At the recent E3 Conference, Nintendo finally took the wraps off of some exciting games for the Wii U that, to be quite honest, I expected a long time ago. The upcoming game Game & Wario, coming in the next few weeks, will finally be a game that’ll hopefully show us the potential of the GamePad. Some of the other games they announced that made me say “finally!” were Mario Kart 8 (coming in Spring 2014), Wii Party U (coming in October 2013), and Super Mario 3D World (coming in December 2013).

I get the sense that Nintendo has been been pacing themselves, hoping that staggering the release of updated versions of old favorite Wii games will help steal thunder away from the much-hyped news coming from Sony and Microsoft.

The one we’ve been waiting for, of course, has been Wii Fit U. There’s a lot we already know about the game–it’ll come with a “Fit Meter”, it’ll use both the Wii Balance Board, it’ll have over 77 activities, and the Wii U GamePad will be able to to be used in multiple ways: incorporated into new active motion games, used as a “second screen” for the TV to show vital stats as you work out, or used as the primary screen (allowing someone else to watch TV as you exercise).

Sadly, while Nintendo had promised a release in “early 2013”, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced that it won’t be coming until December 2013. His reasoning was that Nintendo wanted to “create new features” and “bring as high quality a gaming experience as possible.” In all honesty, as long as Nintendo is truly working on making Wii Fit U great, and not just delaying the launch as a ploy to sell more Balance Boards during the holidays in 2013, I don’t mind at all.

That said, if you long to see the Wii Fit U trainer in action, look no further than another anticipated title: Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U. If you’re not familiar with this game, it’s a game series  where Nintendo brings all of its characters from different games (for example, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, Link, and so on) and has them all fight each other. It’s sort of like the “Battle of the Network Stars” for video game characters.

Something utterly hilarious is that for the upcoming Wii U / 3DS launch, they’ll be bringing one of our favorite Nintendo characters to the fray: the faceless Wii Fit yoga lady!

Thanks to Crabby for the heads-up on this one! 🙂