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Wii Launches, Sells Out Peacefully
porcupine8 writes "Like the Playstation 3, the Nintendo Wii sold out on launch day this weekend. Unlike the PS3, the launch was a peaceful affair with no reports yet of console-related violence in the US. This may be partially due to the fact that Nintendo promises to have a total of four million units in stores by Christmas, with the bulk of those going to North America.
Midnight launch parties on both the east and west coasts ushered the new console in with a bang." Please, if you've managed to snag a Wii yourself, share your opinions below! Update: 11/20 17:25 GMT by Z : A few quick impressions from 24 hours of owning a Wii, and some links on the subject if you Read More.
All I have to say so far is pretty positive. I snagged Rayman Raving Rabbids, Zelda, and (on a lark) Red Steel. I haven't had the heart to play Red Steel yet, but Rayman is a great, quirky mini-game game. I think this format is going to be pretty common for the Wii, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Zelda is ... Zelda. I really, really like it, but if you're getting tired of the same old thing you're going to be disappointed. My big complaint is the glacially slow internet connection. I have never owned a Genesis, and so wanted to snag Sonic for some cheap laughs. Purchasing Wii points took about half an hour, and I never actually managed to download the game (despite having paid for it). I'm hoping that today, with less hammering on the servers, I'll have more luck. Expect a more complete review next week. In the mean time, Chris Kohler at Game|Life has had a Wii since last week, and has some considered opinions on its launch issues, and a bit more specifically on virtual console problems.
That Wii gamers are peace-loving pansies, and PS3 users are bad-ass tough guys.
Therefore PS3 games will be cooler.
-PS3 fanboy, loal x 3
This one nailed it: Console Lines
4Z5TX
And there was me thinking it was just women who suffered from this social problem... :P
PS3: 1 unit
The question that's coming in the spring, when the PS3 might actually be available in quantity, is what kind of demand will exist once all the hardcore types already have theirs.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I thought it would sell out on day 1, but what I worry about as an English man who hasn't pre-ordered is if we'll see stocks pick up before christmas. Ideally it'd be good to be able to buy one off the self after less than a week... but with hearing that the bulk of their stocks are going to North America I'm left a little worried - I might have to preorder after all.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
If Nintendo really can have 4 million Wiis in stores by christmas, a late november launch makes sense, but in the case of the PS3, why did they release this late when they know full well they won't even begin to meet demand for christmas?
Christmas buyers aren't your hard core fanboys who will wait in line to buy the thing, so why not launch it in the summer, get the fanboys set, then work hard to produce enough of your system to keep in in stock for christmas buyers (you know, like MS did). Sony made a major error here, in that lots moms and dads buying the system for their kids are going to wait a full year till next christmas to do so. Meanwhile, Nintendo has Wiis in stock, for 1/2 the price, ready to be snatched up by Santa.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
form of violence. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s= &threadid=2183346
That's because the robbers make roughly 60% less money for each unit of felonious prison sentence.
No way would I go to jail for 10-25 years just to make $250. But, for $600 it starts to look more attractive.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
It's interesting to note that on Ebay the Wii is going for several hundred $, while the PS3 is going for several thousand $. It's probably because Nintendo has promised to ship 4 million consoles. I wonder where the equilibrium price is for these consoles? Will Nintendo make more money by shipping a lot but charging $250, or will Sony make more by shipping less but charging $600? Is the craze that Sony causes by undersupplying their product worth it in the end?
December 2nd can't come too soon. We had massive camping and disappointed pre-orderers at two local gamestores for the PS3 launch (so I'm told -- $600?! No, sorry, not even for White Knight), but the Wii launch is probably going to be smooth as silk. I say this because I walked into a store which wouldn't even take pre-orders for the PS3 and asked if I could pre-order a Wii and Zelda. "Oh, sure, no problem. Do you want us to give you a call on release day to remind you?" Thats like the definition of non-hysteria.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Wii Bowling so far has been the most popular Wii Sport, with Boxing/Golf also being played often. Bowling's Power Shot training mode, where an additional row of pins is added each frame, leading to a final frame of 91 pins, has been played a lot.
First system I've gotten on Opening Day, thus far I think it was worth it.
SAILING MISHAP
My real question would be... is anyone else having sensor issues with Red Steel? The cross hair jumps all over the screen and it's not hard for me to make the game spin in one direction constantly while holding the controller in the opposite direction. I wonder if I setup my sensor right. However, my 3 other games (Zelda, Marvel, and DBZ) all work very well.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
I'm just glad to see some positive press coverage of gaming for once. In terms of friendliness, camaraderie, and just plain fun, the Wii launch stood in stark contrast to the PS3 debacle. I commented some time ago in a thread that I'm a fairly hardcore PC gamer but the Wii was enough to make me consider a foray into console gaming. This launch has only solidified that temptation.
Good work, Nintendo
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
depends on how you define shortage.
I'm sure no one camped out for a week for the Wii (like so many did for the PS3), although many camped out for around 20+ hours.
I got up at 5am on sunday morning and my friend picked me up and we were going to go to bestbuy, but there were around 200 people in line outside, then we went to another bestbuy where there were at least 100 people in line. A nearby target had an enormous crowd outside, too.
We finally went to a slightly hidden Circuit city where there were 21 people waiting and we got in line. After talking to the guys there, we learned that the store had 16 units physically at the store and were expecting a *possible* shipment of 15 more at 7am, and we'd find out at that time. Since we really didn't know where else to go at that time, we decided to stick it out.
The couple of guys immediately in front of us were there for only about 20 minutes when we arrived (at about 5:30) and the guys in front of them got there at midnight. The group of guys at the head of the line were there since 8am the day before and had sleeping bags and a tent.
It's kinda funny because several people came and went in those early hours (the store was gonna open at 10) but since it wasn't a sure thing, no one really wanted to stick it out to find out if those extra 15 units were going to show up, so until about 9:30 (the truck had gotten a flat and hadn't shown up yet) there were only about 10 people behind us... it wasn't until about then that suddenly people were showing up left and right.
and AT 10, a couple of people showed up thinking they'd avoid the crowd and get there when they first open to pick their wii up. they were a little shocked that people were waiting outside. they didn't understand.
heh.
but I got one!! and it's AWESOME.
red steel sucks, though.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Now that the Wii has been released, has anyone found any more technical details (CPU etc.) about it? I know it's not about the graphics, but I'd like to know a bit more about what it's capable of.
Not sure, but Red Steel has had lackluster reviews on gameplay and the dev-team always had some issues with the control - i.e. the small targeting "reticle" (i.e. once the remote moves out of this small reticle, the player turns). Your sensor bar may be fine, the game may just suck :)
It could be that the price of the units make them more of a commonity. Some people might have been counting on selling the units at a 400% profit and when they couldn't, getting pretty angry. $250 profit is a lot less than $2000.
It might also have nothing to do with money and more to do with personality and character. PS3's and Wii's probably attract different kinds of people, but each attract a certain type of person. Back in the 90s I did a study of people using browsers by first blocking IE and allowing Netscape users in, allowing that to happen for a couple months and then switching it around so that Netscape users where blocked and IE users where allowed in. The site was a fan site for a musician and so people visiting had a strong desire to see the content. In each case, when I blocked a certain browser, I would receive angry emails from the people that were blocked. Maybe about 25-50 for each browser. I found that IE users on average would use poor grammar, make more spelling mistakes and generally shorter words than Netscape users. I also found that most Netscape users would send longer emails while several IE users would be very short and frank with me. The same effect is most likely the case with gaming consoles, computers, operating systems and everything else.
