Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid ideas
http://stardestroyer.dyndns-home.com/
Ouch. I know it's a quarter of what a GBA rerelease would cost, but $12 is still steep.SNES at 8-12$.
4 million units by Dec 31.:23 am: The Regginator speaks! "The next step in gaming is bringing gaming back to the masses." Obviously it's working for them so far, if you'll notice the brain-training craze and the runaway popularity of the DS. Not surprisingly, those are exactly the products he's talking about now.
9:27 am: Here comes the hard info. "One price, one configuration, one color." So there's only a white one (for now), it comes with the nunchaku and so-called "Wiimote" controllers, and it costs ... $249.99! The system will show up at 25,000 retail locations, so it probably won't be too hard to find one--especially since Reggie just promised 4 million units shipped globally by the end of calendar 2006, with the majority share going to North America.
9:29 am: But what's in the box? One Wii remote, one nunchuk both included. Don't forget about Wii Sports, the first pack-in game at launch since the SNES. Speaking of which, we're now seeing a demo of bowling, one of the games included in Wii Sports.
9:32 am: Like almost every Wii game so far, you play bowling just like you would in real life: like you're throwing the ball for real. You can purportedly put some spin on it, too. We'll have a more detailed report later today.
9:33 am: And the final Wii Sports lineup is...tennis, golf, baseball, bowling, and boxing?! That's new. This should be interesting.
9:35 am: Reggie's talking about the 25-game launch lineup, not surprisingly being led by The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Excite Truck will also be out on day one. He makes much of the fact that this is the first Nintendo console to launch with a Zelda...though, admittedly, this Zelda was originally intended for the previous console.
9:39 am: Here's a random sampling of third-party games that will be out on day one: Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Need for Speed: Carbon, Madden 07, Elebits, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
9:41 am: More details that we already knew: roughly 30 games by the end of the year, and all first-party games will be in at $49.99 or under. But here's somethin we haven't heard much about in the US yet: "Wii Channels." Reggie says this idea is meant to expand the console's interface for all the members of the family.
9:44 am: Now we're getting slides of the Wii Channels interface, which lets you start up a Wii or GameCube disc, as well as hitting the "Wii Shop Channel" to buy older games for the Virtual Console (and look for Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 at launch). After launch, Nintendo is estimating around 10 new games a month to be available.
Surprisingly, full pricing details are here. NES games will be available for 500 Wii points, Super NES games for 800, and Nintendo 64 for 1,000. Wait, Wii what? Looks like they're taking the same tack as Microsoft: Consumers part with fake money more easily than real money. A 2000 Wii points card can be had at retail for $20.
9:46 am: Bill Trinen is showing off the "Mii" channel, which lets you create your cartoon-like avatar to represent yourself within games. To demonstrate the flexibility of the Mii character-creation utility--which lets you pick hair styles, skin color, facial features, and so on--Trinen is creating a rather, uh, loose interpretation of Samuel L. Jackson. After finishing the Mii, he's got it running around with pretty accurate Mii versions of Iwata and Miyamoto.
9:50 am: The second component of the Mii concept is transporting your Miis elsewhere, since they're stored on your remote. Head to a friend's house, play tennis with your controller, and you'll see your Mii pop right up in the game.
Now we're getting a demo of the photo channel, which is a pretty standard photo viewer. The most impressive thing here is how quickly Bill is navigating the photos with the Wii remote, which works like a mouse. You can also view videos through this thing, even adding mosaic effects or turning the video into a slide puzzle.
9:53 am: Reggie again with some more channels, like weather reports and news headlines (which are updated nonstop through WiiConnect 24 so you can read them anytime). A messaging service is also in place, letting you send messages to other users on the Wii or even to their cell phones (though Reggie didn't say exactly how this will work).
Finally, there's the Internet channel, which is basically just the Opera browser--which you'll need to cash in Wii points to purchase. But the Wii remote does seem uniquely suited to surfing the Web on your couch.
9:55 am: Reggie emphasizes the positioning of the Wii Channels interface for the casual, mainstream user. Makes a point of saying the point that the Channels interface will come up immediately, with no lengthy boot-up process to get in the way.
9:59 am: That's the end of today's scheduled programming. On with the Q&A!
Additional Wii remotes will be $39.99, separate from the nunchuk, which will be an additional $19.99.
Will the system have its own internal memory for photos and such? Kaplan says it will have some capacity for internal memory, but "most" of the storage will indeed be through SD cards.
Of the 30 games promised by year's end, Kaplan says about half of those will be available at launch. Sounds like Zelda, Excite Truck, and Wii Sports are the only first-party ones, though. While first-party games are indeed $50 and under, third parties are--not surprisingly--free to set their own pricing on upcoming games.
Uh-oh. GameCube Twilight Princess now pushed back to December.
All first-party games and most (if not all) other Wii content will be capable of the 16:9 aspect ratio used by HDTVs, but will not be in high definition.
Will the DS and Wii be interoperable? "You'll be hearing more in the future about that," says Kaplan. Nothing today though.
It's official: Metroid Prime 3 is now a "2007" title.
Pokemon Battle Revolution (just announced in Japan) will be the first online-multiplayer-enabled game. Um, good?
