Nintendo is currently battling the chicken and the egg of the video game business. The Wii U isn't selling at levels to make it a "rational" risk for third-party developers, but how does a console sell if it doesn't have games? We spoke with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, last week at E3 about the House of Mario's business and future.

Nintendo's current strategy is to get some high-profile first party games out the door and grow the Wii U's install base that way. Scibetta tells us in the interview, "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties."

We also discuss the recent Wii U recall, which Nintendo is calling a "rebalance," as well as the rising scene of independent games and the future of Nintendo Direct.

In the midst of the E3 madness, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot acknowledged Rayman Legends' delay was over concern of low sales on and of Nintendo's Wii U.

"What happened was that we saw the Wii U was not going to sell enough of those games. The game is going to be fantastic, and we didn't want those creators to wind up in a position where even after making a fantastic game, they didn't sell well enough," Guillemot told VentureBeat. "We decided that we had to come out on enough machines that players can try it out on any one that they have, and give more time to both improve the game on the Wii U and create versions for the other consoles."

Low sales of Nintendo's latest console has certainly had an impact on third-party support. EA acknowledged it needs to see stronger sales to get back involved, and although Activision has Skylanders for the platform, we're still waiting for confirmation that Call of Duty: Ghosts will make it on the platform. Although, it should be noted that historically Activision's announcements of CoD on Nintendo platforms arrive later.

Nintendo is aware of its current predicament and hopes its first-party games between now and 2014 make the Wii U more attractive again.

One of our favorite talks from GDC was Brian Provinciano's session, in which the indie developer discussed bringing his game, Retro City Rampage, to just about every platform known to man. It's a valuable talk for many reasons, giving a clear picture of what it's like working with The Big Three™ and the types of hurdles a determined indie developer will inevitably hit.

Provinciano's determination to port Grand Theft Auto 3 to NES hardware escalated into a love letter to video games and pop culture. While Provinciano hasn't announced his next project yet, he says we should expect more humorous open-world games.

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This is Co-Opinion, where two Joystiq editors play a game and discuss their experience.

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E3 2013 is officially at an end. There was a lot to take in, so join Joystiq Reviews Editor Richard Mitchell and Engadget Senior Associate Editor Ben Gilbert as they do their best to encapsulate everything that went down this year.

They talk about the showings from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, as well as some of the industry trends that are cropping up and the Oculus Rift's surprising ability to crack through the jaded, cynical shell of game journalists.

We'll have more E3 previews and coverage over the next few days, so be sure to stay tuned to Joystiq!

Nintendo's Wii U is struggling in sales and support. During an interview this week at E3 with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, we noted that the Wii U's lack of Madden this year puts it in the company of Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast. EA currently has no games in development for Wii U.

"You'd have to ask EA about their future development plans. EA is a great partner of ours, they've had games on our platforms before. They want what all third parties want and what we want: for the install base to grow," said Scibetta. "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties."

So, we asked Electronic Arts Labels President Frank Gibeau about what Nintendo can do to bring EA back to the Wii U.

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Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai may have been forthcoming about the new Super Smash Bros' lack of cross-platform play, but when it came to the really important information, he was still pretty cagey. For example, what could be more important than finding out what happens when Kirby eats Smash newcomer Mega Man?

These are two gaming icons whose main ability is to steal the abilities of others. For all we know, Kirby swallowing Mega Man could create a rift in the fabric of reality, destroying all life as we know it. Alas, Sakurai wouldn't give us much information. "A lot of what you're asking is still classified," he told us through an interpreter at E3.

"As far as the physical appearance of Kirby," he said, "I think what you imagine is probably pretty close to what will actually happen." Sakurai put his hands next to his head, in what we're pretty sure was the international sign for "Mega Man's helmet." We followed up by asking if Kirby would be gifted with a Mega Buster. "He's got little tiny arms, so who knows."

Warner Bros. Montreal is bringing a new side-mission distraction to Batman: Arkham Origins that will pique the interests of those who've enjoyed the forensic focus of Rocksteady's games. At E3 I put on my detective cowl to try out the new "Crime Reconstruction" mechanic.