Of course "day 1" is a sellout...this is one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book.
If they made 1M units available on day 1 and only 50% sold, the headline would be: "Plenty of Product X left after first day (expect discounts soon)"
However, when they make 100K units available on day 1 and all sell in a few hours, the headline is "Product X sells out first day (don't expect a discount soon)"
The whole point is to create a buyers frenzy and match it with artificial supply constraints to ensure everyone pays full price or more, all while getting free press from Slashdot and other media whores with lazy editors...
Third, Wii games are getting slammed in reviews. Even their main system seller game is getting so fairly negative reactions and reviews.
Yeah its only the best reviewed game of the year with an average review score of 97% after 16 reviews (gamerankings.com); if it can maintain that average over 4 more reviews it will only be the second best reviewed game of all time (second only to The Legend of Zelda:OoT).
Second, the Wii appears to be having huge numbers of problems. Not the insane failure rate/dead consoles fiasco Microsoft had with the 360s, but huge numbers of minor to medium problems. Dead/flakey controllers seem to be very common, networking problems, disc read errors, problems updating the Wii software, and a fair number of DOA Wiis.
Link?
First the number of consoles actually shipped to NA appears to be dramatically lower than promised. Nintendo gave out new estimates for NA shipment plans for up to middle of January and they sound about half of what was promised. Only about 2 million units instead of 4. The massive lead in sales people thought Nintendo would have over Sony doesn't look like it will happen with Sony at 400k with the initial shipment and 600k in the process of being air shipped by Christmas. Nintendo appears to be around 800 from estimates so far. Nowhere near the massive installed base advantage they were hoping for.
First off, Link?
Secondly, every store I called on Friday/Saturday (to determine where I needed to go to get my Wii) had between 3 to 8 times as many Wiis as they had PS3s (with a guestimated average of 4 times as many units); the lowest ratio of Wii to PS3 was at the store I went to which had 5 PS3s and 15 Wii. I could see that my city being a little disproportionate, but if the PS3 sold 400,000 systems I expect that Nintendo had (at least) 1.2 Million.
I have however heard the PS3 undersupplied, which would make sense if Nintendo Shipped 1 Million Wii and the PS3 only had 250,000 units shipped.
I thought Nintendo was taking a profit on the Wii while Sony was taking a loss on the PS3... So that would mean Nintendo needs to sell one to beat Sony, it Sony sells none, and doesn't need to sell any if Sony sells one.
That is if you ignore the profit from game sales, and look only at console sales.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
What CPU does it use? Another Power-based from IBM?
Not really related, but I was looking at how the hardware designers came together for the current and last generation of consoles, and it was pretty interesting.
Sixth generation:
PS2: Sony/Toshiba CPU + Sony GPU
GameCube: IBM CPU + ATI GPU
Xbox: Intel CPU + NVIDIA GPU
Seventh generation:
PS3: IBM CPU + NVIDIA GPU
Wii: IBM CPU + ATI GPU
Xbox 360: IBM CPU + ATI GPU
Unusable! you mean for Mame-type gaming? Why, back in my day, we were happy if we could get a readable font and a color other than green or orange!
Seriously, Nintendo is very tight with proprietary intellectual property, and it is probably too much effort to try and put *nix on it. I'm sure wireless drivers will be a nightmare, especially.
PS3, on the other hand, sounds like it was a bit rushed into production, and offers 'expandability' and seems therefore more likely to be hackable.
I waited outside of Best Buy for 10 hours to get my Wii. I've told myself that I'd never stand outside of a stoor waiting to buy anything except food, but I have to admit that I had great fun. Since I just moved into a new town a few months ago, it was a good opportunity to meet some fellow gamers, as well as to build up anticipation for finally getting the system.
Although I waited all night, the line I was in didn't actually fill up until about 6:30 am. At 8 the store handed out vouches to the first 24 people in line, then we all lined up again at 9 (along with quite a lot of people who had no idea that there had been vouchers handed out earlier, and were hoping to get a system).
I got Zelda and Red Steel (although now that I have heard how abysmal the Red Steel seems to be, and since I haven't opened it, I'm considering making an attempt at returning it and getting Monkey Ball instead), and I have to say that so far the system has definitely been worth it.
The only problem I've had so far is that nintendo's servers seem to be having problems, because I keep running into timeout problems when trying to update the console so I can get into Wii Shop and check out the virtual console.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I preordered it a month or so back so my Wii (still looks really strange writing that) was all ready to go when I picked it up on Sunday at 10am. Bestbuy, which was next to the store I bought mine from opened at 8am, so I figured hey why not stop by at 8:15 or so just to see if I can grab zelda and the classic controller.. heh, there must of been 200 people there trying to push they're way into the doors! screw that, i'll wait till 10am and grab it with the system.. Went to the store, no problems at all, grabbed it, played all yesterday, etc..
And ya, now my friggin arms hurt! a good workout hurt, but still. This game system may single handledly change the fat kid playing video games generalization to in shape kids. Popped in wii sports when a few friends came over and I must say, we had a great time and had many laughs (heh, boxing is jokes, not perfect but it still gets the heart rate up and kinda makes you look foolish)
I thought this would be a gimmicky system, but so far everything has run perfectly(controller, setup, virtual console, etc).. I'll see how I feel about it in a few months, but so far it's been an awesome experience. Good work nintendo
MrJynxx
No violence? Yeah right. While I was waiting for a Wii someone actually jumped on my head. As if that wasn't enough, he then threw a turtle shell at me.
Got to Walmart @ 2:30pm. Was #17 out of 20 in line. My friend Chip was #13. #8-12 was a family (father, mother, 2 sons and a daughter) all in line. They had done a few days in line earlier this week and gotten three PS3's. They were really really nice people. At 8pm walmart handed out 20 vouchers and once we had them a few of us went to Bob Evans for some dinner. Back to Walmart and at 10 they let us inside to get warm. That was nice of Walmart. At 11:45 these two doofy looking guys come up and offer $500 for a VOUCHER. No Wii, just a VOUCHER. The family in front of us took them up on the offer and also sold the doofy guys a PS3 they had for $1800. Got my Wii, headed home. Also, it is amazing.
adventure-today.com
Dude only a fool takes offense when none is intended, and it is the bigger fool that takes offence when it is.
AKA. Don't feed the trolls.
This guy is some poor fool has to make himself feel better by tying his self worth to where hey lives since he can not find anything about himself to be proud of.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
eBay has 25K+ steady with 50 selling every minute. Some units are going for reasonable prices (360 w/ Zelda shipped which would cost 330-340 on amazon ), but many are still about 100 bucks higher than retail (not including tax). The volume is rather ridiculous and the listings are very misleading ( Wii sports = 5 games, extra controller = the one that comes with the system). There are 42 from my locale and from estimates that appears to be 15-20% of all consoles sold here.
I think sooner or later this is going to bust.
I've had no problem with it. That said, the game is not great. Do you have a reflective surface in the room? I've heard reports of issues just like yours from people with glass coffee tables and such.
I found out something good and geek-worthdy about the wii.
There is a way to set the sensor bar sensitivity in the root of the main menu, before the channels.
The interesting thing is that it shows you a PIXEL DUMP of the infrafed camera in the wiimote.
that camera looks at the 2 IR LEDS in the sensor bar.
