Surprise Nintendo Direct reveals Wii U Virtual Console, details USB storage options and more

Just like that, out of the blue there’s another Nintendo Direct broadcast from Japan and this one covers some of the more technical elements of the Wii U system including parental controls, storage options and the first mention of a Wii U virtual console.

The quarter hour Nintendo Direct can be watched on Nintendo’s website (or below), since it’s in Japanese though we’ve gone through it for you and translated as much of it as we can.

There’s some tasty morsels of information to be had.

Parental Controls

Wii U has extensive parental controls, we hope we’ll be reminded of them every time there is a system update as well. You’ll be able to restrict content based on the age of the user, game rating (the video shows the Japanese CERO ratings), internet browser, eShop spending, Miiverse, registration of friends, videos and getting access to the systems settings.

Internal Memory

Basic Wii U Set comes with 7.2GGB usable memory (out of 8GB)
Premium Wii U Set comes with 29GB usable memory (out of 32GB)

USB Drives

You can connect a external USB drive to your Wii U to extend the amount of storage space available to you. You’ll only be able to connect one USB drive at a time and you’ll either have to have a powered USB drive or have one that uses two USB cables (one for data, one for power). Even then Nintendo still recommends you have a drive that plugs into the power as they cannot guarantee it will work otherwise.

Likewise games can not be stored or played from USB Flash Drives. Nintendo says this is because they cannot guarantee that all drives will be compatible. USB drives often come with different rated flash memory and some cheap drives are really slow and probably unable to be used for games.

The Wii U can only read up to a maximum of 2TB for external drives and the drive must be formatted to be read only on the Wii U. Once it’s plugged into the Wii U, computers will not be able to read it.

One drive is supported at launch but later on Nintendo will allow support for two drives for allowing the copying of data from one drive to another. You can of course copy data from the internal memory and the external drive as well.

Backwards Compatibility

We knew this was coming, but it’s still sad to see it confirmed. Wii games, Virtual Console games and WiiWare games cannot be played on the GamePad screen. They can only be played on the TV.

Iwata did make an apology for it though saying that “We understand that there are people who were looking forward to playing Wii games, Virtual Console games, and so forth on the GamePad, but unfortunately we cannot accommodate those users’ expectations.”

The good news is that there is plans for a Wii U Virtual Console. Iwata says to look forward to that some time in future.

Nintendo Network Premium

Iwata then went over the Nintendo Network Premium service for people who buy the Premium Set/Bundle. To join in on the fun  you’ll have to make a Nintendo Network ID and then login to track your purchases. After you log in you can see your points.

You will earn points whether you pay via points or buy download cards (not available in Australia). You’ll earn 10% back on purchases. In Japan you’ll each purchase points in 500 Yen increments. No word yet as to what the amount will in Australia.

You can spend your earned points on Wii U and 3DS eShop titles, the Wii Shopping Channel and the DSi Shop as well.

Thanks to the folks on Twitter and cvxfreak from NeoGAF for providing most of the translations.