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November 22nd, 2006, 16:34 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via playfuls
Nintendo of America president, Reggie Fils-Aime, expects to sell 1 million Wii units to North American consumers by early December.
Speaking to Reuters, Fils-Aime revealed that Nintendo expects to sell 1 million Wii consoles within the next two to three weeks, and another 1 million by the second week of January. He also added that a life span of four to six years for the Wii would be "just about right."
"We designed [Wii] from the get-go to be profitable," said Fils-Aime, "so it will be past this weekend and throughout its entire life. Because we're a gaming company, we have to be profitable in the gaming business. It's not like our competitors who can make profit in operating systems or TVs to offset their losses on the gaming side."
Despite, Reggie Fils’ optimism, retailers and analysts across North America confirm that the hottest selling gaming console this past weekend was the Xbox 360.
In Canada Microsoft Game Studios was offering a three game deal with a system with a 20GB hard drive and an extra controller at one retailer for $449.99. One of the free games was Gears of War and when that sold out gamers could get the new Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Xbox Live Arcade: Unplugged.
Microsoft also dropped the price of several of their Xbox 360 games and peripherals to try and out-market Sony and Nintendo.
As a result gamers will be hard-pressed to find an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or a Nintendo Wii on store shelves at least for the rest of this week.
"Retailers had a great four-day run and pretty much everything is gone. Sony dropped the ball and Nintendo didn't do that much better," said one Great Canadian Superstore electronics store manager who wished to remain anonymous. .
"They over-promised and under delivered in terms of the quantity of Wii systems that were available. Sony on the other hand warned everyone that supplies would be severely limited. Microsoft was the big winner. They had lots of systems and they had them priced right with game bundles that gamers were interested in."
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November 22nd, 2006, 16:31 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via eurogamer
Nintendo of America has moved quickly to sort out problems experienced by a handful of Wii owners whose consoles were "bricked" by a WiiConnect24 downloadable update.
The patch, of sorts, appears to have crippled a small number of consoles, and Nintendo's admitted that these will need to be replaced.
According to a report on IGN, the company has offered to replace consoles within 3-4 business days, although it will take slightly longer (4-10 days) to process consoles where customers want to retrieve stored data (for example, downloaded Virtual Console games).
Nintendo UK said that it expected the teething problems that have led to the problem to be resolved in time for the console's launch here on 8th December.
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November 22nd, 2006, 07:36 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via digitaljournal
A rumor stemming from a quote: "We're not working on HD RIGHT NOW.." has sparked rumors that the Wii could be patched to HD.
We contacted a Nintendo rep to clarify, and while they said that Nintendo is absolutely not currently announcing any plans to upgrade the maximum resolution from 480p, it shouldn't be impossible in theory.
The rep noted that Microsoft was able to patch the Xbox 360 to support 1080p.
After all, continued the rep, Nintendo has already released a patch to allow Wii gamers to transfer game saves to SD cards.
This could be good news for Wii gamers looking for a sharper image on their HD sets. We'll keep you posted on any official announcements.
If the 360 can be patched to the 1080p why not the Wii above the 480? It seems like it is an actual possibility..without updating hardware! Cool for Wii owners.
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November 22nd, 2006, 07:33 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via playfuls
I was going to begin this piece by wishing a late "Happy Birthday!" to Shigeru Miyamoto (who turned 54 last week on November 16), and by talking about how the Wii was originally intended to cost under $100 and stuff. But instead, I'm affraid that a more important message is in order: according to numerous reports received by IGN, there is a really nasty problem with some of the Wii consoles that ran the initial WiiConnect 24 update. And the problem is that, well, the update in question pretty much killed the affected Wiis!
There are two common error codes shown by the console in this case: 110213 and 32002. So should you encounter any such problem, you can either get a replacement Wii from Nintendo, or you can send them the faulty unit and receive it back in good shape along with your saved data - which is a pretty lenghty process. You can get more info on this matter (and on several others, unfortunately it seems there's more of them) by visiting Nintendo's customer service website.
And I'm affraid the bad news don't stop here. As you probably know by now, after the console's North American release, the Wii is still missing some of its most attractive online features: the Wii Opera browser, the Wii News Channel and the Wii Forecast Channel. Nintendo says that the Forecast Channel will be activated on December 20, the News Channel will start airing on January 27, and we may have to wait even longer for the Opera browser! More information about its availability should be revealed in the coming weeks, which doesn't sound too encouraging at all.