It began, as it so often does, on a rooftop on a cold Gotham night. As Batman, I saw a police helicopter rise from behind the ledge, ordering me to surrender. Even if I wanted to, a gunshot took the helicopter down before I could respond. It spiralled out of control, tailspinning several stories into the icy street below. Confused, I swooped down to look for survivors. The helicopter was wrecked, and I found a body flung a few feet away: the dead pilot.

This is where the crime reconstruction began. First I analysed the body in Detective Mode with the Evidence Scanner, which takes in all of the crime scene's data in hyper-quick time to play Columbo within seconds. As I scanned, I saw the helicopter's crash trace back in time, in suitably cool-looking virtual blue bittiness. As it replayed, I saw the copter take out a first-story ledge before crashing into the earth below. Scanning the body, I learned he died on impact, and not from the gunshot.

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The heroes and villains of the DC Universe will soon kneel before Zod, as the perennial Superman villain has been revealed as Injustice: Gods Among Us' next DLC character. The announcement was made during the latest installment of Conan O'Brien's Clueless Gamer series, wherein Conan loses to a blindfolded Aaron Bleyaert.

The segment also revealed a character based on Conan: "The Flaming C," which was co-designed by Conan and legendary DC animated universe pioneer Bruce Timm. We've reached out to Team Coco to find out whether The Flaming C will be coming to Injustice, or if his creation was solely for the show. We'll be simultaneously keeping our fingers crossed for The Flaming C, while also keeping our ears to the ground for more specific information about Zod's release, in the days to come.

[Thanks, Steve!]

The Wii U and 3DS versions of the new Super Smash Bros. will not feature cross-platform play, director of Sora Ltd. Masahiro Sakurai tells Joystiq. Since each version of the game has completely different stages, cross-platform play wouldn't work, he told us through an interpreter. Each version will interact with one another, however, as announced back in 2011. Specifically, players will be able to take characters they've customized and transfer them to the Wii U version.

He wouldn't elaborate on exactly what those customizations are, saying only that they won't be costumes and they won't be something that players have to unlock through repetitive tasks. Different costumes, he said, would take away from what makes each character unique. He also wanted to avoid boring, repetitive tasks, while Sora works to produce a "stress free, easy connectivity" between the two versions.

When asked if the level editor would return, Sakurai gave us a "no comment."

When you're tasked with previewing the latest and greatest in kid stuff, it's hard to not feel at least the slightest bit jealous. In my day, our molded lumps of China-manufactured plastics rarely interacted with technology in any meaningful way, and we liked it just fine.

Even so, if you lopped a good 20 years off my current age, it would be impossible to avoid the charms of Skylanders, a series that's successfully merged the worlds of physical and digital play – all with a booster pack-style setup that's only mildly predatory on parents' wallets. As backwards compatibility quickly becomes a thing of the past, Skylanders: Swap Force offers compatibility with every figure Activision has sold since 2011, along with a slew of new features that promise to make this installment the biggest and best its pint-sized audience has seen yet.

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I didn't understand much of what was happening outside of combat in my Bayonetta 2 demo at E3. If ignorance is bliss, then surfing jets and fighting a demon dragon while scaling a seemingly infinitely tall skyscraper is transcendent.

What I do know is that Bayonetta 2 is an exercise in the ridiculous, exchanging rationale for crazy-fast combos and elaborate torture finishers. It's very fitting then that Bayonetta 2 delivered on every expectation for a sequel that felt like such an impossible idea a year ago.

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Grounding Inc is hard at work creating Crimson Dragon for Xbox One, but the studio is also making another unannounced project for Nintendo, game director Yukio Futatsugi tells Joystiq. Unfortunately, Futatsugi didn't offer any details about the game or which platform it's being developed for.

Crimson Dragon may be getting Grounding the most attention right now, but the studio has a history of working with Nintendo. It developed two Nintendo-published WiiWare games in 2009, and it also released Sakura Samurai on the 3DS eShop last year.

