Late last night, Nintendo released its long-awaited spring system update for the Wii U, which promises to decrease the system’s sluggish load times, as well as address other issues.
According to Nintendo, the newest update delivers a host of new services and enhanced features, such as improved stability and performance, as well as faster load times when switching between applications. This is welcome news to Wii U owners, who have complained of painfully slow load times between menus, applications and game start-ups since the system launched in November.
The update also lays the groundwork for the imminent launch of the Wii U Virtual Console service, Nintendo said in a press release.
“Wii U continues to grow and evolve with new features that make it a better experience for everyone,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president and COO. “Now owners can navigate to their favorite games and services even faster, or play some of their favorite classic games.
Here’s a full list of what the Wii U spring system update brings:
• The time required to start the Wii U console, launch built-in applications, exit software and return to the main menu, jump between applications, and jump between software and Miiverse has been reduced.
• While the Wii U logo is being displayed during the system startup, users can directly transition to the Wii Menu by holding down the B Button on the Wii U GamePad.
• Users can install games and applications from the Nintendo eShop in the background while other software is being used.
• When powering off during a download, Wii U will go into a standby mode, then power off when all downloads and installations are complete.
• Users can transfer and copy data between two USB storage devices in Data Management. This allows users the opportunity to upgrade or replace a current USB storage device that is connected to the Wii U Console.
• Users can control the priority of their downloads when downloading multiple items at once.
• Improved account selection when powering on the system now displays Nintendo Network IDs to clearly distinguish accounts.
• TV screen size output can now be adjusted in the System Settings.
• An Undo/Redo button was added to the Miiverse drawing input screen.
Nintendo provided a side-by-side video comparison of the load times before and after the update:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/zBmg_CNsQcc[/youtube]
[Nintendo]