Despite all these problems, it looks like the Wii is doing great when it comes to pure gaming. A few days ago I wrote about the console's launch line-up and upcoming Wii games, but only briefly mentioned some classic titles downloadable via the Virtual Console. Well, the VC has been up and running even the day before the launch, so now users can buy Wii Points and download some of their old favorites. And here is the pricing for each game from the classic formats:
- NES games cost 500 Wii Points ($5)
- Super NES and Sega Genesis games cost 800 Wii Points ($8)
- Nintendo 64 games cost 1,000 Wii Points ($10)
- TurboGrafx-16 games will cost at least 600 Wii Points ($6)
Judging by the stats from GameRankings, the Wii games are doing a lot better than the PS3 games so far. The absolute best is, predictably enough, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - with an average score of 96.5% (as opposed to PS3's top title, Resistance: Fall of Man, which only managed to score an average of 88.9%). So despite my earlier hunch that the Wii launch line-up was looking diluted, it actually turns out that the PlayStation 3 "scored" the most appalling games at launch.
In the end, neither Sony nor Nintendo can claim to have achieved a perfect launch. But despite my slight disappointment with the Wii's aforementioned problems, I'm still just as excited about getting one when it launches in Europe early next month. If all goes well for Nintendo from here on, they are hoping to sell 1 million Wii units in North America within the next two to three weeks, and another million by the second week of January. But even so, they are still expecting the console to sell out this Christmas, and supply issues are going to be inevitable in the first few weeks.
However, it's not the console itself that's having a hard time meeting the demand, and it's not the extra Wii remotes either: it's the Nunchuks! Apparently, Nintedo expected people to buy more Wiimotes, and they under-estimated the demand for extra Nunchuk controllers - which are rather hard to find for sale these days, it seems.
Or perhaps they had a good reason for supplying plenty more Wii remotes. Such as... domestic accidents, which are more likely to happen through the frantic use of a Wiimote. One such alleged accident involved a Wii Sports game of bowling, a pair of sweaty hands and a fragile Wiimote strap, and resulted in one cracked TV screen. Quite concerning! But while some brake their household items by mistake, others smash their Wii on purpose. Here, take a look for yourself. The horror... The horror...
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November 22nd, 2006, 06:26 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via thewire
According to the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine, Wii Play will arrive in the Americas during January 2007.
Wii Play features various mini-games such as ping pong, air hockey and billiards, among others. According to Keizo Ota of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development Division (EAD) in the Iwata Asks series of interviews, the team that created Wii Sports also produced family-friendly trial software, which eventually became this separate compilation upon Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion.
Wii Play will release in all territories except the Americas on their respective Wii launch date. The title is expected to come packaged with a Wii Remote, though it's unknown at this time if that will apply to the American edition of Wii Play.
The Wiire will continue to keep you updated.
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November 22nd, 2006, 06:21 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via ign
We go Dexter on the Wii's main controller. Satisfy your morbrid curiosity and see it disemboweled within.
November 21, 2006 - It's an open secret that the Wii-remote was originally designed as a GameCube peripheral. Nintendo, however, pursuing the highly publicized 'Blue Ocean' corporate strategy, saw the opportunity to launch a console that would parallel the DS market plan in an entirely new market by means of a new console designed around the freedom provided by a motion-sensing remote controller. The Wii was the result, a console that will lean heavily upon the hypothetically genre-busting gaming innovations that will result due to the console's unique control scheme.
We know the Wii is powered by an IBM CPU and an ATI GPU, and we'd lobotomize one if we had the heart for it. Since we're sensitive peeps, we decided instead to cut straight to the real heart and sole of the Wii: the Wiimote.
Fully assembled, the Wiimote feels well balanced and rather comfortable in hand. It has a good weight, thanks primarily to the batteries, that feels neither too light nor too heavy. Once we broke open the case, however, we discovered quite a bit less circuitry than we had expected.
The Wiimote is held together by four screws, two of which are hidden under the battery compartment. The screws are a propriety three-bit Nintendo design. Actual maintenance kits with proper Nintendo screw-drivers are available through various sources online, however, none were available in time for this feature. Giving up on the potential for actually reassembling our sacrificial Wiimote, we applied a power drill with a 1/8-inch bit and drilled out the screws, which was actually pretty easy.
Once the securing screws were destroyed, the Wiimote came apart quite easily. The plastic buttons connected to the typical silicon membrane electrical connectors as with just about any other controller on the market.
The Wii circuit board looks sparse but actually does quite a lot. The largest chip on the board is the WiFi chip supplied by Broadcom. Motion-sensing wise; forget any imaginative images of a tiny gyroscope spinning inside a tiny box on the circuit board. The Wiimotes accelerometers are based upon miniscule, one-millionth of a gram flaps of silicon flexing against tiny springs within a charged field.