If you see more than 2 light dots on the raw pixel dump, you can adjust the sensitivity with
a 5 level slider.
You can play with this by passing a refrective surface near the bar and you will see where it registers
on the wiimote-mounted camera-sensor. (you can also deduce it's resolution).
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe
I still maintain that VG Cats say it best.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
When I picked up my Wii on Sunday from the local EB, the manager mentioned that he was told to expect more units in store by Wednesday at the latest. If that turns out to be the case, that's a far cry from what we're hearing about PS3 restocks.
FWIW: I got a WII at a GameStop. They got 15. They had 6 PS3s on release day. I went by a Target yesterday and they had about the same story. They recieved 94 WIIs and said they got 32 PS3s.
Back in the early 90's I worked at an Electronics Boutique with the NES, Sega Master System, SNES, TurboGrafx and Sega Genesis were hot. Sales often came down to availability. If a kid wanted a SNES for Xmas but we only had Genesis in stock, the parent usually ended up getting the Genesis. The reverse also happened often. Both systems were in short supply and high demand for several years around the holidays. They were both comperable and had many of the same games. It looks like the WII will get a much larger system base if they can outsupply Sony 3:1 in the near future. I suspect they could even catch up with the 360.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
To all the doubters, I think we've gotten our proof that Nintendo is a contender again.
Big box stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart had campers early the night before and easily sold out hours before official store opening.
To say the least. The Future shop picture in that article is at a local mall here. They had nearly 100 units. That line-up had gone all night. But what's really amazing is that right behind that store (past the Winners you can see the sign for) is a Best Buy. With 90 units. Also lined up. Also sold out before store opening. At the other end of the mall is a WalMart. Also sold out before opening.
Half a mile away is another mall, with a Zellers, Toys'r'us, and EB. All sold out before store opening (Toys'r'us several HOURS before). All with dozens of units each. EVERY store, big and small, sold out within the first few minutes after opening. Small towns 50 miles out sold out within minutes.
Nintendo shipped anywhere from 2-5x as many units as Sony, and THEY'RE ALL GONE. Something like 25-50% of the PS3s were on ebay within hours, and the price is already dropped down nearly to retail value. Most Wii owners are actually playing theirs.
This is most definitely NOT the soccer mom and grandpa crowd. These people lined up for hours in the sub-freezing cold to be the first to play the new Zelda. You don't get any more hardcore than that.
Interestingly enough, and I've never seen this with a console launch, GAMES are sold out too. Most stores didn't get near enough copies of Zelda, and only had 3-5 titles each. The only title on the shelves that seems to be in quantity as of this morning is Excite Truck. A local WalMart here has nothing but that - and over 3 dozen copies of it. Look for it to be the first discounted game, if the stores around me are any indication.
The Wii might just end up being the "Tickle Me Elmo" of this year's xmas season.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Checking craigslist(Minneapolis), the average Wii console sale price(typically + 1 game) is around $400-450. yes, the jacked-up prices for a Wii are LESS than the street price for the premium PS3.
Strange, no?
My favorite sales pitch on craigslist was the person who said they "needed" to unload their PS3, for $1500. Perhaps they shouldn't have bought it 2 days prior for $700, no? I also saw one ad who wanted to sell their PS3 for college books, tuition,etc. Of course, it was for a 4-figure amount. But if you are a broke college student, you shoulnd't be shelling out $700 for a get rich quick scheme.
But since it's Nintendo, even connection errors is really FUN, aren't they? ;P
Actually, Nintendo won the profit war the second the first PS3 was sold. :p $0.00 > -$300.00.
I fixed that for you...
Your numbers are incorrect. (Probably just out of date.)
The PS3 shipped 80,000 units in Japan, and another 200,000 to 400,000 to the U.S. (No one is entirely sure of the exact number.) The Wii shipped over a million units to the U.S. with some reports saying it was as high as 1.2 million.
According to Sony, the PS3 is expected to ship about 2 million units worldwide by the end of the year. They admit that their figures are "more of a target" though. According to Nintendo, they are committed to bringing at least 4 million units worldwide by the end of the year.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Nintendo planned on shipping 2 million for launch but those numbers were more than halved - with estimates so far in the 600-800k range that actually made it to launch. Nintendo hasn't made it known how many they are going to ship between launch and the end of the year.
Where is your link Mr Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll?
Nintendo had always wanted to "Sell 4 Million Units Worldwide By January 1st 2007" which would require an, estimated, 2 Million units sold in North America; there were no reports that Nintendo planned on shipping 2 Million units on the first day just that they needed to sell them in the first 6 weeks.
The PS3 has shipped 400k as of launch confirmed by Sony. And there are 600k additional units in the process of being sent by air from the Asian manufacturing plants between launch and the end of the year.
Link please?
I have seen tons of articles online talking to EB/Gamestop (and other retailers) who claimed that Sony reduced their shipment to them at the last minute and no confirmation of the sales numbers; there is also confirmation that Sony undershipped (by 12%) to Japan. There were tons of reports in October that Nintendo had millions of units ready for launch so why would they undersupply? On the other hand, there were tons of reports that Sony started to manufacture late and has been having tons of problems.
Middle of December the retail sales tracking numbers will be out and everyone will know for certain. But whatever the actual numbers are, Nintendo is not going to have any huge lead over the PS3 in US sales.
Please log in so you can be held accountable for lying.
I for one got a dead Wii. I got to play about an hour before the power just flat out went off and would not come back on. Called Nintendo tech support, he had me try a couple of things like unplugging the power adapter for 2 minutes, reseating the connectors, try with just the power adapter, nothing else attached. After 10 minutes or so, he concluded it was dead. Since my copy of Zelda is stuck in the Wii, I have to send it in for repair. Estimated time: 2 weeks. At least I only waited in line about an hour.
As for other links, check the gamefaqs message boards, the nintendo message boards.. I'm sure there are plenty others. I don't think it is wide-spread, but it is out there.
I hope the speculators get stuck with consoles they can't shift. I have plenty of money, but I'm not buying from a speculator. I'll just wait.
It's like domain name parasites. Don't feed them, people, you're only making the problem worse.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
as long as you don't end up punching people while waving your arms around like an idiot
Speaking from experience... My fiance stabbed me twice while she was playing Zelda and I was sitting on the couch next to her doing work... Thankfully the Wiimote is rather blunt, so no real damage done... But you have been warned!
-Chris B
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Zach Stroum (Nitendo dude) has a pretty good review of the game. Mentions the same issue.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I'm not having any issues with Red Steel. It took about 5 minutes to get the hang of the controls, but after that I think they rock. My 15 year old son has done nothing but bitch about control issues though. I think the issue, for him, is that he wants to use very gross movements to aim the gun and this takes the pipper out into the movement control zone rather than keeping it in the fire zone. When I play I bet the end of the Wiimote doesen't move much over an inch in any direction except when zooming in.
Best Buys had over 100... I planned on going around 3am, but a friend called and said over 100 people were in line at midnight.
Went to a Circuit City that had 15, only 4 people in line when I got there at 2am. They handed out vouchers at 7am. Was surprised at the influx of people around 6am. Almost felt bad for the parents who showed up at 10am when the store opened, but yet I didn't. I braved the cold, and had fun with some other fans all the same.
Relatively little commotion, some people were upset... the employees had a meeting before the store opened and a lot left with empty display boxes, but did it obviously to incite some sort of "envy". A guy in line was friends with all the employees and he told me that they had empty boxes. Seems ridiculous that the manager would allow this.
