Mario and Zelda remain the highest two franchises that Nintendo can always look to in its quest to sell more hardware. As such, the corporate is asking at a rise in console sales this weekend as new Mario and Zelda games launch at the Wii U and 3DS respectively.

In this week’s Nintendo Download, Nintendo notes that the Wii U might be getting the long awaited Super Mario 3D World on Friday. The sport might be available to download starting in the dark. It promises the type of 3D Mario platforming experience that we’ve got come to expect from every Nintendo console because the release of Super Mario 64 at the Nintendo 64.

Joining Super Mario 3D World at the Wii U this week is puzzle/platformer EDGE. The sport, which have been available on PC for a while now, challenges players to navigate their way around precarious environmental challenges as a block which could only move in a single of 4 directions.

As for the Nintendo 3DS, two big first-party titles are hitting on Friday. The primary is the eagerly anticipated The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. The title brings with it a number of recent innovations for the series, including a completely new technique to approach dungeons as Link can now rent or buy every item he should complete the sport from the start.

Joining Zelda this week at the 3DS is Mario Party: Island Tour. This marks the third-time the party game has shown up on handhelds, but this version allows four players to play together using only one gamecard. It also features an all-new single player mode if you would rather play alone.

After you’ve had your fill of Mario and Zelda, you’ll be able to sit back with the most recent DLC for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. This primary DLC case challenges players to prove the innocence of a killer whale. This actual case serves as a prequel to the events of twin Destinies so fans is not going to like to miss out.

Check out the list below to look any other games available on Wii U and 3DS this week:

[Image: Nintendo/YouTube]

Have you been playing your PlayStation Vita lately? That’s probably a no, but Sony thinks you’ll need to dust off its handheld with the discharge of Tearaway this Friday.

To celebrate the approaching launch of what often is the most enjoyable game of the year, Sony has released a launch trailer for Tearaway that’s filled with color, happiness and everything else that makes games the original medium that they’re.

Sony notes that people who pre-order the title will receive a lot of goodies to apply throughout their adventure inside the paper-filled world of Tearaway. The offer is nice for all retail pre-orders or for individuals who buy a digital copy within the game’s first week of release.

As an added bonus, Sony can be releasing a free trial of Tearaway on Friday. Upon downloading the free trial, you’ll be ready to purchase the total version from in the game. It’s a method that Sony hopes will convince people to purchase the most creative games to launch in 2013.

[Image: PlayStation/YouTube]

On Tuesday, Microsoft made the unlucky announcement that live streaming Xbox One gameplay via Twitch would miss the console’s launch. Now the feature is slated to reach next year, but that doesn’t mean Xbox One gamers won’t have the ability to share their greatest gameplay triumphs with friends at launch.

Microsoft shared details regarding how the Upload Studio works at the Xbox One today to expose gamers how they’ll have the capacity to share gameplay with friends. As have been previously covered, the Xbox One continuously records the last 5 minutes of gameplay and lets you edit that footage at any time. You can too say “Xbox, Record that” to capture the last 30 seconds of gameplay.

After you’re suitably satisfied with the recording, you’ll then ought to say, “Xbox’ visit Upload Studio.” From there, you’ll manage to edit the video for your heart’s content. After that, you’ll be able to share the clip along with your Xbox Live Friends, the community as an entire or maybe save them as 720p MP4 files in a SkyDrive account. From SkyDrive, you may upload the clips around the Internet at large. It’s definitely a neater solution than what the PS4 currently offers as recorded gameplay can only be uploaded to Facebook to this point.

For more details at the Xbox One Game DVR, try out the video demo below:

The Xbox One launches this Friday. It is going to be interesting to determine just the way it stacks as much as Sony’s impressive day one performance.

[Image: xbox/YouTube]

The PS4 got a respectable number of streaming video apps when it launched on Friday, nevertheless it was missing what’s arguably the biggest video app of all – YouTube. The Xbox One won’t be missing out though.

YouTube announced today that it has prepared an app for the Xbox One launch. Very similar to the Xbox 360 YouTube app, the Xbox One app provides you with access to your whole subscriptions, videos and more at the new console. More importantly, the hot YouTube app will even display videos in 1080p.

With YouTube being built for the Xbox One, the team has decided to incorporate two features that help the YouTube app benefit from the Kinect being bundled with every console:

Here’s what the gesture controls on YouTube for Xbox One seem like:

There’s no word yet on whether Google will bring a YouTube app to the PS4 anytime within the near future, or if this can be a timed exclusive for the Xbox One. If it’s the latter, it might be such as how the Xbox 360 got a YouTube app long before it ever showed up at the PS3. Either way, we’ve reached out to YouTube for comment and could update should we hear back.