The main Wiimote's accelerometers are supplied by Analog Devices Inc., which declines to specify where on the Wiimote's board its chips reside. Many of the chips on the Wiimote are not labeled, at least not to the natural human eye, but we will speculate that the primary accelerometer chip is the small rectangular one located upon the top side (when held in hand) of the circuit board, in between the 'A' and +, -, and Home button receptors.
Had we not drilled out the screws, we believe we would have been able to reassemble the Wiimote relatively easily. The overall construction of the Wiimote is heavily built and outside of utter destruction via crushing, we expect that the Wiimotes will be able to withstand quite a lot of abuse in the wild. We've already had a wrist-strap-snapping incident that sent a Wiimote flying into a wall. The wall was the decided loser of that battle and suffered a nasty dent, whereas the Wiimote emerged entirely unscathed.
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November 22nd, 2006, 06:17 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via businessweek
The graphics leave something to be desired, but the motion-sensitive remote makes this next-gen game system a tough competitor
For a sense of how the underdog Nintendo Wii fares against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, this scene from my home one recent night says it all.
On a rainy Monday, three friends stopped over for drinks before we were supposed to head out for dinner. Nearly five hours later, at 12:30 in the morning, they were finally shoved out the door, exhausted from the workout they gave the Wii and wondering where they could go to grab one of their own. The whole time they were there, the PS3 and Xbox 360 sat forlorn and ignored.
The Wii has the stuff to replicate that scenario in homes far and wide. Despite graphics that are far inferior to those of competitors and a design that looks more like an external hard drive than a next-gen game system, the Wii is just plain fun to play.
Virtual Reality in Your Living Room
What makes it so outstanding? It boils down to Nintendo's (NTDOY) decision to focus on how games are played, rather than the glitz and glitter of the games themselves. The company's innovative motion-sensitive Wii Remote controller truly creates the closest thing you'll get on a home system to virtual reality. Always thought you could be the next Andy Roddick? Playing even the simplest game of tennis with the Wii controller and rudimentary Wii Sports game package might show you how wrong you were.
Nintendo set about making the gaming experience itself something even a grandmother might look forward to, and it does a great job right out of the box.
Setup was fairly simple and intuitive. From the start, you put the Wii on its stand, connect the sensor pickup to the unit, and figure out where to place it near your TV for best pickup of your movements with the remote. I was concerned the sensor, placed below a giant-screen Sharp Aquos HDTV set would not pick up the signal, but it worked just fine.
It's All About Mii
After adjusting the clock and other settings, I set up a wireless connection to my home network in just a few minutes, without incident. Once you're Web-connected, as with the PlayStation 3, the system immediately downloads a software update. The next step is gaining access to the too-cutely-named Mii Channel, where you create your own Mii-simplistic but fun digital avatars that represent you in the Wii Sports games that are included with the console. Other online menu features like news and weather were not yet active.
But as I hinted before, the Wii Remote is the true hero of the system, and makes all the console's other features, or lack thereof, seem almost inconsequential. Nintendo wisely continues to license the force feedback technology that produces satisfying tactile cues through the controller. The same goes for Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox 360. Sony leaves that feature out of the PlayStation 3, a decision that may come back to haunt the manufacturer as game developers make the most of the feature in the other consoles. The remote also provides great audio, such as the whooshing sound when you swing it like a tennis racket.
The true value of the Wii is its ability to reconvey that sense of child-like wonder that has been lost over the years as games like Electronic Arts' (ERTS) Madden NFL and Activision's (ATVI) Tony Hawk become familiar even as they get more technically complex. Anyone familiar with Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will recognize the challenge of rolling monkeys through maze-like levels, or fans of Zelda know well they have to solve a raft of challenges and puzzles to win the game. But when you're using this controller to stab and slash, bob and weave, you'll experience even the most familiar games in a whole new way.
The Good: Wii controller creates an entirely novel playing experience
The Bad: Online features not fully enabled; graphics don't match rival consoles
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November 22nd, 2006, 04:42 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via redherring
Buyers prefer less expensive, more readily available game console.
November 21, 2006
Sony’s PlayStation 3 may have had a two-day head start on eBay, but rival Nintendo’s Wii has quickly emerged as the game console of choice among shoppers on the popular Internet auction site.
eBay officials on Tuesday afternoon said shoppers had already bought more than 14,400 Wiis since the console was first put up for sale on Sunday. Wiis, which went on sale Sunday at U.S. retail stores for $249, have sold on eBay for an average price of nearly $430—a 72 percent markup.
