out among the various other fire pokemon. The first Victini was already on Black and White (but required a liberty pass to unlock it) and it didn't have V-Create.

@stromboli Why don't you buy her the Pink 3DS for Christmas as your excuse?

I wish this was on a console rather than a portable, but seeing how much success MH has had on the PSP I guess this isn't a surprise.

@ Kid_A

On Wikipedia it says that Kid Icarus is targeted for a November 2011. Either Nintendo doesn't consider the title a major one like Mario Kart and Super Mario, or they truly are thinking of releasing it next year. But I bet it's simply the former.

@ Highwinter

I don't know about Europe, my British friend, but in North America Dragon Quest has always been a minor series. Final Fantasy is the only JRPG series which is really big in North America. The sucess of Monster Hunter Tri means the MH and DQ series right now are at pariety in NA, although this wasn't true before because pre Tri MH had horrible sales outside of Japan.

I think its great this game has online, but I don't like the required online part of it. I doubt it would have a subscription fee if it was released overseas (which is very likely seeing as how DQ IX was), as DQ is not popular enough that many western players would be willing to pay it. Nearly all franchises that are popular in the West, including Western RPGs, have free online play so it would be a bad business model for Square and Nintendo to do this either for for the Wii or Wii U.

Dragonquest will probably be the Wii's last major title, with Skyward Sword being the Wii's last major title from Nintendo before the release of the Wii U. I'm surprised how long it's been since this game was announced and we haven't seen anything. It's going to be a massive hit in Japan.

Nintendo discontinued the Wii Speak so it will no longer work for future games (although with the Wii U on the horizon, there isn't a lot of them).. The only games that allow the PDF Headset is Black Ops, Conduit 2, and the soon to be released MW3.

Seeing as how soccer (football) is not very popular in the USA and Canada, I'm going to guess I'm never going to see this game in my country. Seems pretty interesting that this series is being released outside of Japan anywhere and at all.

80 Euros is about 116 American Dollars if the exchange rate site I found is correct? It sounds like a good deal for our European friends. I'm not sure why Nintendo is considering something like this in America but perhaps its not necessary.

So this is so far an Europe only release. Interesting.

@Nintenzo I can see this being $99 (or the equivalent in Euros/Pounds) seeing as how it has removed backwards compatibility.

NoA decision to not release Xenoblade as well as the other RPGs is maddening when the Wii's lineup is so weak compared to the HD systems this year. I'm pretty sure that Europe overall, not just the UK, is what NoA is looking at in terms of sales and if its worth the cost to bring the game over to North America.

This is the first time that Nintendo decided to screw over the Americans instead of the Europeans. I hope this wells well in Europe so NoA will bring this title over to my country but who knows seeing as how stupidly stubborn Reggie and the rest of the NoA bigwigs are.

Considering that Nintendo is the undisputed champion of the current (and soon to be former) generation, any talk about Nintendo being a third party is rather silly. Nintendo has been around for more than a hundred years, and has been in the video game business for about 30 years, much longer than Sony or Microsoft, so I cannot fathom Nintendo going 3rd party any time soon.

On the topic, I do think that Nintendo would be far superior as a 3rd party developer as compared to Sega, who has really went down hill in quality (especially with the Sonic the Hedgehog series) since they closed down on the Dreamcast and left the console arena, but again I think this talk about Nintendo being 3rd party and the same not being said of Microsoft or Sony is ludicrous.

Gears of War would be sweet on the Wii U but I'm sure Microsoft owns at least part of that franchise, so it would never come to a non-Microsoft console. However seeing some new IPs, especially Wii U exclusives that make liberal use of the tablet controller would be awesome.

I hope Revelation doesn't have the framerate and other technical issues Mercenaries has (according to the reviews I saw).

The fact that his game is on the PS3 (and that version is coming to the west) kinda lessens the blow. The issue is of Wii exclusive RPGs not coming to the west, not multiplatform releases.

Also this is a 3rd party too, not NoA. I hope Dragon Quest X comes out for the Wii and comes out NA because if not I'm going to scream..

Unlike the Wii, NoA are bringing RPGs to the 3DS. Of course the DS has alot of strong RPGs itself so its not a surprise.

The only good movie-tie in games are GoldenEye 007 and The chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. All others range from mediocre to crappy. So no surprise here.