At any rate, love the Wii... worth the wait.
Starmen.net
Don't be too hard on the AC. After all, I heard that use of the Wii caused cancer in lab rats. (I don't have a link, but my word on a Slashdot forum ought to be good enough.) And to be fair, the reviews of Twilight Princess weren't all superlative. The worst one I read--at Gamespot--called it merely "great." Sheesh.
And as far as hardware/software glitches, I'd have to say BFD. I'm not aware of any industrial manufacturing process that produces 100% flawless materials. And, as the AC pointed out, the incidents of problems are far below those reported for the 360. I'd have to say that's...pretty good. Of course, I haven't seen any numbers for the PS3, but then again, I don't hate it (or the 360). So I haven't been trolling for any bad news, no matter how insignificant, to feed my resentment over an emotional involvement with a gaming console.
Playing devils advocate here (my Wii is doing just fine):
These days, the only place you'll hear about problems, if they exist, are in web forums. Eventually, you'll get news reports whose source is actually the web forums. Then you'll get anecdotal stories from people who are actually well-known (game reporters, bloggers, Penny Arcade, etc.), which is just as bad as web forums. And if you're lucky, eventually eventually eventually the company will admit there is a problem. But only after tons of people have posted to tons of forums and the news sites pick it up. Even then it's not likely. That's how it has been with problems with just about every console since about the PS1.
So, while I have no reason to think there are widespread problems yet, I wouldn't write it off because it came from a forum. I just don't know where else you'd be expected to get the reports. It's not like CNN has a test lab of Wiis or something.
The Cell Processor in the PS3 is a Sony/Toshiba/IBM joint venture, not purely IBM.
GC-Linux already runs on the Wii. You need to use the Action Replay SDLoad method in order to load it. You also need a complete distro on an SD card because the ethernet is not working. Maybe I'll get a wired USB ethernet adapter so I can run my typical NFS-Root system. I'm not sure if they are selling those yet.
People already have code running on the Wii via native Gamecube mode - but nobody is sure if we have the full power of the system available yet. We'll need to figure out how to break free from the Gamecube mode and enter full Wii mode.
First off, please use paragraphs. And articles, too.
Its relativly cheap system and new "remote" is exciting feature. It is probably something my wife would like to try out and find it fun enough.
"Cheap" is relative. In the current offer of non-handled consoles, though, it is true it is cheap.
However, for me, one of the 100,000,000 guys that purchased PS2, I need games that I like to play. I need my PES (real football). I cant imagine waving around an remote to play PES.
Yeah, it's sad Nintendo didn't think about selling a regular controller or making it compatible with GC controllers. Oh wait, they did.
Not to mention that graphics will look like PS2, which looks pretty bad on my HD screen.
Yeah, it is well known everyone has a HDTV. Like 90-95% of the population, however, I don't. There's also (a lot) more to games than how pretty they look on a screen, too. Not to mention that "looking good" is subjective.
So that leaves me with xbox or ps3. Xbox has the lead and has the games, but for me, difference is huge, even if price is THE same. - Blueray support from out of the box (and why is it cooler):
Yes, Blueray. Haha. Currently the offer in terms of Blueray videos is close to what? 78 (according to the current version of the blueray article on wikipedia)? A hundred? In comparison, what's the DVD offer?
1. HDMI connection (lack of which will make xbox unusable for HD movies in the future)
Personally, I've never used my PS2 to play a DVD, my computer does that and much more already. Same will go when Blueray/Hd-dvd becomes mainstream.
2. Support for H.264 compression format of Sony HD Camcoders (Both DVD and HD), which normal players cant play right now. And Sony makes around 99% of the HD Camcoders right now, way ahead of everyone else. Format is not proprietary, simply most DVD players dont have it implemented yet.
My computer can play H.264. Isn't it amazing?
3. Blueray HD movies - why would you have to replace complete collection of DVD's? Thats what I cant figure out from other people posts. You simply buy or rent (Netflix!!!) Blueray movies and voila!
Why buy/rent it if you already own it? Blueray doesn't make a movie better.
4. Support for 1080p which is a lot better than 1080i and 720p that xbox plays. Screens are very expensive right now, but in 3-4 years, they will probably be a lot cheaper.
I might aswell wait for the PS3 price to go down too.
And PS3 can play 1080p content without issues (unlike XBOX which might skip frames on 720p)
I remember reading an article about how it can't display 720p games preoperly on TVs that support only 1080 and 480 (it downscales instead of upscaling). So much for your HD content.
Free online play - you dont have to pay for online matching service like you do for xbox.
Same for the Wii.
Standard bluetooth - connect ANY mouse or keyboard to your PS3, no need to buy extra expensive stuff just for PS3. -
What about people using IR sets or *gasp* serial? I expect usb to work, though.
Standard wireless - no brainer. -
Same for the Wii
Support for diffent flash drives and usb drives (not only memory sticks). - Swap HD drives easily - hard drive is built so it can be easily taken out and replaced (plus it is 60GB vs 20GB in XBOX). - Water cooling - a lot cooler than xbox. -
That's a nice feature, yes. Not sure if I want to pay the extra buck for it, when I can use my computer, though. Water cooling's ok.
Support for LINUX out of the box. PS3 has an option to install additional OS in its menus. Can it be less complicated? -
That's a cool, though somewhat limited in its use, option.
You can play DRM free audio/video over your HDMI connection. How cool is that? Easier and simpler than playing DVD's
___
*insert sig here*
No, that's not a dick move. They left the consoles for the people who were willing to go stand in line. There were four in my group and we just got one console. If our friends or family wanted one they could have come down and sat with us. They made their choice, and we made ours. And as for the scalpers, I hope they choke on the nice meal they buy to celebrate their victory. Just my feeling.
This is most definitely NOT the soccer mom and grandpa crowd
In our line of 41, outside of a Target in Pittsburgh, PA, here's how our group broke down, roughly:
There were about 10 nintendo fanboys. Most were really only there for the new Zelda. These were mostly high school and college aged boys.
There were about 15 gamers/hardcore gamers. Guys aged 20-30 with multiple consoles who were clearly veteran gamers.
Finally, there were about 15 parents and grandparents. They were either there with their kids or there for their kids. I am including a couple of wives who were there for their husbands in this category.
So, I disagree with your statement that these were definitely not soccer moms. Really, it was quite a diverse crowd, where pretty much everyone was represented. A more interesting comparison might be between this crowd and the crowd lined up for PS3s... I think that the PS3 crowd was comprised of only hardcore gamers and profiteers.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
Haha if my attempt at fishing in Zelda at the shopping centre on the coast was anything to go on I doubt it. Nintendo has no reason or interest in watching people fail pathetically! :P Grr now to get my hands on a Wii when they get to Australia!
I ate your fish.
I went to three different stores in order to get my Wii, and I have to concur that there was nothing but good spirits and a sense of camraderie. The first store (Walmart) had over 400 people waiting for a lottery of only 36 systems, cops were there but everything went very smoothly. The second (also a Walmart) only had 29, and I was of course 32nd in line. The last store had 68, and I was there at 6am for #25. I have to admit I am not a hard-core gamer, and it is increasingly rare for me to wait 4+ hours for anything, but waiting for the Wii was actually fun. Everyone in the line was talking, and playing games, we were just genuinely excited. As for the Wii itself, so far it is the most fun I've had on game system since my Atari 7800. My friends and I were up last night playing the Wii sports for a couple of hours, and it was a riot! I did buy Madden '07, GT-Pro, and Zelda but haven't played them yet...