Online demand for Sony’s PS3 appeared heavy in the early going. eBay shoppers snapped up more than 500 PlayStation 3 by Friday morning, only hours after they went on sale at U.S. retail stores, the company said. The auction site said average selling prices tipped the scales at a hefty $2,700—not a bad markup from the system’s $499 or $599 retail price. “This is pretty much par for the course,” eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said of demand (see Ready to Big Big at eBay for a Console?).
But as of Tuesday afternoon, eBay had count some 11,300 PS3 units sold, well behind rival Wii’s sales on the auction site. The PS3’s average price fell sharply from the early going to $1,460, although that remained a healthy 143 percent premium over its retail price.
Teardown
But Sony isn’t seeing a whole lot of holiday cheer. Despite the PS3’s high retail price, analysts believe Sony is losing hundreds of dollars on each console it sells. In a detailed analysis released on November 16, research firm iSuppli estimated the Japanese gaming giant loses has under-priced its PS3 by as much as $307 a unit. Dubbing the amount remarkable even for the video game business, iSuppli nonetheless described the console as a “great bargain” well worth its hefty retail price tag (see PS3 Loyalty, Guts Examined).
Wiis, on the other hand, are less sophisticated and more readily available than the PS3 or Xbox 360, making the system less expensive to manufacture. In fact, Nintendo appears to be making money on each system it sells. Without giving specifics, Nintendo of Canada exec Pierre-Paul Trepanier told gaming news web site GamesIndustry.biz that the company is “making money from day one on the Wii.”
Both the PS3 and the Wii, which are challenging Microsoft’s long-released Xbox 360 to become the dominant next-generation game console, were rushed out to the U.S. market to be available for the holiday season. But the two consoles are in short supply and retailers are selling out of the units as quickly as they receive them. Many of those lucky enough to snag a new PS3 or Wii are turning eBay, where the not-so-lucky are more than willing to pay steep markups. With both consoles trickling through U.S. retail channels, eBay’s secondary economy is likely to continue humming.
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November 22nd, 2006, 04:38 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via engadget
We're sure most of you Wii users are too busy Googling Zelda walkthroughs or chucking your Wiimote at the TV right now to give this hack much notice, but if you're the type that just has to know how something works and then destroy it utterly (you know who you are), then you might want to have a looksee at this one. Apparently some enterprising hax0rs tore apart their Wii sensor bar, only to find a couple of standard IR emitters. It turns out the "sensor" bar doesn't actually sense at all, it just sends out a pair of IR beams which can then be triangulated by the Wiimote. This of course opens up the possibility of DIY sensor bars and other related (performance enhancing?) hacks, but it still won't do much to help you through that extended "intro" phase in Twilight Princess, so sorry. Click on to view the vid of a custom-rigged sensor bar in action.
View clip via engadget
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November 22nd, 2006, 02:59 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via globeandmail
Long the also-ran platform in the video-game wars, Nintendo's new Wii console is creating a whole new category of headache for the company: this time out they are too popular.
Nintendo Canada doesn't want to tell us how many Wii units are in the Canadian marketplace, and they can only tell us how many we can expect in the future in the most general terms, but they can say that they didn't anticipate the demand during Sunday's launch that saw a 100% sell out at the country's biggest retailers.
"We're struggling to try and find a solution to a situation in which demand has far outstripped supply," says Nintendo Canada marketing director Pierre-Paul Trepanier. "The expectation was that within a few days (after launch) Nintendo would still be stock everywhere."
What Nintendo can say is that beginning this Thursday and Friday (in most regions, but perhaps not the Maritimes and Eastern Quebec) the next shipment of Wii's should begin hitting stores. Its project the retailers will get up to 50% of the launch-day shipment, which if launch-day patterns repeat, could see most major retail locations with 25-40 in stores.
What happens next week, and the week after is in more doubt: Trepanier says that every region in North America has been clamouring for more equipment, and in the Atlanta region company officials were hit with an urgent plea for more nunchuk controllers. Trepanier claims the Canadian market is doing well keeping its accessories in stock.
But Trepanier says that while there have been no production issues in churning out enough Wii consoles for the target of 4 million units produced and sold globally by the end of 2006 (with perhaps a little more than one million of that available in the American market) the consumer interest seems to have reached far wider and deeper beyond hard-core gamers than Nintendo could have dreamed.