Update: A YouTube spokesperson provided the next statement regarding a PS4 version of the YouTube app:

We’re always engaged on new and higher ways for folks to enjoy YouTube content across all screens, and on giving partners more opportunities to achieve their fans. However, we’ve got nothing to announce right now.

[Image: YouTube Blog]

Game console manufacturers are always in a precarious position at launch. The hardware will commonly be sold at a loss, and the platform holder must depend on software sales to make that cash back. It was especially bad with the launch of the Xbox 360 and PS3, nevertheless it appears like Sony has reigned in its costs for this latest generation of consoles.

IHS reports in its latest teardown that the components that make up the PS4 only costs $372. Once you consider manufacturing costs, the overall cost of the console jumps to $381. The console is sold for $399 at retail so that you would assume that Sony is making a living on each console sold. That’s not the case, however, as IHS points out plenty of other costs will be sure that Sony takes a loss on each console sold on the outset. Fortunately for Sony, the low-cost of the console also ensures that it’ll break even or maybe earn a living later down the road, unlike the PS3.

“This time, Sony is on a greatly shortened route to the hardware break-even point, or maybe profitability, with its cost-conscious PlayStation 4 design,” said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director, cost benchmarking services for IHS. “The company is pulling off this feat, despite offering a brand-new design that after again includes avant-garde components that yield superfast performance. The PlayStation 4 keeps a lid on costs by focusing all of the additional expense at the processor and memory—and reducing outlays for the optical drive, the hard drive (HDD) and other subsystems.”

Interestingly enough, the teardown reveals that the PS4′s CPU and DRAM make up slightly greater than half the complete cost of the console at $188. Compared, the PS3′s CPU and DRAM only made up 29 percent of the entire cost of the console.

“Sony clearly has made the call to spotlight balancing the brains and economics of the console, with the processor and memory dominating both the design and the BOM,” said Jordan Selburn, senior principal analyst for consumer platforms at IHS. “This processor is a monster, with the skin area of the chip amounting to about 350 square millimeters. It is thrice larger than the other chip manufactured using equivalent-process technology that have been examined by the IHS Teardown Analysis service. Despite the remarkable silicon acreage of this device, it comes at a cost point attractive to mainstream consumers while delivering a really high level of performance. Future versions, manufactured with much more advanced semiconductor processing technology, will further enhance both cost and function.”

Speaking of DRAM, IHS also notes that Sony’s use of GDDR5 RAM inside the PS4 has resulted in the dramatic increase of cost of RAM in comparison with the PS3. Not just is Sony’s new console using 16 times the RAM of its predecessor, but it’s also using leading edge technology when compared with the DDR3 RAM that’s utilized in the Xbox 360, PS3 and Xbox One.

Despite these increase in costs for the CPU/GPU and RAM, IHS says that Sony was capable of make a variety of cost cutting measures in other parts of the console. For one, the Blu-ray drive within the PS4 only costs $28, in comparison to $66 within the PS3. Sony was also ready to get monetary savings at the motherboard by “using a more integrated design” that reduced “the variety of small-sized integrated circuits, discrete semiconductors and passive components.”

You can see a whole breakdown of components below:

[h/t: Polygon]
[Image: IHS]

When you acquire your shiny new PS4 last Friday, you were prompted to download system software version 1.50. This present day one update enabled a number of the features that Sony promised will be available at launch, akin to game streaming on Twitch and Blu-ray playback. Now a second software patch is already at the way, but it’s decidedly less impressive.

Sony announced this morning that an update will hit the PS4 today that upgrades the console’s system software to version 1.51. Because the number indicates, it’s a minor update that brings the standard system software stability and “minor refinements to elements of the system UI.”

What refinements will we hope to determine with this update? Sony isn’t saying quite a bit at moment, but it surely does reveal that the system will now “clearly indicate when a user downloads a game and a game patch whilst.” That’s definitely a pleasant little improvement as my day one download of Contrast told me that i used to be downloading the sport twice rather than alerting me that probably the most downloads was merely a patch.

As for other features, like MP3 playback and DLNA support, those are presumably still coming at a later date. Sony has repeatedly said that it excited by the gaming side of factors for launch and may update the console with more media capabilities over the following couple of months. Let’s hope the MP3 playback comes sooner in place of later then as many folks don’t desire to pay for Music Unlimited simply to hearken to our own music while playing games like Need for Speed Rivals or Madden 25.

While we stay up for upcoming updates with some heft, Sony says that you just wont ought to lift a finger to put in the system software update 1.51. The PS4 will download it automatically once it becomes available, despite the fact that the system is in standby mode. While we may never be freed from Sony’s ought to constantly release system updates, the PS4 no less than makes the method more bearable.

[Image: PlayStation/YouTube]