"Don't be so humble - you are not that great." - Golda Meir
yeah, I was playing with that last night because we were having some SERIOUS trouble with games once I got home, but everything was working flawlessly at my friend's house. We were having cursor stability issues (namely, the finger would jump all over the fricken screen).
it turns out that the wiimote was picking up the lights from this lamp next to the TV. I wouldn't have realized that that's what it was except that it's got 5 bulbs in a very unique pattern that I could see when adjusting the sensitivity. Once we turned the lamp off, everything worked great.
Although, this morning, I was having issues again. But it turned out that it was being caused by the fact that our TV is in front of our wall of windows and it was picking up the light from outside... so I guess that means no play during the day. sucks.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
I have been saying exactly this (minus the pics) for months now. It's good to hear it from someone else.
This concept of "console sell-out = good thing", just doesn't ring true with me. My little bro had a pre-ordered 360 for last x-mas, but didn't get it until February. B/c we knew he wouldn't have it, nobody bought him the standard set of accessory gifts (controller, Live subscription, games), so for two months MS lost this potential income as it was spent elsewhere.
I don't know where the pro MS marketers got their ideas, but most people I know, but things in small bursts. Once the console is paid off, they'll buy a controller one month then a game here and a game there. I know very few, if any, people who will hold money in some sort of "personal x-box account" waiting for their next big spend. If there's no x-box accessory, the money just gets spent elsewhere (nice dinner, night at the movies, computer accessory,...)
I'm probably a rare case, but I didn't buy an XBox 360 b/c I couldn't buy one. It was late January, I'd been interested in owning one for 3+ months, but nobody had any in stock. My local outlets were still filling pre-orders taken in November. So I took the money and spent it elsewhere (bunch of Magic cards). I still don't own a 360, but I'm not unhappy playing my Dance Dance and Karaoke Revolutions (given that penchant, I'll probably end up with a Wii).
Point is, MS lots tons of "opportunity buys". The console is the biggest barrier to entry, yet the games/accessories are the largest source of profit. If people can't buy a console (even with money in hand), then you've erected an infinite barrier to entry. Inability to buy a console bottlenecks the whole chain from the very beginning. Nintendo obviously has the right strategy here, they sound like the stock to own.
I definately had this one thought out, by picking an inconspicuous target near home. However, i failed to get up at the right time.after oversleeping, i arrived at 7:30 5 minutes after the father/son combo in front of me. Prior to the 8AM opening they handed out 24 tickets (and three rserve spots in case someones card declined) and i ended up being Mr 25. i was pretty bummed, but overall not dissapointed at my near success. I waited in line for thirty minutes, almost got one and i lost it to a kid who had been saving up to buy the system for the past year. had i been in front of him i'd have given up my ticket anyway.
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
-- The Lineup --
Loved the wait in line for 8 hours... really.. the rain, not so much. Seeing all the poor parents with their kids show up an hour before openning, even more depressing. Getting my sweety hands on the Wii, priceless.
The EB I got my console at was rather isolated so I didn't expect a ton of people to show up. Even so, over 300% of the crowd that wanted it were turned away.
The other problem with such a small store was games. Every twilight princess had been pre-oredered. Guess what, they were taking pre-orders for the games up to the night before. Since pre-ordering for the console was over months ago, I didn't even consider that the games would be pre-orderable up to last bloody night. The really sad part of this whole thing is there are probably a large number of people who pre-ordered the games and have no console and a few people like me who have the console but can't play the choice games since they were all pre-ordered. So I'm forced to hunt them down at other stores when stock comes in. That annoyance rests squarely on EB in my mind. Don't allow pre-orders of games unless they have a system pre-order you fcking tools!
Everyone in line was great, and I can't praise them enough for making the wait tolerable and at times a lot of fun.
-- The Wii --
Firstly, the controllers are a lot smaller than I expected. There was no problem in them fitting my gigantic hands though, so no problems there. I have noticed that the sensing of the remotes isn't as good as it could be. I'm not sure if this is realted to my enormous television (50") or maybe the placement of the sensor bar, but I did notice the system just plain act wierd once and a while. I hope a system patch will eventually come out to deal with the issue. It wasn't bad enough to stop playing, it just wasn't always consistent.
The system setup was fun and interesting. Wi-Fi was a snap, the setup of the rest was almost brain-dead. There were two system updates on launch. They took around 3-min a piece on my reletively fast broadband.
The Weather and News channels were dead. The pictures channel was empty since I didn't have an SD card (why no out-of-box support for USB media?). The shopping channel had games, but I decided to hold off getting into them until I had seen the rest of the system.
I had a few friends over when I got it so the first thing we did was set up all their Mii's (character avatars). Everyone enjoyed this function and I'm glad it was included. My other friend bought a Wii, so maybe we'll do a Mii parade... Seriously Nintendo, there must be something better that you could do with that. How about an embedded sims or something of the sort? Btw: There is the equivalent of friend codes in the Wii, just in case you misses the memo.
-- Wii Sports --
I jumped into Wii Sports next to see how to use the controls in a gaming situation. I tried each game in turn to get a feel for them all. The controls were definitly hard to get used to the first while. I was doing quite poorly since the wii-mote's behaviour sometimes felt erratic in how it recognized things. After a while, I understood how to use the controls well enough to get through most of the games, and have a lot more fun.
Tennis is really fun. I got a little (physically) tired playing it after a while.
Baseball was ok. It was simple and low impact fatigue.
Bowling is a sport I hate in real life and it hasn't changed here.
Golf was pretty fun and not very fatigueing. It had a lot more problems with my wii-motes though. I tried and tried to find the 'right' way of doing it, but what I did perfectly right one time would be perfectly wrong the next. Frustrating at times, but still a fun game.
Boxing was really fun to play, makes good use of both controllers, but man does it tire me out. Jab Jab Jab Swing Miss Block Dodge!! ACK
There are a few training / testing modes in the game as well. This seems right out of brain age, but for workouts. I can say that this sports title was fun to play if a little fatiguing at times. I enjoyd it because a little extra fitness in my daily nerd life could never hurt.
Anyways, I hope that gives some insights into what you can expect out of the Wii whenever you get yours.
Bye!
at the EBX (aka Gamestop) at Pacific Place Mall in Seattle, and were 6th out of the store (yeah, that was my son with the RESERVED sign).
Our well-oiled and hot cocoa filled band of three got there around 11:30, only 18 in line ahead of us, but some were like us, a group of people there as support staff. After delegating tasks, we managed to pick up our pre-ordered Wii and got out sixth (6) from the store, with official Nintendo staff taking pics of us. Even though we had forgotten to preorder a memory card, an extra Wii-mote, an extra nunchuk, or any games, we left with the only copy of Rayman's Raving Rabbids as well as someone's preordered Legend of Zelda game. All the controllers - both Wii-mote and nunchuks - were sold out ahead of time, as well as most cool games.
Drove over immeadiately to the Fred Meyer just a few blocks from our house, which apparently let customers into the store (but couldn't purchase) at 11 pm. They were sold out of Wii consoles (they had 70) and controllers as well, by the time we got there at 12:30, and had closed the doors.
