Wii Cuts up big apple

Icetrash · 09-14-2006, 02:50 PM

Ok this is the news so far...
9:05 am EDT: Attendees are just starting to filter into the conference space and the show is set to begin soon.

9:15 am: The place is still filling up. Time to sheperd the nerd herd into their seats.

9:19 am: NOA VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan has taken the stage to talk about the three near-simultaneous events in Tokyo, London, and here in New York. Now she's introducing the man everyone wants to hear from: newly anointed NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Icetrash · 09-14-2006, 02:50 PM

9:23 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). 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.

Icetrash · 09-14-2006, 02:50 PM

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.

Icetrash · 09-14-2006, 02:51 PM

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 2,000 Wii-point card can be had at retail for $20.

m7ticalm · 09-14-2006, 02:54 PM

Dude...... This eact coverage is being done by i0n.

m7ticalm · 09-14-2006, 02:55 PM

http://www.wiichat.com/nintendo-wii-...-2pm-uk.html#0

Icetrash · 09-14-2006, 02:56 PM

ohhh ok, close this thread then