Promotional offer by Nintendo Wii U to boost game downloads

With just over half a month left for the release of the Nintendo Wii U, the company has announced a promotion to encourage early adopters of the console to buy more games. According to CNET, the promotion will grant buyers $5 for every $50 spent on the game. Potentially, this could mean a ‘free’ game after every 12 games purchased, assuming that Wii U games cost the standard console game price of $60.

Nintendo will give you roughly ten percent of the game’s price as points. If you buy a game that costs $59.99, such as New Super Mario Bros., you would get roughly 599 points. For every 500 points, you gain $5 in credit to use on your next purchase of a Wii U title. The promotion will only last till the end of 2014 when the points of your purchases will stop accumulating.

The Wii U is set to get a promotional offer to boost game downloads

Back in September, Nintendo had officially licensed the Unity game engine for the Wii U. According to David Helgason, CEO of Unity, the deal is long term. When asked about the possibility of a Mario game made in the Unity engine, Helgason said that it may just be a few years away. Helgason told Eurogamer that Nintendo is working with Unity to optimise the engine for the Wii U.

It was announced in early September that Bayonetta will be getting a sequel in the form of Bayonetta 2, which will be exclusive to the Wii U. Along with this, Activision had announced that Black Ops II would be getting a release on the Wii U as well. The Wii U version of the game will be making full use of the system’s innovative controller, giving players the ability to check the minimap, activate kill streaks and change loadouts mid-game. Another big use of the controller will be that two people can play on the same system without having to play split-screen, with one person playing on the TV and the other playing on the controller. A solo player can also play only on the controller, allowing friends or family to do whatever they want with the TV.

Nintendo seems to be really focusing on the touchscreen on its controller for the console. Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo hopes that the Wii U’s innovative GamePad controller with the screen will help the console be different from what Microsoft or Sony would be doing, and hopes to change the way people think about a gaming console.

With the Wii U, Nintendo promises that it won’t miss out on multiplatform games, because the hardware will be much closer to what Sony and Microsoft will have to offer. "We have not successfully kept the momentum of the Wii for about the last two years because third-party publishers have released a smaller number of game titles and Nintendo has also decreased new games for the platform in preparation for the launch of the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U," said Iwata at an annual meeting with shareholders.