Ghosts everywhere are quivering in terror, as Namco has made a pair of new Pac-Man announcements. First up is Pac-Man Museum, a collection of games spanning Pac-Man's history. The publisher hasn't announced the full line-up of games, though it will include Pac-Man's "humble beginnings," Championship Edition and Pac-Man Battle Royale. This marks the first time you'll be able to play the multiplayer Pac-Man game without visiting your local arcade (apart from an iPad demo, anyway).

Pac-Man Museum is coming to XBLA, PSN, PC and the 3DS and Wii U eShop. The press release also notes that, for whatever reason, Museum will not include Championship Edition on XBLA or PSN.

In other Pac-news, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX is getting a free update that adds new content, including improved leaderboards, achievements and medals. It also features "access to additional DLC mazes, music and graphics." These include the ability to play with graphics from other Namco games, including Dig Dug and Rally-X. The update, which officially turns DX into DX+, is headed to Xbox 360, PS3, Steam and Windows 8 this summer.

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5th Cell is aiming to include the complete DC character library in Scribblenauts Unmasked, although studio co-founder Joseph Trigali admits "there's obviously going to be some stuff missing." Unmasked's character count is at around 2,500 now - last we heard it was "over 2000."

"We definitely started... we wanted to get all the top treatments, all the top IP," Tringali told Joystiq. "There's dozens of versions of Batman, Superman, a lot of the major tier 1 heroes. Then we went through and added the rest of them. DC is such a big, expansive universe that it's not possible to get everything that's ever been created."

Nonetheless, with 5th Cell at least attempting to cover as much of the DC universe as possible, we wondered if the studio was considering DLC for new characters introduced down the line. Wouldn't it be neat if players could mess around with the very latest DC superhero in this thoroughly DC-themed game?

"For the platforms that support DLC, that's always a possibility," Trigali told us. "But there are no plans at this time."

Ah well. Until such a bat-time, we'll have make to do with the game proper, which is coming to Wii U, 3DS, and PC this fall.

Nintendo has released a new developer video detailing the differences between the Wii U and 3DS versions of its recently announced cross-franchise brawler Super Smash Bros.

Director Masahiro Sakurai notes that "the total number of characters [in the Nintendo 3DS version] is the same as the Wii U version, but some of the stages will be completely different."

In addition: "In the Nintendo 3DS version, there will be more stages based on handheld games, while themed stages from home console games will be on Wii U."

Both games also boast a unique graphic style. The Wii U release focuses on primary colors and visual effects, while the 3DS version has cel-shaded characters in order to make them easier to see.

The Super Smash Bros. official website profiles every character announced so far, including newcomers from Animal Crossing and Wii Fit. Super Smash Bros. is set to launch in 2014.

The Batman: Arkham Origins 'Knightfall' content for the game's PS3 version consists of challenge maps tied to the Knightfall storyline, as well as the Azreal-themed suit and the "early television show skin" revealed in Sony's E3 conference. Origins Senior Producer Ben Mattes told Joystiq the maps are "specific to the Knightfall storyline" and will include "appropriately themed characters and enemies."

The piece of Knightfall content developer Warner Bros. Montreal is "really excited about" is the early television show skin, AKA the 60s Batman skin of the KAPOW! and BLAM! era. So, did Warner Bros. Montreal consider bringing in a certain Adam West to provide vocals tied to the skin? When asked about that possibility, Mattes took a long pause before simply restating, "Early television show skin." Holy skirting the question, Batman!

On the subject of specific versions, Mattes also confirmed to us the Origins will have specific functionality on the Wii U, but he wasn't prepared to go into details.

"We're not talking about specific features but we're encouraging people to imagine," Mattes told us, "We obviously paid to attention to the Wii U platform and what sort of functionality makes sense for that platform."

We also asked him about whether or not the Wii U would receive the same DLC as other versions, given the speculation about the system possibly not receiving the Deathstroke content. Mattes told us WB Montreal is "not yet talking about" DLC and its relationship to the different platforms.

Nintendo's booth showcases the company's friendly atmosphere, featuring whimsical statues and vehicles for photo opportunities. Princess Peach playing cuddly cat woman is adorable, but so are the super-sized Pikmin.

Those looking for a photo memory can hop in a Mario Kart or take a non aquatic ride on the Wind Waker boat. Yes, we asked if the boat was seaworthy. It isn't.