"We wanted that to happen eventually, but we haven't even kicked in our TV advertising yet," says Trepanier. "We purposely held back on TV advertising so that we wouldn't be advertising a product that you couldn't find in stores. We didn't expect groups like families and people who haven't played video games in a while to be suddenly be interested. The demand has been overwhelmingly positive, and it's been hard to deal with."
But with the crunch on to find your console some strange stories have begun circulating on the Internet and in conversation with retail workers at major electronics chains. One story involved a store putting more units on the floor Monday after selling out Sunday, then pulling those units from the shelves for some bewildering reason. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that Nintendo and retailers are creating an artificial shortage.
"I wasn't aware that there were any stocks being held back in retail," Trepanier says. "It's surprising though, I would expect them to want them to make sure all their consumers are happy ... I can assure you that at our warehouse in Vancouver, we have zero units."
Now the company has imposed austerity measures to make sure consumers get first crack at the systems.
Nintendo Canada has had to let its workers and marketing partners know that there will be no employee-plan or promotional units available to them until at least 2007, one memo suggested they go line up at the store like everyone else if they really needed it for Christmas.
As well, both Nintendo and third-party software for the new console has been doing well, with some Canadian retailers reporting that for every Wii sold a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess went with it. Ubisoft's innovative first-person shooter Red Steel came in second place, and Call of Duty 3, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 round out the top five.
And Trepanier says there has been some strong evidence that, unlike the PlayStation 3 experience, most of the Wii's bought go from the store to being played in living rooms, instead of flipped on eBay. Though no official numbers have been collected yet, Nintendo's Virtual Console (where players can download classic Nintendo and Sega games) has experienced far higher than expected traffic.
But as Trepanier says, this game is a marathon, not a sprint, and while encouraging so far, the first week isn't even over yet. The real test will be The NPD Group market data for December, which will be released in the second week of January 2007. Then Trepanier will know just how far down the track this opening week burst has taken Nintendo.
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November 22nd, 2006, 02:34 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via kotaku
Despite HDTV having such a low install base in North America, it seems that demand for hi-def component cables for the Nintendo Wii are in great demand. Who woulda thunk it? Certainly not Nintendo!
Priced online at the official Nintendo store for $29.95 (USD) and sold out within hours, two days before the launch, bids for the sold out cables are easily fetching over five times their original price. It's almost as if people really wanted them!
What a bizarre turn of events! Let's hope Nintendo can replenish supply online and in store before the holidays (or before I get my Sharp Aquos LCD delivered, whichever comes first)
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November 22nd, 2006, 01:53 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via kotaku
According to several tipsters, Best Buy has a policy to hold onto Wii when they hit the story so they can amass enough to advertise their existence in their weekly circular. They need to do this to meet the minimum in stock requirement.
Several Best Buy employees and friends of employees have emailed to tell us that the second Wii shipment has arrived, but you'll have to wait till Black Friday or this weekend for you chance at them.
What this particular tipster didn't get into was the store's policy on Playstation 3s which, again according to several tipsters, are in such short supply they will not be advertised. Instead the store is just going to plop them on the shelves as they arrive. So I'd get that dialing finger ready if you're interested in a PS3. If it's the Wii you're after, prepare for more line standing.
I'm not sure which method I prefer.
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November 22nd, 2006, 01:00 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via cubed3d
Someone has snapped a picture of the first UK Wii kiosk, appearing at a Virgin Megastore in Manchester. The look of the whole 'pod' design is very cool indeed and no doubt Nintendo will be placing more consoles in more and more stores over the coming weeks. This goes hand in hand with the Wii UK Tour which is continuing its winding path across the country.
Is there a Wii kiosk in your local town centre? Let us know what store you spied it in and if you can snap a picture and send it in to us. Stick with C3 for all your latest Wii goodness...
Screen via comment
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November 22nd, 2006, 00:55 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via shacknews
Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)
Developer: Atlus Co.; Publisher: Atlus USA
The characters and events depicted in this game are fictitious. Any similarities to organizations, people (living or dead), hospitals, or cutting-edge medical techniques are purely coincidental.
This is the disclaimer that prefaces Atlus' rage-inducing precision surgery sim, Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Given the increasingly bizarre medical situations that crop up throughout the game, as well as the anime-flavored hospital drama that unfolds, that warning very much goes without saying.
