A blast from the past

[Schuyler Colfax]

Now we all remember those nostalgic days of "Duck Hunt". Well you are never gonna feel that way again but in the near future you will get the next best thing. The new product that Nintendo made for the Wii is called the Wii Blaster. The Wii Blaster will mostly be used for shooters especially the upcomming Resident Evil:Umbrella Chronicles. Gamestop has priced the Wii Blaster for $20 I'm not completely sure on the price of the Wii blaster. I'm glad they made this, first person shooters just didn't fell right with the Wiimote. Basically it is a plastic gun with a slot for your Wii-Mote.

Now all we need is a game that allows for dual wielding Blasters and that's a guaranteed success.

[Bounty]

That's an old prototype pic from E3...2005?

Have you get anything more recent or official?

[Laughing Mechanicus]

There seems to be a couple of designs for Wii "gun adaptors" flying around the net, but neither is an official addon from Nintendo - don't expect any gun games supporting them. That particular picture is of an ancient E3 prototype, there's a picture here of the more recent model being made by Joytech. The fact that the nunchuck is stuck to the handle means it's going to suck for most of the Wii FPS as you usually shake the nunchuck to do something like reload or throw a grenade.

In fact I'm pretty sure Nintendo said at one point that they specifically were not going to manufacture a gun adaptor, because guns in games are apparently bad and naughty.

[Schuyler Colfax]

That's an old prototype pic from E3...2005?

Have you get anything more recent or official?

Oh I forgot about that a if you want to see a newer version of the Wii blaster click here
And I guess the blaster is gonna come out around June
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?coo ... Fid=802669

[Praxis]

Sorry, but you're a bit off on some details (take it from someone with press contacts from Nintendo).

Nintendo has not announced any such peripherals or talked about them much at all. I've got pictures from that concept gun (the exact one pictured, saw it in person) from E3 2006, but Nintendo's never talked about it again.

The Wii Blaster you posted is a third party peripheral, not Nintendo's. No games have been designed around it and you'll notice that the Wii remote is relative to your motions; hold it up to your face and look down it like a scope, you'll see the pointer is not directly lined up with where you're pointing (that's why the sensitivity is adjustable).

So, I'd question the use of such a gun peripheral except in games that are designed to use it and make you calibrate every time you move closer or further away.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I was very disappointed upon the final revelation that the "Wii Blaster" listed in GameStop's computer system turned out to be that third party piece of crap...thing.

I hope Nintendo puts a gun add-on out at some point. I'm sure as hell not going to buy one of the other two. I don't know why Core Gamer and Joytech are even bothering at this point, since there really hasn't been that much information on how gun games (not FPSs, mind you) will work on the Wii, so to me it seems like they're relying a little too much on taking a chance.

[Stark]

Aside from wrist strain if you hold it wrong, I didn't find the basic remote bad for shooters at all - indeed, I thought using the pointer was quite effective. Red Steel sucked for *other* reasons.

I hope that retarded blaster thing is counterweighted - it looks more than a foot long.

That said there's nothing more awesome than someone posting nonsense. He 'guesses' that it'll come out 'around June'... taken straight from the Gamestop article he links to. What relevance does the old Nintendo prototype even have to this article?

[Dalton]

I'd wonder what the point was. So it'd look more like a gun? The Wiimote is already point and shoot with a convenient trigger button already there.