I think you guys need to understand that its not the whole of Nintendo that is at fault, but specficially Nintendo of America. As people above me have already commented, Nintendo of Europe is bringing some of these RPGs to their shores, but Nintendo of Japan is also bringing American and European made games like Epic Mickey and Goldeneye to the Wii other there despite being based on American (Mickey) and British (Goldeneye) properties.

Now I love Reggie but this is the first time I don't like the fact that he is NoA president. I'm sure that he has a big say on which games get localized, and him and the NoA sales teams are acting really stupid letting the wii die.

I hope my European friends buy lots of copeis of Xenoblade, because if you guys do then NoA may change their tune and bring Xenoblade over to the US. With the exception of soccer (I know you Europeans call it football!) games, and a bigger tolerance of sexuality but less for violence, the European and American markets are quite similar. Most of the Europeans posting here are British so spend a lot of pounds buying Xenoblade please! ^_

Capcom's game had a lot more publicity than the three other games mentioned in this article. So that is probably why Capcom got a lot more flak.

@Nukerprime64
You don't think my post was middle of the road? I said I thought the single player portion of Conduit 2 is mediocre at best and worst than the first game while I praised the multiplayer?

@composerzane
I didn't know that Black Ops on the Wii gets patches. I assumed it didn't because the Wii version doesn't get any of the DLC maps that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions receive.

First of all, I think that Conduit 2 has great online multiplayer. The ability to patch means that in quality the online multiplayer will eventually supercede the patchless online multiplayer of Wii FPS contemporaries Black Ops and GoldenEye.

Second of all, the biggest mistake is not with HVS itself but with Sega. Unlike the first game they basically refused to market the sequel. They made a big mistake releasing the game the same day Portal 2 and the new Mortal Kombat were coming out and not bothering to put in any advertisments. It is the lack of advertisments and being put up against high profile games, not the mixed metacritic/gamerankings score that made the game sell worse than The Conduit.

HVS major failings was in the single player. Despite two major delays from when it was supposed to come out, it seems they didn't really work on the game. There are quite a few bugs and some major performance issues that happen during the campaign that HVS failed to make. Also the campaign teeters between being a paraody of other FPS games and a straight conspiracy shooter, which helped make the single player campaign worse than the first game (in my opinion).

Also in terms of the Grinder, they don't have a publisher yet (despite a tentative release date of Halloween 2011) and with Sega's poor treatment of Conduit 2 it's unlikely they will publish HVS's newest game. So there is a good chance it will be canceled.

Huh I thought that Europe had the download shop at the same time as North America now (Thursday). Why do they get an update on Monday?

As Germany has the largest economy in the EU, seeing these learn German games seem kinda pointless. I mean don't you Brits (and other non-native German speaking nations) have to learn German in public school?

I have to say this really pisses me off. The Wii has finally gotten some quality FPS games in the last few years, so the only genre that has been dry are RPGs.

Dragon Quest X will likely be the biggest and best RPG for the Wii in North America, but it would be nice to have some other RPGs come out in the meantime. Nintendo of America come on! Damn you Reggie!

Wow for a moment I thought the article meant that Nintendo has lasted for 285 years. Its actually about 122 years, Nintendo was founded in 1889.

Nintendo needs to sell the Wii U controller separately. It would really piss me off if I somehow broke my Wii U controller by accident and I had to buy a whole new console just to replace it.

I also think it should at a minimum allow two Wii U tablet controllers to be used. Maybe have the second one have much less advanced streaming or something so it won't tax the system?

@JafriYakin
I agree. Japanese live adaptations in general aren't as good. A major issue being Japan so ethnically homogeneous so making diverse looking characters can be a challenge. Although I think Japanese live action adaptations of video games are superior to the ones Hollywood sends out.

@MechaPhoenix

Don't think that Gainax has the long history nor is beloved (even in Japan) as an older company like Tatsunoko. So I think the chances are really slim. But perhaps you are half joking...

If Tatsunoko vs Capcom gets a sequel, Capcom should definitely release it on Project Cafe rather than on the Wii.

I don't think it should be released for the other company consoles. 360/PS3 in NA/Europe care a lot more about Marvel than Tatsunoko so it would be a waste.