Look out, Skylanders, here comes Pokemon Rumble U

Although Near Field Communications functionality has the potential to be a very real selling point for the Nintendo Wii U, not a single Wii U game currently utilizes the GamePad's Near Field Communications capabilities. Nintendo is clearly eager to get the ball rolling, as it has revealed Pokemon Rumble U this week. The NFC tech allows the Wii U GamePad to interact with objects equipped with NFC tags. Activision's Skylanders franchise has seen huge success utilizing NFC technology, although notably the Wii U version of Skylanders does not use the GamePad's NFC capabilities, but rather uses its own "Portal of Power" hardware. Pokemon Rumble U marks the first Wii U game to make use of the GamePad's NFC functionality, according to Japanese kids magazine CoroCoro, and as reported by Serebii.net. The game is due to launch in Japan on April 24 via the Wii U eShop, and Pokemon figurines will be available to purchase from Japanese Pokemon Center stores for use with the game, each costing 200 Japanese yen (around $2). Seven figures will be available from launch day, and each will feature many of the same capabilities seen with Skylanders -- that is, players will be able to record battle and training information into the toys. Nintendo confirmed to Gamasutra that, as of yet, plans for bringing the game to the U.S. and Europe have not been announced.