Second Opinion is a remake--and more--of Atlus' widely praised Trauma Center: Under the Knife, one of the games that really championed stylus control on the Nintendo DS. As in Under the Knife, Second Opinion puts you in the role of rookie doctor Derek Stiles, who must save the lives of patient after patient using an array of surgical tools. This time around, of course, you'll be operating with the Wii remote rather than the DS stylus. Like the original game, Second Opinion proves to be a worthy gameplay-centric title that exemplifies creative use of its system's controller. It also provides yet another counterpoint to skeptics' claims that Wii requires users to flail around wildly to progress in games. Quite the contrary; Second Opinion rewards--nay, requires--a steady hand to pull off its incisions, sutures, injections, and other surgical tasks. Like Under the Knife, Second Opinion is a hard game, and it becomes brutally difficult. Fortunately, Atlus has included three difficulty settings this time around, and you can switch between them before any mission.
One of the most significant additions to the game is the use of the nunchuk controller to select your implements. The eight available tools are displayed in a radial menu in the lower left corner of the screen, and you simply point the analog stick in the appropriate direction to select a tool, intead of than selecting each instrument manually with the pointer as in the DS game. This is a godsend when it comes to speed and efficiency, and as a side bonus it is a great boon to immersiveness. Using your left hand (or right hand, for the lefties) to grab your tools and the other hand to operate really brings to mind the classic O.R. scene with the doctor deadpanning the name of the tool he demands and holding out his left hand in anticipation. It's just a shame that there's no voiceover work saying "Scalpel!" when you grab the knife.
Second Opinion's presentation is very bare bones. The art design has been redone and made edgier from the DS release, but the story is still told in images and text, which some players may be inclined to simply skip. Hopefully, if Atlus continues the series on Wii, some more voice acting will be included, at least during key moments. As it is, though, it's hardly a deal-breaker; gameplay is where Trauma Center shines, and it holds up there.
Despite being a remake, there are some new elements thrown in, including a modified story and new character, and more crucially a whole new chapter and an added medical instrument. You now have access to a defibrillator during certain moments, which is perfect for a controller that consists of a separate component in each hand. As you would expect, you do indeed thrust the remote and nunchuk towards the screen to get that heart pumping. Still, gamers who have already played through the DS incarnation of the game will find that they recognize most of the missions. Much of the game, particularly early on, is taken directly from Under the Knife. Despite this, Second Opinion brings enough to the table that even fans of the first game should consider giving it a shot. To those who haven't played the original, this is an even more attractive entry in the Wii's launch lineup.
Red steel review
Red Steel (Wii)
Developer: Ubisoft Paris; Publisher: Ubisoft
Red Steel was the first full unveiled Wii game in the Western world--the second worldwide, counting Tecmo's Super Swing Golf--and it made big promises. The game plunges an American protagonist into modern day Japan, using firearms and blades as he gets further embroiled into the Yakuza underworld. A game full of gunplay and swordfighting is perfect for the Wii, as it is comprised of what are probably the two gameplay functions most likely to come to mind as appealing uses of the Wii remote. Unfortunately, Red Steel is very clearly unfinished. Whether this is the fault of the team, or a byproduct of trying to get what might have been an impressively ambitious game finished for launch, could be debated, but the game has many significant flaws.
Fundamental to the game are its control mechanisms. Aiming operates somewhere in between using a mouse and a console analog stick. The cursor, which is aimed with the remote, operates independently of the camera as it moves around the screen, but when it approaches the edge of a screen the camera turns in that direction. This seems to be the standard method of operation for Wii shooters, but unlike other genre entries such as Treyarch's Call of Duty 3 and Retro Studios' Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Red Steel's "dead zone"--the area of the screen in which moving the cursor does not cause the camera to turn--is fairly large, making turning a somewhat sluggish affair. To the game's credit, this seems to have been factored into the level design. Red Steel is not a run and gun shooter; rather, battles are a series of set pieces that play out as you come to a new room or environment. This in itself is not a drawback, it is simply how the game is structured and it works fine.
What is a huge drawback is that the game's presentation is bland, bordering on just plain poor. Flaws abound, from clipping problems, to braindead NPCs, to uninspiring visual design (though in fairness this does improve later in the game), to a bizarre pointer glitch that will occasionally cause the cursor to skip across the screen and back again in a split second. This last issue, curiously enough, does not seem to be an issue with any other launch games using the system's pointer functionality, suggesting that fault lies with Red Steel itself.
