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The Wii Takes NYC
The news came in late from Japan, with details on the North American launch. This morning, Nintendo's New York press conference expanded our understanding of what's going to be happening on November 19th. 1up has coverage of the event, as well as Japan's virtual console pricing, the opening lineup details for Japan, and news that the ex-FFXII director is excited about the Wii. Hopefully this will mean innovative support of the platform by Square/Enix. Over at Gamespot, they have their own conference coverage, as well as a rundown on the system's media functionality and first-hand comments from the engineers that built it. Finally, for a bit of analysis, Next Generation explores what the return of the pack-in (the inclusion of Wii Sports with the console) means for the industry at large.
So with the weather channel, news channel, internet browser and picture viewer/editor, Nintendo's goal is to rope totally-non-geeky people to buy something that does what a PC does better, but that's easy to use and affordable. Then, if mom of grampa wants to try out a game, it's just a click away.
Can't say how it will turn out as my crystal ball is at the dry cleaner's, but I think this could work. I mean, I don't live in a very tech-literate country (france), but I know more than a few people who'd want to give the "digital lifestyle" a try. And yeah, I know peter moore coined that term first.
As a casual gamer, I can't say I care about those addons. Hey, it's free, and it could be good, but it also means some people were out coding this instead of a mario game. But it's an interesting strategy nonetheless.