During it’s third quarter financial briefing, Nintendo revealed new details about plans for the upcoming next-generation console, the Wii U.

It confirmed that it will be showing the final production format and hardware details at this year’s E3. The company did confirm that it will launch the Wii U in Japan, the U.S., Europe and Australia in time for the year-end sales season.

“For the launch of new hardware, it is, of course, regarded as a sort of requisite not to miss the critical year-end sales season. The company is aiming to firmly complete the development of the entire system and prepare sufficient software so that the Wii U will be at its best at the time of the launch. Needless to say, we have learned a bitter lesson from the launch of the Nintendo 3DS,” said Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo.

The Wii U controller will also include a Near Field Communication (NFC) feature. This will allow the controller to read and write data to cards, figures, or any other objects with NFC capabilities. This feature will enable many possibilities, like scanning cards to unlock game bonuses, controlling in game actions with figures, or even performing micro-payments.

Finally, Nintendo also announced the new Nintendo Network. The services is intended to finally bring Nintendo’s online system to par with the rest of the industry. It will include personal accounts per console instead of friend codes, ability to have a marketplace to sell DLC and digital titles, etc. The service will cover both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.

Sources:

New Game Network