10:11 am EDT: The presentation is officially over, and we now have a pretty clear picture of the Wii launch in the US. We're on to check out all the playable games, so stay tuned for hands-on stories and videos later in the day. Also Check back tomorrow for news from Nintendo Europe's event in London.
Bounty wrote:So...a free nunchuk and disc of party games in every box, limitless memory through SD cards (yeah, you need to buy them, but who hasn't got a spare somewhere?), N64 titles at $10, plus an always-on, useful online component.
I want this thing so bad...this might even get my family into gaming.
. .You'd better hope that Nintendo Europe doesn't do something daft and sell it for EUR 250.wautd wrote:So that's about 200 in real money. I think I'll end up with a Wii/X360 combo
This is exciting, for weirdos like me, who always wanted to know how big the controllers were.The body of the Wii Remote measures 148 mm long, 36.2 mm wide, and 30.8 mm thick.
The body of the Nunchuk controller measures 113 mm long, 38.2 mm wide, and 37.5 mm thick.
The body of the Classic Controller measures 65.7 mm tall, 135.7 mm wide, and 26 mm thick.
Wii is Nintendo's smallest home game console yet; measuring 44 mm wide, 157 mm tall, and 215.4 mm deep in the vertical orientation without the included stand (which itself measures 55.4 mm wide, 44 mm tall, and 225.6 mm deep).
http://wii.ign.com/articles/732/732748p1.htmlWii Region-Free Says Nintendo VP
First-party games unrestricted says Nintendo, third-party games up to individual publishers.
by Matt Wales
UK, September 14, 2006 - First-party games for Wii will be region-free, according to NoA's vice president of marketing and corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan.
Speaking to Wired News' Joel Johnson, Kaplan confirmed that, like the DS, Wii gamers will be able to play titles from different territories without restriction. Traditionally, games purchased in regions such as Japan, US and Europe have only been playable on native home consoles. The news is likely to be welcomed by import fans, eager to get their hands on games as close to initial release as possible - however, Kaplan also suggested that region-locking on third-party games would be left up to individual publishers. Currently, it's unclear how Nintendo's region-free policy will affect the playback of existing GameCube titles, which are fully compatible with the Wii.
In the same report, Kaplan revealed that downloaded Virtual Console games would be tied to an individual user's account. However, the system is structured in such a way that, in the event of, say, a meteor crashing through the window and pile-driving your Wii to a pulp, you'll still be able to play your previously purchased games on a brand new Wii console.
Wired also questioned whether Wii owners would be able to add storage capabilities via a USB hard drive add-on. Kaplan's response was that, initially, storage would be limited to flash memory. Although she suggested a hard drive add-on could conceivably be released in the future, it doesn't sound like Nintendo has any official plans as yet. Whether enterprising Wii users will be able to use their own non-Nintendo USB hard drive accessories with the console from the off is unclear.
I'd hold off mate. With only first-party titles being guaranteed region-free you wouldn't want to spend some money on a third party title here and not be able to play it on your imported Wii.Stark wrote:Excellent. Fuck this 'wait for lameass Australia to be cared about' nonsense. US is the first launch region right? Who in the US should I order one from?
10 dollars isn't too bad considering that at EBgames, a used cart will run you ~5, and a good or hard to find cart is in the 8-12 range used.DEATH wrote:Bounty wrote:So...a free nunchuk and disc of party games in every box, limitless memory through SD cards (yeah, you need to buy them, but who hasn't got a spare somewhere?), N64 titles at $10, plus an always-on, useful online component.
I want this thing so bad...this might even get my family into gaming.
Oh yes, at last - Starfox 64.... (I've wanted that game since I played it at a friends house in London after we moved to Israel and he lost it).
And Ocarina of time too
10$- a bit exxpensive but worth it for the good games, and maybe there'll be a deal.
And SNES games= Me finally playing super Metroid [Legally]. Squeee!
They are saying TP is still a Wii Launch title, its the GCN version that is pushed back.Darth Yoshi wrote:If they're bundling Wii Sports with the Wii, then $250 isn't so bad. A shame that it seems I'll need to wait a couple weeks for Zelda after that, though.
IIRC SNES games will probably be $8, so it's not even that.DPDarkPrimus wrote:Once again:Dominus Atheos wrote:So? I'm not spending $10 on a ten year old game, no matter how great the company is that made it, fucktard.
I was sharing that information with everyone, not just you, moron. If you don't want to buy any VC games, that's fine; but considering how much Microsoft asks for those XBLA games, asking $10 for say, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is an awesome deal.
Same here. I intend to force everyone in my family and friends' families to try Wii SportsBounty wrote:So...a free nunchuk and disc of party games in every box, limitless memory through SD cards (yeah, you need to buy them, but who hasn't got a spare somewhere?), N64 titles at $10, plus an always-on, useful online component.
I want this thing so bad...this might even get my family into gaming.
Video is loaded through SD cards.Stark wrote:What do you mean? What video? DVDs?
A little of that is shown in the video I linked to in my post you are replying to.Shows iPhoto-like slideshow feature complete with Ken Burns-style zooms and pans.
Shows off a movie-playack mode. You can apparently transfer home-brew movies to your Wii, view them and modify them in real-time.