We set it up and made Mii versions of ourselves, storing one on the Wii-mote, and played a quick game of bowling, and boxing. Then we went to sleep until 7 am. OK, only four hours sleep. Total cost still way less than a PS3 or an xBox360, with Sims 2: Pets and guide books for both Zelda and Sims 2: Pets thrown in. No, not a Wii version of Sims 2: Pets.
Next morning, tried out the boxing game (fun! exhausting!), tennis, bowling, and golf. Played Legend of Zelda until one of us had to leave (his mom came over, so it was down to my son and I). Also played a fantasy RPG (dungeon) for the GameCube, using GameCube controllers, on the Wii - graphics were sharper, load times were superfast, plays like a dream.
After talking with some friends, we figured out the Sears store might have some controllers and Wii consoles left over - our friends had picked up two consoles out of three people.
So, back in the car, went to Sears (next to Starbucks international HQ), picked up one of their two last nunchuk controllers (sold out of Wii-motes), and got Excite Truck (they still had one copy). Next door, picked up a 1GB SD memory card for the Wii at OfficeMax for $19.99 - sweet!
Then drove over to Costco. They said they won't get delivery until Tuesday, but if you get their sweet package (dirt cheap), you get both Zelda and Excite Truck with it! Best of the bundles we heard of! Think they may also sell it online if you're a Costco member. Well, no Wii stuff, but we bought four two-packs of beef jerky and some nuts, so worth going there.
Back home - played various games. A wonderful day!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The CPU is an IBM PowerPC 750CXI, nearly identical to the GameCube's PowerPC 750CX. (It's clocked higher and has a few more advanced features over the older model.) This, in addition to the higher RAM capacity, more powerful GPU, and DVD-style drive, makes little difference to the OS. It doesn't surprise me at all that it already runs GCLinux.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
Not an easter egg. It helps pin down any source of interference.
The funny thing is that people who know, get a little insight into
how the whole arrangement works and corrects itself.
Its a set of accelerometers working in concert with a camera-reference point system
not unlike those used in motion capture for CGI and movies.
You mean like this? VG Cats take on the consoles
home
My 9 year old son had been saving up for over six months to buy the Wii, so we just _had_ to get on on Wiiday this Wiikend. Of course, he's cursed with a dad that can't do anything as sensible as preorder! We planned our early AM assault on two Target locations in the Twin Cities, one in town with 39 consoles, a backup just-opened suburban with 70. At 7:45 when we hit the first Target (7:45 for an 8am opening, I tell you, the poor little guy is cursed), we found a line much deeper than 39 people long. We just kept driving out to the second and got there at about 8:05. No luck, all 70 were spoken for. Very sad moment for poor cursed son. The story had a happy ending, though, since we realized Best Buy opened at 9am and we found one by 8:20 and got ticket #75 of the 84 they handed out. Best Buy was terrific, very organized and helpful. Linemates, some of whom had waited from 11pm Wiiday Eve till 8am when Best Buy handed out the first round of tickets, were a friendly and talkative crowd. We waited the 40 minutes and got the Wii.
I have been _very_ impressed. I'm a long-time Mac and Apple fan and the Wii shows signs of thoughtful design. Very easy packaging, simple setup, soothing interface, usable without reading any instructions. We started setting up by 10:20 Central time and the Wii asked to go through two rounds of "update" (about 10 minutes each) after we got the console up on our home wireless. My son picked up Tony Hawk, but has mostly played Wii sports with his father, his brother, and four friends.
A few highlights...
- the little "bump" the controller gives you as you pass over a button in the interface
- the spacial effect of sounds from the controller
- the fun every kid (and I) had designing our own Mii
- the wonderfully smooth action of the control, even allowing a physically challenged brother get into the action
- the soothing music of the interface
- the clever (and appropriate) animation during disk insertion (9 year old _loves_ that one)
- the appearance of all the Miis we'd created on our baseball team (a riot watching kids thank each other for "their" hits)
- the messaging and calendar system with the automatic log (poor cursed son) of play time spent on each game each day
- the ability to email into and out from the console
A few issues...
- neither news nor weather are working (later found the press releases about these being delayed for a few months, but Nintendo really should have updated the Wii Menu to either say that or remove the buttons until they work)
- the lengthy update cycle before we could play (would have been nice to have had some piece of paper or warning that it would happen, or an option to skip until later)
- the Wii froze once during baseball and had to be unplugged, luckily it started up again just fine
Bottom Line...
I think Nintendo has a real hit on its hands. The Wii is just a blast.
One thing I had heard very little about was the integration of Miis into the Wii experience. Each Mii is an avatar of sorts, designed and named by a player. A Mii looks a certain way (maybe a bit like you? maybe not?) and has certain attributes (favorite color, birthday). When you play certain games (Wii Sports, for now) you choose which Mii is playing the game, stats and skills accrue to that Mii. Baseball was especially clever in its use of Miis: your team wears the favorite color of the Mii you picked to play, other Miis from your console populate the home team, etc. Miis can "mingle" and go on "parade" to other consoles (we'll have to wait for a few more Wii's in the hood to test this feature). Miis can also be downloaded to the controller (the Wii Remote) and taken on the road to other Wii consoles where they can be uploaded and used (this is a much more natural process than I just made it sound like). The Miis represent a kind of social gaming trainer that will change how people interact with their gaming environment. It will be really exciting when other game authors come to learn and use the whole Wii ec
Nintendo's market is VERY different than Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo lost 3rd party support in the N64 era, and only slightly recovered with the Gamecube. They will probably recover more with the Wii, primarily because the system is SO different, companies will make a bunch of interesting puzzle games that take advantage of the different UI.
However, Nintendo can come in third and be very happy in their market. Sony/MS need HUGE 3rd party support, because they only make about $8/game sold by third parties. Nintendo makes most of the top sellers (keeping $42/game), and publishes most of the rest (keeping between $16 and $30/game... publishing games sometimes means that they pay development costs + profits, and then keep the $42/game, but figure that the royalties + costs brings that down a bit).
Also, Nintendo has traditionally sold consoles at a profit (at some points with the Gamecube, they sold at a loss). Supposedly that's only a few dollars a console at launch, losses during heavy cuts, and profits in later parts of the system's life. Microsoft bit a big bullet in the Xbox because they were using customized parts with contracted pricing, they learned their lesson this time. Nintendo uses mostly off-the-shelf components, and sets their contracts to decline over time, which Microsoft is aping).
Nintendo probably makes money if you buy their System + 1-2 games (a Mario game and a Zelda game, for example), and then cleans up if you buy more. Because Nintendo's stop selling games are normally Mario, Zelda, and a few other of their games, they make much more money per console than Sony and Microsoft do with their third party fees.
Remember, profits are in the games, and Nintendo's premier games normally sell in the same quantity (or higher) than Sony and Microsoft's top games do... not sure how Mario Sunshine vs. Halo worked out, but if Microsoft outsold them, it wasn't the HUGE difference that the console sales volumes would indicate.
Sony owns the market of hardcore gamers, but Microsoft looks like they are going to do well in the Xbox 360 arena. However, hardcore gamers that rent a few games a month may not put more money into Sony and Microsoft's pocket than a casual Nintendo customer that buys Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and a few other premier games.
Hell, Animal Forest never had a huge player base, but it used simple N64 era graphics with simple programming, and no doubt turned a nice profit.
