Wii

Nintendo has revealed just about every detail on its next-generation Wii U game console -- except the price tag and when it will hit store shelves. That could change Sept. 13. The Japanese video game company on Tuesday said it will hold a special event in New York that morning, hosted by Nintendo of America's president, Reggie Fils-Aime. Nintendo is mum about what Fils-Aime will announce, but the smart money's on the final two bits of data regarding the Wii U. The company's already spilled the beans about the console's technical specifications and some of the launch titles and has allowed people to play with the device in June at the E3 convention in Los Angeles.

After a 45-year career writing some of the most successful musicals of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber is set to make his mark on a perhaps less familiar format. The legendary composer will star in a new video game to be released Sept. 14. The Nintendo Wii game features (what else?) singing and dancing competitions in which up to four players can square off against each other, as well as a "career" mode where players can sing and dance their way to the top of the musical theater chain.

Hulu Plus, the $7.99-a-month subscription service, is now available on Apple TV. Hulu announced the move Tuesday. It is the latest expansion for the digital video service, which already has made itself available on Sony's Playstation 3 , Nintendo 's Wii and Microsoft 's Xbox 360 . Hulu, a joint venture of News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal , has been working to expand the distribution of Hulu Plus,...

It's not often that a brand new company would attempt to take on giants such as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, and rarer still that it would succeed. But that's what Ouya (pronounced ooh-ya) proposes to do. The Los Angeles start-up wants to develop a game console that features the type of "free" games that are popular on smartphones and tablets but have been largely absent from living room televisions. But Ouya needs more money to get its concept off the ground -- $950,000, to be exact.

When Nintendo on Sunday announced its Miiverse social network for its upcoming Wii U game console, skeptics asked how long it would take before troublemakers would overrun the feeds with profanity — or worse. Given that users will be able to post drawings and scribbles they create on the Wii U's GamePad touch-screen controller, keeping things clean would seem to be an especially challenging matter. Nintendo's chief executive, Satoru Iwata, has already given the matter some thought.

To help launch its upcoming Wii U console and recapture the company's market momentum, Nintendo Co. called upon its most powerful friends — Donkey Kong, Luigi and Zelda. The Japanese game giant placed its iconic characters at center stage during its E3 video game convention news conference Tuesday, promoting "New Super Mario Bros. U," "Nintendo Land" and "Pikmin 3. " Nintendo highlighted the Wii U platform, which will hit stores this year during the holiday season and will let gamers play simultaneously on a television and a second iPad-like controller with its own screen.

Nintendo tried to convince an audience of industry professionals Tuesday morning that it can stage a comeback in the video game console business with its successor to the Wii. The Japanese company made famous by Mario and Zelda has seen its fortunes fade recently as sales of its once red-hot Wii console have fallen behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. At a press conference just prior to the official opening of the annual E3...

Forget Princess Peach. The Mario Bros. need to bail out Nintendo Co. instead. After a 30-year winning streak, Nintendo took a rare misstep and on Thursday posted more than half a billion dollars in red ink - the gaming company's first annual loss since it began publicly reporting its financials in 1981. Nintendo has seen sales of its once-popular Wii game console and DS handheld consoles slip as consumers flocked toward smartphones and tablets for mobile games and toward the more powerful Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles for playing in the living room.

Spurned by consumers who now favor tablets, smartphones and higher-definition consoles,Nintendo Co.said it will probably post a loss in its current fiscal year - its first in at least three decades. The Japanese video game company said Thursday that it expected to lose $839.4 million in the fiscal year that ends March 31 on $8.5 billion in revenue, 16.5% lower than it had projected in October. The revised forecast was far worse than many had predicted. Analysts polled by Thomson One had projected the company to lose $293.1 million on revenue of $9.8 billion in its fiscal year that will end March 31. It would be the first annual net loss since 1981, when Nintendo began disclosing its financial performance.

Video game consoles aren't just for gaming anymore. Increasingly, people are using their Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii devices to stream movies and TV shows, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nielsen Co. Because all three consoles readily connect to the Internet, viewers can use them to access video-on-demand services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Major League Baseball Network and ESPN to watch on their TV screens rather than on...