@manu0 In theory Skype could be on Wii U, but in reality I think it's extremely unlikely. Nintendo would have to pay MS for the privilege, and I doubt there's the will or enough demand. Heck, the Wii U doesn't even use a standard Blu-Ray player, as the company often goes proprietary to avoid paying too many third parties.

MS owns Skype, so we can all rule that out. I don't think Nintendo will go beyond Wii U Chat, to be honest.

@Sun The review as a whole aims to reflect the thinking behind the score, and clearly I disagree that it deserves the same mark as the original... opinions and all that.

As for retro games, you undermine yourself when you use language such as "retro stupid game" and "Shame on you, Nintendo Life!", as they're not exactly reasoned ways to express yourself. Let's not compare apples to oranges, either, a Virtual Console title at $6 or whatever is a different proposition to a $50 retail experience, not to mention the fact that we have a whole team of reviewers with their own views on individual games.

Still, no-one will ever agree with every review score. If they did it'd be a bit boring, really.

If anyone cares, I selected Wii U and PS4 for systems I'll own in the coming gen. I've had a Wii U since launch (obviously!) but was impressed by some of what the PS4 is doing — such as the Share button. That said, money is a big thing. If the PS4 has a daft price and I can't afford to buy that and keep up with the Wii U library, I'll likely skip it and stick with Ninty and odds-and-ends on PC.

To be honest, I think pricing is a big deal, and my console plans are fairly fluid as a result.

@Haxonberik I thought about that, but opted to stick with home consoles because of the context. PCs don't have "generations", I don't think, they're just constantly well ahead!

From my perspective, I'll happily admit to being a Nintendo fan in the main, but I'm fascinated by new systems from rival systems. I also have to follow the wider games industry, because context is absolutely vital when writing about Wii U in particular.

Stupidly pricing is something I have an obsessive interest in, the one thing that won't be covered in all likelihood!

@Omarsonic9 I doubt that! He said he's not in Origins which is this Fall

@Best_ Organise is the UK spelling, we use British English...

@AG_Systems I think there may be a setting to have it kick in automatically, plus you need to have the system constantly online. Try routing around in the settings

The update should be live everywhere, or at least in the UK and US! I suspect Canada and the rest of Europe have it too.

@SpaceKappa TESTIFY! Yeah, it's still a major bugbear of mine that the accounts are tied to hardware, it's like the cloud doesn't exist. Last time I put in a whiny paragraph about it (late last year) I got a fair bit of grief, though!

I can't imagine an account system is far away, but we've said that before...

@Aqueous Bizarrely, the reference I saw referring to confirmed sequels is no longer there, but I'll investigate. What I read was that there'll be new entries in the next two years.

Darn...

Yes I know it's for Wii U, that was a typo. These things happen, I'm going to learn to love again.

I've also fixed the Tails spelling. Leave me alone, it's Sunday night and dark here in Scotland.

@Stark_Nebula Okey dokey!

Just refresh until you get a Nintendo Direct logo on the stream, it looks fine at our end!

If any of you can't see the stream, refresh your window now. It starts in five minutes

Hello all, if you refresh now the text chat is up and running. I'll give you all a nudge and a wink once the stream is ready...

This made me smile, no doubt. Darren's bang on, too. I played a bit of Tomb Raider this week and, while visually stunning and cinematic up to the ears, I had more fun watching someone else play it because it looked so awesome. When playing it myself I wasn't a fan of the "go this way dummy" level design, and at times cut scenes and gameplay were so closely merged I didn't know when the hell I was supposed to play the game.

Super Metroid says, screw that, figure it out sucker

@Hunter-D Thanks for that, whoops! Those errors are now fixed

On the framerate. I never had issues beyond what I described in the review, and it didn't stop me having a fantastic time. The Wii game was exceptional, ad 60fps isn't always the standard for games.

So yeah, I beat the game with 80-odd lives, happily jumping through some really tough levels with 3D on full, so it's clearly not too bad!

@Aqueous Thanks for highlighting the issue. In terms of what game pages show, they show one price (US for NA, UK under EU), while as you say we cover Euros and Pounds in the European download update. This NA update comes from Nintendo of America, but I'll look into the options for adding Canadian prices in the update, even if they don't show on game pages. I need to see if the details are readily available.

@MarioEU deal queries - the half price Mario Bros. 2 deal wasn't listed for Europe, so this seems to be NA only

@Prof_Elvin_Gadd - I'm the lucky soul reviewing Starship Damrey, but I got it today like everyone else. I'll aim for something like Sunday, depends how long the game is etc. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it though, so hopefully it won't disappoint

@TwilightV Indeed, thanks for that, I've just tweaked the article

@Joshers744 No correction needed, that's the deal!

@burninmylight Yep, you get outfits for beating the campaign, leveling up in Raid Mode etc, though I don't know the specifics for these ones, and Capcom wouldn't say

@DarkCoolEdge Burned how? I'm not being confrontational, I'm genuinely curious

If a year from now we have a catalogue of un-released games promised for Wii U on Kickstarter, fine, but it's too early to write it off. It's not going anywhere, either, as it's become invaluable for small developers and, ironically, is strengthening their stance against publishers that may that may have ripped them off in the past.