Cutscenes are done in a comic book panel format similar to those of Max Payne. The style should work well, except that they have none of the dynamism and flow of Max Payne's. The game's dialogue and voice acting is not particularly great, which would not be much of a flaw if there were not so many other disappointing aspects of the presentation that are compounded. Ubisoft Paris, the studio behind the game, also developed 2003's cel-shaded shooter XIII, which suffered from many of the same problems. Like that game, Red Steel's environments are varied but not hugely impressive, and the gameplay is pretty standard. Red Steel very much feels like it could have used a good once over and another six months to a year of development. On the other hand, as in XIII, the music is very well done and has a broad range. Similarly, the sound design is quite good. Hearing reload sounds through the remote speaker is surprisingly enjoyable.
The game is not without gameplay highlights. Once you are entrenched in a safe position, aiming around the screen and nailing enemies is pretty enjoyable; it's just that when you have to do a quick 180 turn or some similar maneuver, the designers' choice to go with a large turning bounding box makes things frustrating. Swordfighting, which has taken a lot of flak from fans for not replicating users' movements on a 1:1 basis, is actually quite fun and were some of the parts of the game I looked forward to playing. The actual context for the swordfights is ludicrous; what man with absolutely no prior experience holding a katana is going to cast aside his perfectly functional firearm to engage in close combat with somebody who is clearly a master swordsman? It makes no sense, but setting that aside, the battles themselves can be a lot of fun. Quite frankly, I think the designers made the right choice in mapping your movements to numerous directional sword slashes. When it really comes down to it, when I playing the game and swinging the remote, I didn't notice or care about that; it was simply rewarding to see the on-screen sword accurately pick up the direction of my slashes and the blocking I was doing with the short sword in my left hand. The fighting system isn't the deepest in the world, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable for what it is.
All in all, Red Steel promises a lot and simply can't deliver on most of it. Despite Ubisoft's best intentions on having serious support for Wii right out of the gate, the realities of developing a launch title clearly took a heavy toll on the game. This kind of involved single-player experience really deserves more time, particularly when dealing with an entirely new control system. Ubisoft's own Rayman Raving Rabbids, from Michel Ancel's team at Ubisoft Montpellier, delivered a more successful (and more realistic from a development perspective) picture of delivering accessible creativity while still making launch. That said, Red Steel game does have some encouraging aspects. Ubisoft has stated that it plans to create a franchise out of Red Steel, and the game is likely to be the best selling initial Wii launch title after Zelda, so it would be no surprise if a sequel surfaced. If so, let's hope it gets the time it needs.
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November 22nd, 2006, 00:51 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via ign
November 21, 2006 - It looks like Nintendo isn't immune to releasing dud consoles, as DailyGame's Wii broke already:
Now that the Wii's on store shelves, it wasn't long before the problems started. Although Nintendo's known for having great hardware, stories are already popping up over the 'net about failing consoles. While this is to be expected of any new hardware, and we have a feeling Nintendo's got a lot fewer bricks out there than the PS3 or Xbox 360 had, their support service might suggest otherwise.
Take one example of our own staff - after enjoying about four hours with the Wii yesterday, the unit suddenly just gave up the ghost. A loud buzz in the middle of a Madden tutorial, and crunch - one dead Wii. The unit wouldn't respond to any inputs on the controller or the box, and after unplugging/replugging it in, it would boot up, but not show any video. Moving it to other TV sets (three total, two HDef and one Standard) along with trying to reseat the cables, hold down the power with the cord unplugged (sometimes works with home electronics) etc etc - this was one dead Wii.
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November 21st, 2006, 23:35 Posted By: wraggster
Everyone's favourite disembodied head, torso and floating limbs, Rayman, is heading to the Wii. And, unless you've been living in a small hole in the ground with your hands over your ears and eyes closed tight, you've no doubt heard about Raving Rabbids.
After our extended play session over at Nintendo Australia, we can proudly chalk up a title that does justice to the Wii's unique control scheme and, moreover, does it with plenty of originality and style.
After the travesty that was our session with Red Steel, we were filled with feelings of trepidation rather than anticipation. Thankfully, our fears were allayed with one swift swipe of the wiimote and a quick jolt with the nunchuk. As slow and inaccurate as Red Steel's controls were, Rayman Raving Rabbids nailed everything it tried. The cursor, crosshairs or otherwise, never failed to move with accuracy and responsiveness. In short, it works and it works well.
Full article
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November 21st, 2006, 22:44 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via gamespot
Virtual Console gets updated with first games from NEC's legacy system; Bonk's Adventure and Bomberman '93 selling for 600 points each.
When Nintendo launched the Wii on Sunday, it did so with the promised dozen downloadable retro games available on the system's Virtual Console. But while the initial 12 offerings on the service included titles from the NES, the Super Nintendo, the Sega Genesis, and the Nintendo 64, the small slate of previously announced TurboGrafx-16 games was entirely absent.