As a gamer, I'd love Mario to be the most high-tech game on the market, but I can appreciate that Nintendo can make games that are 80% as high-tech as the MS/Sony games are for less than half the cost, sell the same number of units, and make more money. Nintendo has spent two generations not being the top dog, and still made money, while Sega dropped out of hardware, Microsoft lost $4 billion, and Sony kept going. It's unclear whether Sony made more money off the Playstation as Nintendo did with the N64 (the companies don't break out numbers, and analysts gave mixed estimates), but the fact that the PS outsold the N64 4:1 and we're not sure who made money demonstrates the power of Nintendo's business plan... and the Xbox 360 and PS3 are requiring MUCH larger hardware subsidies as last round... last round, Nintendo turned profits, and Microsoft outsold them 2:1 and lost money. Competition makes things better for consumers (as the MS vs. Sony battle to destroy profit margins demonstrated), but the companies with more monopoly pricing power do better.
Expect Nintendo to keep doing their thing, making innovative new systems, selling in third place, and making gamers happy along the way.
Alex
My cousin came over to visit for the holidays and we ended up camping out at a Target at 4AM, we were 27-28 in line at a Target that got 60. Around 7:30 or so lucky #60 showed up. Not too bad, things went quickly. We were home at about 8:30 and unpacking. Target did a great job on this one. ...now, my cousin also needed one for his work (yes, he is a lucky SOB), so we went over to Costco about 5 minutes before opening. They had about 48 and we were number 40 on line. Things took a bit longer, and they had a much stronger focus on making sure everything stays in order vs. setting up a nice streamlined method to getting everyone thier stuff quickly.
Playing the Wii feels like this is the future of gaming, it doesn't have a wow factor graphics wise, but it DOES have a "Wow, this feels like the way games should be played" feel. IMO, it's the freshest idea to come to gaming since 3D. Playing Excite Truck is more like driving than just mashing down buttons and tapping the stick. Playing golf feels actually satisfying. Playing tennis with four people was a blast.
Online capabilities were effectively MIA for the GC. The Wii however... we got IMs going back and forth between them, they have an easy to use store, pleanty of room for more capabilities. I give Nintendo many props for getting thier online stance setup and off and running extremely well.
In conclusion:
Launch: great titles, good supply, well organized
Play: fun and fresh
Capabilities: a refreshing feature set that has pleanty of room for expansion
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Sounds very similar to the issues I had when working with this PIC microcontroller scanning an array of IR transistors. Sunlight has a lot of IR in it. Remote control sensors in TVs usually handle this fine because the signal they received is conveyed on a carrier, which is easy to pick out from the "DC" signal of the sun. I also remember having fun waving in front of my bedroom window's mosquito net a single IR transistor wired to a battery and my sound card's line input (I was trying to design an optical guitar pickup) with the sun shining through it. "WOOooo... yoooop...WOOOO.... yooop". Very amusing instrument. ;) Unfortunately didn't work when it was overcast. :P
Here's my conspiracy theory for the day:
Sony shipped only a small number of units just to whet the appetite of the public.
They are keeping the remaining stock to sell on eBay themselves for thousands of dollars each.
They finally figured out there's no point in selling the first runs at retail when they can get much more revenue with a small 'official' distribution, and then make the big money themselves instead of letting scalpers have all the profits.
Now, pass me my tinfoil hat and tell me I'm wrong...
All 'i's are pronounced 'ee' when written in Romaji (japanese sounds in english characters). The 'i' vs. 'ii' has to do with the length of the syllable, 'i' is almost swallowed when you say it, 'ii' is elongated slightly. We would hear shitake as 'sh-tokk-ay.'
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
400,000 PS3s and 600,000 Wiis?
Best Buy:
28 PS3s
112 Wiis
Circuit City:
4 PS3s
24 Wiis
Wal-Mart #1:
6 PS3s
36 Wiis
Wal-Mart #2:
4 PS3s
24 Wiis
Target #1:
0 PS3s
42 Wiis
Target #2:
0 PS3s
42 Wiis
These are actual numbers of consoles at each of these stores in my area on their respective launch days.
There is no way on earth that the PS3 sold 2/3 of the number of Wiis. My estimation is that the Wii outsold the PS3 on respective launch days by a factor of 4 or more. There have only been a small handful of PS3s since then, so my worldwide estimates are:
PS3: 300k
Wii: 1.2 million
...and everyone is just now going home! My birtday was Nov 19th, and the wii/lan party went from midnight (launch) into today, with varying numbers of people. The one thing that has been consistent:
:-(
People who weren't considering getting a wii want one after playing wii sports.
It's simple, it's MUCH better than most reviews give it credit. I think it's meant to wash the unconverted of their hesitance. Red Steel, the other game I picked up for launch, is "ok." I'm expecting some other studio to make something similar, and actually do it right. The game's concept is spot-on, but the execution feels undetailed, and like....a launch game. The sword combat is most dissapointing, I was kinda expecting a hyper-difficult simulator along the lines of "Kengo: Master of Bushido" or "Bushido Blade" - But it's clearly possible, and certainly coming.
Yes, I'm an idiot - I decided to wait on Zelda
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
I have had that happen. I think it's because the IR circuits get overloaded. They have to have a lot of gain to pick up the faint light from the remote control. It is no match for the sun.
I do. Super Mario Sunshine sold less copies than Halo, however... Nintendogs outsold Halo 2 and almost every entry of Pokemon outsold GTA.
Got my wii around 11am Sunday. Had to wait in line at toys r us even though I preordered it. Not cool.
Picked up Rayman, Zelda, and an extra wiimote and the cases.
First impressions:
Nintendo really capture something with this console. I was getting mad at my gf for being better than me at bowling. The people we played with actually play tennis and were able to add topspin and chop the ball. Bowling adds curves perfectly. The movement recognized by baseball and golf were cool too.
Boxing will take a while to get used to.
Rayman:
Great party game. The on rails shooting sequences are top notch and this game can provide a good workout.
What amazed me the most about the system, being a gamer since the atari 2600, was it's ability to turn anyone onto it. My gf's parents even played the system and were getting totally into it. I understand why nintendo chose this route instead of putting everything into the newest hardware. The last time I can remember a truly memorable console experience was why I played Halo. But that was just a FPS in a nice package. There really hasnt been any innovation in the gaming industry for far too long.
Gripes:
I really want a company to push what the wiimote is capable of doing. I think Wario Ware will give us the first feeling of that and Mario Galazy will take it to a whole other level. But that isn't until 2007.
I've also heard that the wiimotes eat up batteries galore. I want nintendo to make a docking station that recharges the wiimotes through the nunchuck port. Right now I still have the batteries that came with it and they're lasting but I have energizer litium batteries lined up next. From everything in the wiimote its no wonder the batteries would go quickly, speaker plus vibration, plus bluetooth transmitting plus led's = massive battery consumption.
The Future:
I'll have more info when I play through Zelda more. I haven't even unlocked fishing in the game yet.
More to come......
Yeah. While it seems pretty evident that Nintendo is crazy trouncing Sony at the launch point, it's entirely feasible about a year (IF PS3 gets the games) that Sony will once again be dominating the market. Sony's still taking a huuuuge gamble at this point though, because if they don't get the games that make the uber-system worthwhile they're nothing but toast in a year. And this is my first /. post. Yay me! ;-}
Even though Gears of War is tempting as hell, and would look really sweet on my TV, I eventually decided to go with the Wii. Why? Because I still have some Gamecube games I haven't beaten. Because I really want to play with the Wiimote. Most of all, because it's $250. The "premium" 360 is still $400, with no games and limited backward compatibility.