@Midnight3DS I also think there's an illogical and automatic dislike of the word Kickstarter. The irony is that people cry out for games, then when Indies find a way to make it happen through crowdfunding, some decide they don't like it, or negatives are accentuated.

The last I checked, conventional publishing models had enough problems of their own with low quality and/or broken promises.

@Inev I know, but I think that's just to promote it. Ubisoft's press details specified the character from Liberation

@Sun As did I, but you can move the ZombiU scanner with the left stick, too; that's how I roll! Or, er, how I scan.

@Sun From my perspective, I disagree with any charge of sensationalism — but then I would, obviously. A number of sites have gone out and taken the same material and stated it as a fact, whereas we feel the rumour tag is more appropriate because of the translation. I reckon it's 99% likely that this update will remove the feature, which has been described as a "bug" by Nintendo reps in the last article on this topic.

I'll keep an eye out and update if anything else comes out, as it can be tricky with Japan-only games. What I won't do, individually, is shy away from stories like this, unless I'm told to by the site bosses. I defend both articles against the charge of sensationalism, too, as I've been very careful with the wording in both to address information that's out there without applying 'spin'.

Do we want people to read the stories and discuss them? Of course we do, that's kind of the whole point. As I've said, in these cases I feel we've done so responsibly.

@Martyn Whoops! That's now fixed

@RupeeClock If you want to, knock yourself out...

We, on the other hand, will cover when relevant to Nintendo and not bury our heads in the sand

@Retro_on_theGo It didn't have the tags and in-app Miiverse access, though it probably had the Home to Miiverse stuff. It's more integrated with the main experience now, at least it seemed that way when I fired it up earlier

@akabenjy - This was an interview with some focus on the Japanese market, so maybe that's the figure for that region. For example there were discussions about how the 360 has flopped in that territory, whereas everywhere else it clearly hasn't

Still, the core story is probably true, and it's nice that Nintendo's made the move. I imagine they have teams monitoring performance of systems worldwide — oh yes, they're watching — and figuring out how much juice could be increased without risks of overheating, malfunctions etc. I'm guessing, as I'm no tech-head, but it's good for us and, possibly, devs, if Nintendo loosens the leash on the Wii U's assets.

If I'm talking a load of rubbish, then apologies!

I think Nintendo may have boosted the clock speed to help with menus and, as a result, the odd game may also run better, which is great. Would it have gone up this far? Not a chance!

I reckon the rumour's true, but the figures are a load of old poop

@Morphtorok Because expenditure was so high I was in a loop of one "big" game — like an RPG or FPS — at a time, and filling gaps with rubbish 3-in-1 games. Earlier I'd had good diversity going with (occasionally) five projects running at a time. The wages and office costs got too high though, and I really needed to streamline, but couldn't.

I think in BookStore Dream you could continue looping on day 99 (or whatever it was), which could be fun just to have delusions of grandeur and earn big bucks.

Well I gave Bookstore Dream 7/10 and this one 6/10 so, yeah, guess which I enjoyed more

@MadAdam81 I've played a lot of Game Dev Story, hell I even mentioned it in the review

I think this is a decent game with flaws and quirks, so that's why I opted for that score.

@Whirlpool It looks like it is a "bug", but how Nintendo deals with it will be one to watch. I would hope it'll patch in the ability for women to do the same, but as I said in the article it might go the other way and remove this entirely. I'd like the think the subject-matter's progressed far enough that Nintendo will simply add the female option, but we'll see.

@GiftedGimp Because everything's rosy and wonderful and happily skipping through meadows?

Personally, I think we cover the broad spectrum of what's happening with Nintendo. Some days have happier news than others, and I believe that's just the way it is; hiding from negatives does its fans nor Nintendo any favours. We've also constantly repeated a belief that the Wii U could have a bright and exciting future from the latter half of the year onwards, in news articles, features and editorials - it's all about balance and presenting an accurate picture.

@siavm Yep, probably. As I said I think it'll come West, but not for a while yet.

Hello all. Just on the "these aren't all phone and tablet-only games" - I know! That's addressed in the article

Slightly surprised to see so many "Nothing for me" votes, I thought this was a pretty good week, especially on 3DS. My curiosity with compel me to pick up Starship Damrey first, I reckon.

@DarkCoolEdge I think if you make a donation you expect nothing back, whereas here you're paying money to help development of a game, with your return varying depending on how much you put in. I think with Kickstarter its suitably vague, though!

@Sjoerd They're authorised, they haven't quite hit the target yet. The odds look decent, though.

@catsrnice Yeah, though I think they're very similar, differing only in arrangement, so I thought of this as the credits/main theme in my head, anyway.

@SMEXIZELDAMAN Yeah I know It got picked twice so, why not!

@C-Olimar Whoops... Should be right now, easy mistake to make!

@PinkSpider It's 30th August in Europe, 3rd September in North America.

@RainbowGazelle No need, I'm a snippy old grump but shouldn't reply as one

I'm really looking forward to this game, though I think this new level's a few marks lower on the EPIC scale, especially without the crazy finale of Castle Rock. It's certainly on my must-buy list, as it has been since it was first unveiled.