Nintendo rectified that situation today, as the company has released a pair of TG-16 games on the Virtual Console. Gamers can now download Bonk's Adventure, the debut of the system's megacephalic mascot, and Hudson's Bomberman '93. Each game will set users back 600 Wii Points, or $6.
By the end of the year, Bonk and Bomberman will be joined on the Virtual Console by a handful of other TurboGrafx games, including Super Star Soldier, Victory Run, and Dungeon Explorer.
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November 21st, 2006, 22:24 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via vggen
In its Q3 2006 earnings conference call today, GameStop revealed the early attach rates (number of software units sold per console) for both the Wii and PlayStation 3.
The PS3 was on the short end of the stick, with a measly 1.5 games per console sold, with the early winners being Resistance: Fall of Man and Madden NFL 07 (no surprises there). Meanwhile, the Wii enjoyed a much higher 3.0 attach rate, with the top sellers being Red Steel and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
While GameStop blamed the low PS3 attach rate on the high percentage of consoles being resold for a profit (primarily on eBay), no doubt the high price of the console itself also played a role. GameStop expects the PS3's attach rate to pick up once the console is in the hands of "real gamers."
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November 21st, 2006, 22:21 Posted By: gunntims0103
news via ign
We want 480p! The current word on where the elusive cables are available.
November 21, 2006 - Though Nintendo decided against jumping on the High-Definition bandwagon, the Wii isn't incapable of generating something better than archaic 480i resolution. By means of Component Video Cables, the Wii is able to output 480p—progressive rather than interlaced—which makes a surprising difference on any TV capable of accepting such a signal, like pretty much every HDTV and LCD on the market.
Somewhat frustratingly, Wii Component Video Cables are not easy to come by, especially in the midst of the post-launch frenzy. Nintendo's own online store has been the primary provider of the Wii Component Cables in the weeks before launch. Unfortuantely, the store seems unable to keep the cables in stock for more than a few hours at a time, and has been consistently sold out of the optional cables since a few days before the official Wii launch. The store currently lists the $29.95 cables as out-of-stock, but announces that more cables will be available in "the week of November 28."
Nintendo also expects first party Nintendo Wii Component Cables to arrive at retailers like Best Buy, GameStop, and Circuit City in early to mid December. For those unable to wait quite so long, we've got word that Wii Component Cables from third-party manufacturer React will be hitting shelves at Best Buy later this week. You may have to brave some Black Friday mobs to pick them up, so try not to become involved in any stampedes, assaults, or retail riots while you're there, as such behavior is simply not in keeping with the Tao of Wii.
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November 21st, 2006, 22:19 Posted By: wraggster
Via Primezone
Just in time to entertain holiday travelers, Delta Air Lines is partnering with Nintendo to provide customers with access to free video game demos for the Nintendo DS portable gaming system. Today, on-the-go Nintendo lovers can begin downloading the interactive demos -- including Brain Age, Elite Beat Agents, Clubhouse Games -- in Delta terminals at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Through this new service, travelers can easily and wirelessly download Nintendo video game demos for free by bringing their Nintendo DS video game systems with them when they travel to or through Atlanta, standing within a few feet of the DS Download Station and following the simple download instructions. There are six units in the Atlanta airport on Concourses T, A and B. Delta also plans to provide this exciting enhancement in other airports in the coming months.
"Delta is excited to partner with Nintendo, makers of some of the most popular video games of all time, to provide yet another innovative entertainment offering to travelers," said Joan Vincenz, Delta's managing director of Product Marketing. "This program reflects our ongoing commitment to provide a distinctive, enjoyable travel experience -- both on the ground and in the air -- especially during the busy holiday travel season."
This airport technology addition is one of many changes Delta is making to improve the travel experience for customers. In September, Delta introduced the first of its new two-class, domestic transcontinental aircraft featuring all-leather seating in both first-class and coach. On these refurbished aircraft, every customer has a front row seat to great entertainment with Delta's state-of-the-art, digital in-flight entertainment -- boasting movies, live television, music and games -- available on demand at every seat. The airline's new standard in domestic transcontinental flying will be available to all passengers traveling on select Delta flights over four hours (or more than 1,750 miles), including those from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle and others, beginning this month.
Earlier this year, Delta also began updating its international BusinessElite class with a similar, industry-leading entertainment system on its current fleet of 75 aircraft flying international routes. And beginning in 2008, Delta will be the first U.S. airline to offer its international business class customers a true lie-flat seat in its BusinessElite(r) cabin on ultra long-haul flights to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
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