Nintendo have announced that several improvements to the Wii U firmware will be available for download next week. During their recent Nintendo Direct presentation - which mainly focused on 3DS information - Satoru Iwata outlined the changes, which include the ability to download updates while you're playing games (or when your Wii U is switched off), a speeding up of the menu system, and the introduction of the Virtual Console one day after the firmware update.
Other improvements include the chance to transfer files from external harddrives to Wii U and the ability to hold the B button during start-up to go straight to the Wii U menu. The menu switching optimisation is a welcome change, but the comparison video shown during the presentation still showed a sizeable wait-time in between menus, so there is still work to be done here.
Overall, the Wii U received a little news from the Nintendo Direct presentation, although Pikmin 3 was the only full Wii U game to be showcased. We now know that Pikmin 3 will feature a flying Pikmin type (which was actually shown in the E3 2012 footage, and appears on the box image) and that the game will release on 4 August in shops and via the eStore.
