Reggie to sell first US Wii

September 29th, 2006, 19:36 Posted By: wraggster

For Nintendo's hardcore fans, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime is more than just a spokesperson for the company they adore, he's a general leading them into the next-gen console war.

Reggie will hand out the first Wii consoles in NYC.
Nintendophiles will have a chance to get up close and personal with their leader, Fils-Aime told ABC News. In an interview with the program, the man known simply as "Reggie" said he would be handing out some of the first Wiis at a New York store on November 19, the day the console goes on sale in North America.

"Those consumers, the core gamer, are very important to us," Reggie said. "And you know what? I'll be at a store in the New York area, where they will camp out and I will be handing out some Wiis that very first minute that we're available for purchase."

The store Fils-Aime refers to is likely the Nintendo World Store in Times Square, which has played host to other Nintendo events in the past.

Reggie used the network-television time to hawk the system to the mainstream crowd.

"Our focus with a mass market game [console], was to have a mass market price, and a mass market collection of software, and we think we've done that."

The mass market price comes with some caveats, as the console won't have some of the multimedia perks that Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 have. But that doesn't bother Fils-Aime.

"There are some choices that we made in the development in order to achieve that price point. There's no DVD playback capability. And our thinking is most consumers have about 5 different [DVD players] in their house. Our games are not high-definition. Again our thinking is HD penetration is [only] about 15 percent of households."

The current generation of systems clearly had a winner--the PlayStation 2. While many try and predict who will be this generation's champ, Fils-Aime doesn't think there will be gold, silver, and bronze medals. However, he's not content to simply share the spotlight.

"In order for me to win, must they fail? I don't think so, because they're trying to do something very different," he said. "But our goal is to be the leader in this industry."

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