Wii U Will Support 12 User Accounts Per Console

The overnight Nintendo Direct webcast brought a lot of new information, and even though we've already talked about Iwata's unboxing of the Wii U and which features will be present on the console from launch, there are still a few tidbits of info worth covering. One particularly awesome NeoGAF frequenter named Cheesemeister took it upon himself to translate the Nintendo Direct livestream as it happened, and through his translation, we're getting a few new exciting details.

One of which is that each Wii U console will support 12 different user accounts. Your game settings and save data will be linked to your Wii U user account, but Wii U user accounts appear to be separate from Nintendo Network IDs. You'll use Nintendo Network IDs to video chat and purchase things from the Nintendo eShop, and the best news is that anyone playing on the Wii U console can play downloaded eShop content. Not bad Nintendo, not bad at all.

Speaking of video chat, that was one of the features that took center stage in Iwata's Nintendo Direct presentation earlier. He called up Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime for a brief and rather awkward conversation during the livestream, showing off what users can do while video chatting in the process. The whole livestream was in Japanese, but Nintendo of America has put together an English language summary – complete with the video chat between Iwata and Fils-Aime – which you can see below.

The Nintendo Wii U hits shelves in less than two weeks. With its release, the next generation officially kicks off, though some gamers don't consider the Wii U to be a true-to-form "next generation console." Regardless of what the core community wants to consider the Wii U, we're pretty excited for it, mostly because it means we'll finally get to play Pikmin 3. Are you picking up a Wii U when it launches on November 18?