[Robo]

Saleswise, the Wii U had a solid (though not quite Wii-level) debut in Japan and North America (its performance in Europe was...less good). But after the holidays, early signs are indicating that sales have dropped precipitously, and with Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101 and Game & Wario all delayed out of the Wii U's "launch window," the only game Wii U game Nintendo is publishing this quarter is Lego City Undercover, in March. It's a slow time of year for games in general (at least until March, when a bunch of companies rush out releases to beat the end of the fiscal year), but with sales slowing, not a whole lot on the horizon, and Xbox 3 and PS4 coming into focus and dominating industry buzz, Nintendo had to act.

Fortunately, they did. They held one of their "Nintendo Direct" live-streaming events today, and they made the sort of rush of announcements that are normally reserved for expo keynotes. They even announced announcements of things, at expo keynotes months from now. They really want to sell Wii Us.

Here's what they announced, arranged in a rough order going further into the future. All their previously announced but unreleased games are due by the end of June, so these are things we might see from Q3 on.

Yoshi (tentative title) — a new Yoshi game was heavily rumored for Wii U ever since someone figured out how to access a debug menu in Miiverse, where they saw mentions of an unannounced game called Yoshi Land. Then, Best Buy Canada/Futureshop put up listings for a game called Yoshi Land. So, here it is. Like previous Yoshi games, it's a side-scroller, but this time the graphics are all in 3D, and it continues the needle-and-thread "crafty" look of Yoshi's Story and Kirby's Epic Yarn. (I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was developed by Good-Feel, Yarn's developer. They have no announced projects, the timing is right, and it really does look like a spiritual successor to Yarn.) This I think we'll see in Q3.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD has always seemed like an obvious move for Nintendo, and they're making it. I think it really should have been a launch title, actually (it was the game's tenth anniversary and everything!), but that's another discussion. Wind Waker's graphics actually hold up surprisingly well, due to the art style, so it looks to avoid the weird "some things are sharp, some things are blurry" look of many HD rereleases. And Wind Waker actually has a feature that makes it an especially obvious to receive the Wii U treatment — remember the Tingle Tuner, that item that worked by giving you a second screen when you plugged in a Game Boy Advance? Well, guess which console has a second screen out of the box. Nintendo announced this for "fall;" I think it'll be Nintendo's September game.

That leaves 3D Mario and Mario Kart. Nintendo didn't really announce these games, just announced that they'd be unveiling them in full at E3 in June, where they'll be playable. Nintendo doesn't typically unveil games unless they're releasing that year, so that all eyes are on them that holiday season (which is one reason why Wii U needed game announcements so badly). This suggests that this holiday, Nintendo looks to be giving the Wii U the 3D Mario-Mario Kart one-two punch that marked where 3DS sales started rising to heaven in 2011. They'll need to bring out the big guns, too, if Sony and Microsoft are both shipping their new consoles this holiday.

Nintendo also confirmed that Bayonetta 2 would also be at E3. Given that title's seemingly advanced state of completion (it was in development for the PS3 and Xbox for a while before Platinum's publisher dropped it, and Nintendo picked it up) I think we'll also see that this year.

That leaves stuff that's coming next year and beyond.

Super Smash Bros. Wii U will also be at E3, but I have my doubts that it will come out this year. It's certainly a priority for Nintendo — it was pretty much the first game Nintendo announced for the Wii U, and they know it's a big draw for their fanbase — so maybe they'll try to rush it out, who knows.

This isn't big news for most people in "the West," but it's pretty big for Japan: Nintendo announced that they were collaborating with Atlus to make a Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover. (People who know what those two series are are currently having an OMGWTFYES reaction around the world.) They announced absolutely nothing about the game besides that it's a Wii U game, so it's coming next year at the earliest.

The biggest surprise of the event was a trailer for Xenoblade developer Monolith Soft's Wii U game, which seems to be a Xenoblade spiritual successor called X. Xenoblade is widely considered (by those who played it, anyway) to be one of the best games for the Wii, and the sort-of-sequel doesn't disappoint: it looks awesome, and maybe a little Monster Hunter-inspired. A common sentiment is that Monolith Soft looks to be making exactly what Square Enix has been trying to make with Final Fantasy Versus for seven years — a massive, gorgeous open world JRPG — and, at this rate, will likely beat them to release. This looks to be one of the Wii U's big guns for 2013; it's certainly not going to be GameStop-exclusive (like Xenoblade was in North America) this time.

Iwata also talked about the next console Zelda game. While many loved Skyward Sword, its sales were disappointing, and many feel the typical Zelda formula could use some freshening up. Iwata said that the new game's development mission was to "rethink the conventions of Zelda," and that they wanted to make the world feel more open and nonlinear, saying that something they wanted to change was having to visit all the dungeons in a set order. He also used that you played by yourself as an example of a convention they wanted to rethink, hinting that maybe we can expect multiplayer of some sort. It's a ways off, though — holiday 2014 at the absolute earliest, and 2015 is more likely.

Unusually, almost nobody on the interwebs seems to be nerd raging at the event not living up to the hype. The consensus seems to be that Nintendo really did deliver, and Wii U owners are feeling more confident in their purchases. I mean, in reality, it's not like the Wii U getting a 3D Mario and a Mario Kart and a Zelda were ever in question. But I guess acknowledging that those games were in fact coming did a lot to satisfy the fanbase's desire for announcements.

Does anyone here have a Wii U? If not, what sort of games are you waiting for before jumping in?