At the Nintendo press conference two weeks ago, tons of new details were given about the Wii U including the bundles the system would be packaged in and the games being put into the launch window. Yesterday, even more details were given to the launch lineup with 23 titles being confirmed for day one. This looks to be one of the largest launch lineups of any system in recent memory with lots of big name games in it.

Aside from bundling the Deluxe system with Nintendo Land to show off the Wii U’s unique capabilities, Nintendo made sure to back the system with the support of major well known franchises for both the casual and hardcore gamer.

For the Nintendo gamer, the system will launch with New Super Mario Bros. U which is the first time since the Nintendo 64 where a Mario game was made available day one for a home console.

Thursday morning, Nintendo had a press conference in New York City where they revealed the important details that everyone has been waiting for about the Wii U. Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the most important details.

The Wii U will launch in the US on November 18th.

There will be two SKU’s on launch.

The Wii U Basic Set will launch at $299.99 and contain a white Wii U, 8 GB of internal storage, one white GamePad controller, AC adapters for both the console and controller, a sensor bar and an HDMI cable.

The Wii U Deluxe Set will retail for $349.99 and contain a black Wii U, all the components of the Basic Set, a copy of Nintendo Land, an increased 32 GB of internal storage, a console stand, GamePad charging cradle and a vertical GamePad stand. They will also be enrolled in the Deluxe Digital Promotion.

The online community will be called the Miiverse.

Using the Nintendo TVii application, players can use the GamePad controller to control subscription services like cable and satellite channels, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube and their recorded TiVo files.

The launch window which goes from November 18th, 2012 to March 31st, 2013 will the 51 games listed below (sorted by developer).

There are two prime ‘seasons’ on the Box Office calendar, summer and holiday. Both represent times of the year where most people like to go watch movies, and as a result, most of the best films get released in those windows. During these seasons there are single weekends that are the marquee slots, reserved for the films most likely to draw in the biggest audiences, the fourth of July and Christmas.

If you want some idea of how much faith Paramount has in their new Jack Ryan reboot, you have only to look at its freshly minted release date for an answer. Kenneth Branagh’s CIA thriller reboot will be hitting screens December 25th, 2013. The new potential franchise starter stars Chris Pine as the titular analyst, Keira Knightley as his love interest, Branagh himself as the villain Kevin Costner in an important but as yet unidentified ‘key’ role.

One of the most interesting developments for this film is the way Paramount is setting the franchise up. They don’t seem content in just developing a new franchise in the style of the Bourne films or James Bond, instead Paramount thinks that there is a whole shared universe of Tom Clancy characters that they can develop like Marvel Studios has done with The Avengers.

So the development of this film has turned into a rather interesting experiment, stay connected to The Flickcast for any future updates.

Black Friday, the biggest shopping bonanza of the year. Virtually everyone has the day off and with retail stores doing sales on top of sales, going out to the store can be a mad house, especially if rumors are to be believed.

Go Nintendo has it from GameStop sources that the console will be launching the week of Black Friday. Based on Nintendo’s release pattern, that should put the Wii U in stores Sunday the 18th of November. Which gives Nintendo almost a full week and a half of mad house sales for their new console.

This release schedule makes sense both in Nintendo’s historical context, as well as in relation to third-party rumors that have been cropping up since E3. The major question that needs to be answered now is how well will the new system do, can the Wii U match the hysteria created by the original Wii?

It is had to guess with out the price point information just yet, but it is a safe bet to assume that the Wii U will sell out of its first shipment pretty quickly. What made the Wii such a phenomenon was that it couldn’t stay in stock for months. In January it was still hard to get a Wii, which was due in large part to a pretty genius strategy by Nintendo. Most stores would only get shipments of three or four systems, perpetually keeping shelves bare.

To recreate that Nintendo had better hope they can keep the Wii U price point low, and the demand high.

Stay connected to The Flickcast for any new updates on the launch of the Wii U.

One of the many considerations to be made in the wake of a horrible tragedy is how do certain studios remain respectful to the situation without knee jerk reacting to heightened public outrage. It is a fine line that Warner Bros. now has to walk in the aftermath of the Aurora Colorado shootings.

Gangster Squad is a film that was supposed to have a trailer play in front of The Dark Knight Rises. However, due to a specific scene in the trailer of gangsters shooting up a movie theater it was rightfully pulled. Now Warner Bros is taking things one step further and are scrambling to re-shoot the scenes involving the theater shooting altogether.

This of course will push the release of the film to a potential January slot as learned by The Hollywood Reporter:

One date the studio is looking at is Jan. 11. Before making a final decision, though, the studio is currently looking at several factors, according to sources, such as how quickly the cast can be reassembled for the reshoot, concerns about cast availibility to do press in January and the competition on the calendar. 

Here is the fine line for Warner Bros, moving the release date is respectful, re-shooting a climactic scene that parallels the tragedy might be going to far. It is hard to say sight unseen, but hopefully the integrity of what seems like a good movie remains intact.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast as news on Gangster Squad solidifies we will keep you informed.