Nintendo talks Wii U, Mario and Nintendoland

5 hrs.

Devin Coldewey

After the show floor shut down at E3 on Tuesday, there was a modest gathering for press and fans to speak with a couple of Nintendo developers about the Wii U and its games. In attendance were?Katsuya?Eguchi,?producer of Nintendoland, and?Takashi Tezuka, producer of New Super Mario Bros U. They talked for a bit about their new games and demonstrated the gameplay themselves before opening up the floor to Q&A.

One thing they both talked up was the presence of the Miiverse in their games. It's not, as Eguchi put it, just a game-specific message board. In Nintendoland, for instance, your park will be populated with real people, whom you can speak to and whose accomplishments and records can be viewed. Whereas in NSMBU, it's more of a collaborative commentary, with bosses and hard levels accoutred with tips and doubtless some expressions of exasperation.

Essentially, it's a pervasive mesh of social interaction that has a few standard forms (the message boards and chat) but will change its function depending on the game you're in. Hopefully it will have a better fate than Nintendo's other social efforts.

Mr. Eguchi also mentioned that there would be a spoiler warning system in place; obvious spoilers would be marked or removed, and posts could be flagged. During the Q&A session, it was asked whether Nintendo would also be monitoring posts for other content, such as language or "less than positive" comments. Eguchi responded affirmatively, saying that they wanted the Miiverse to be a place where people could feel safe and get reliable help, as opposed to internet forums where there is lots of noise and people who haven't played the game. He didn't outline the specifics, but Nintendo has a fairly conservative track record when it comes to potentially objectionable content.

Another question was asked regarding the ability to transfer saves, Virtual Console games and the like from the Wii to the Wii U. This was a definite yes: their engineers are hard at work on this, though he did not say whether it would be available at launch.

And speaking of the launch, one of the last questions was whether Nintendoland would be bundled with the Wii U the way Wii Sports was with the Wii. Eguchi noted that there was not in fact such a bundle in Japan, but that "the concept is similar" and though he couldn't say for sure, it was certainly a possibility.

There will be another talk this evening focusing on the 3DS, at which Mr. Tezuka suggested there would be reveals relating to New Super Mario Bros 2 for the handheld.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

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