Nintendo has finally announced that it will be releasing Mario Kart 8 on Wii U in May. This comes straight from Satoru Iwata, CEO at Nintendo, who announced the news during the investors meet in Japan on 29 January.
He also said it will be not a Japan-specific launch but a worldwide one. This new game was revealed during Nintendo's E3 2013 Direct stream and had previously been put for a 'Spring 2014' release. Mario Kart 8 will have features like anti-gravity, where the Karts can now move up walls and ceilings.
Meanwhile, a new Wii U firmware update will be released in 'early summer' that is expected to hasten the access to the games.
Presently it takes 20 odd seconds to start the Wii U software, and the new update will change the start-up menu of the Wii U.
This was announced during the investors meet where Iwata spoke about it to the investors. Nintendo also ran a demo video showcasing what the new update will be able to do - on start-up, it will display a simple menu showing icons of the games that were recently played on the Gamepad screen. Then the users can tap the game they would like to play and select their Nintendo account. The system will directly start the game, thus bypassing the systems' home menu feature.
"We think that this function will make you feel that the time to start up a Wii U software title is cut by more than 50 percent, and that it will also lead to more Wii U users understanding the appealing nature of the GamePad," said Iwata, reported CVG.