HDTV adoption won't really hurt the Wii. It would be nice if it were prettier, sure. I'd like to play Zelda at 720p, at least. But when you combine the novelty of the controller, complete backward compatibility, and a price that's 30% lower than the nearest competition, it's really not a big deal that your TV doesn't get to show off.
I also got a console yesterday - I had to do damn server moves all day, so couldn't get home to play until almost 7:00 at night. We knew the guy that owned the store, so he reserved a console for us. My wife picked it up at 5:00, seeing as I was at work all day anyway. All the games were sold out. Everywhere. Guess where I bought Zelda? Blockbuster video - for only 5.00 more than the game store. Sweet! This is a small console. Very Apple-like. The cable for the sensor bar is *really* long (12 feet?). The Wiimote is smaller than expected - batteries almost double the mass of the unit - so it's light too. I'm 6'2" - there was worry of a short nunchuck cable, but I can hold the nunchuck on my chest and make large sweeping arm movements with cord to spare. Nunchuck feels good. The rubber on teh analogue stick is not too rubbery, and not too plasticky.
So far, I've hit a table with the Wiimote, my son hit the light in the basement (on the ceiling) and my wife put a dent in the roof. I've never had so much fun breaking shit. AND - not a scratch on the Wiimote. The Mii's are a whole hell of a lot of fun to create. They spectate when you play the WiiSports, too! (look behind you when you're bowling, for example.) I've only played Tennis, Bowling and Boxing. Boxing is 'meh', but I only boxed one round (you use both controllers to box...and you get TIRED! It's fantastic.)
The Wii connected to my 3com AP with absolutely no problems - All common encryption schemes supported. Channel selection is slim right now, but that will change. On to Zelda...
GET IT. I got yelled at because I was 'cutting grass' too much. This game is much darker than those in the past, and the controller scheme is flawless. (You can run and swing the sword now...)
I'm holding out on games as the reviews arent' in yet (Red Steel I hear is not so good).
Big N has a real winner here. Opera. Online. Swinging virtual swords. George Lucas, I hope you're paying attention. I want to hear my Wiimote make that tell-tale lightsabre sound...
Went to bed at 3:00am.
Not really, because you know it does cost money to make the systems regardless of a profit or loss. Unsold Wii = -$200, Unsold PS3 = -$850. However Nintendo produced much more as everyone has been so quick to point out. Your hypothetical point is wrong.
I agree. A lot of control problems seem to root in people trying to make over the top movements (myself included.. case in point: hammer throw in Super Monkey Ball)..
I must say when zooming in Red Steel I feel a bit like I need to be Mr. Fantastic to pull it off completely, but it turns out okay in the end.
The problems I have with Red Steel aren't control related but the game slowed to a crawl once for ~1 second and freezes everytime it loads a new checkpoint or a new area. This for me is really annoying.. I can get used to it by not moving the remote when it freezes (it caches your actions like a slow computer) but it's still kinda lame. I think the whole "drag the pictures to make this happen" in the menus is kinda unneccesary and lame, but again, once you accept it it's ok.
All in all it's a good game.
- Alex
Nintendo's first shipment was 500,000. They expect to have several million out by the new year. Sony, on the other hand, shipped 400,000 units and there are no further expected ship dates this year. If those reports are true, Nintendo will have major major mind share over Sony come 2k7.
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Well, it was a balmy -25F here in Fairbanks, Alaska. GameStop had sold out preorders, and I have no idea what was going on down at WalMart, but my choice (and the choice of most Fairbanks residence) was the Northwestern based, Kroger owned chain, Fred Meyers, of which there are two Super-center sized box stores in town. The one I went to reported having 100 Wiis and the other reported having 90. Just for your info, they reported having 8 PS3s at launch.
They close at 11pm, but for the Wii openned at 12:01am for an hour. Since it's so cold, lauches up here aren't exactly the same kind of thing they are down in the states, noone camping for hours on end, partially because everyone knew that NOONE else was going to be crazy enough to do that. I got there at about 10:40pm, and stood in line with some guys. It was a really nice, relaxed atmosphere, some people brought chairs, but most stood around and gabbed, trying to keep themselves warm and taking turns going back and forth to warm up in near-by idling cars (noone was going to be an ass about it... it's called "survival"). Nintendo DSs were out of the question, since it's kinda hard to push buttons with thick, canvas and wool gloves.
At just after 11pm, "Freddy's" shoed out it's remaining customers and did something wonderful we didn't expect, they openned their doors, gave people numbered tickets, and let people line up inside. There were many people there (a number of my buds) who weren't even buying that night, but just wanted to join in the festivities. After going inside, some Nintendo DSs broke out, but we were having a good enough time just hanging out that I didn't really have much interest in playing mine.
At midnight, there was a joyous cheer as the line started moving a bit. The staff (all of which were wearing "Wii Play" shirts), had set up a few islands in the middle of the front isle, which had games and accessories. The Wiis were handed out in order of ticket number (I was #44 out of 100), at a window, and everyone (surprisingly calmy) went for games and accessories. When I got there, there were a number of copies of Zelda left (one of which I nabbed), something like 3 VC Controllers left (also one of which I nabbed), but unfortunately they had long since run out of extra Wiimotes and Nunchucks, but that'll be okay for the moment, especially since one of my other friends bought a system, so we'll have two controllers for the moment. Copies of Red Steel were long since bought out, but I hadn't planned on getting one, since Zelda will keep me well enough occupied for a while, and FF12 and Okami are still running strong on my PS2. Overall, a very pleasant and successfull launch experience.
Now, onto my impressions:
I had a little trouble, at first, getting the sensor bar setup in the right place, considering my TV setup, but when I came up with works fairly well, and I'm planning on getting a new TV soon anyway. I was able to get up online instantly, although I noticed that besides the shopping channel, none of the other channels were currently up yet. It's really nice to have the controllers separated for Zelda, I never noticed how ridged a one-piece controller could be. When not having to use the pointer features of the Wiimote, it's wonderfull to just lay your hands down on the couch on either side. My only real gripe is the speaker in the Wiimote... I won't mince words: it sucks. I wasn't expecting anything stellar, but I was hoping that they would be smart enough to use it for only very simple sounds: clinks, and swipes of swords, things like that. But they're trying to use it for too much: voices, menu sound effects, various atmospheric-based sounds that don't even make sense to be coming from your hand... just not smart, and feels a bit gimmicky. I imagine that down the line, companies will become more intelligent about WHEN to use the really really basic speaker in the Wiimote... but it seems they're not, yet. Also, the lack of volume control, or mute on the Wiimote totally baffles me. My only other gripe is th
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
My wife and I managed to acquire a Wii on Sunday morning. We first tried at one of the local Wal-mart locations, where we arrived at about 5PM to check out the situation. There were already some people lining up, but we confirmed with an employee in electronics that nothing would happen until midnight. So, we decided to come back before midnight and see if we could get in line. Upon arriving at the store at 11PM, we noticed there wasn't a line anymore. When we asked the salespeople, they said they'd given out the little tickets to everyone and told them all to go home. So all the units were technically "sold", though no money changed hands, and I think the people had until noon to come in and purchase the consoles with their tickets. This did not make us happy, as the previous salespeople had not told us the truth.
Anyway, we decided to try Target next (though they were closed, and I already knew how many they'd be receiving) and there were only two people camping out at the door. We went home, waited until about 6AM, and went back. We got in line (5th in line) and waiting until shortly before the store opened, where the employees handed out the tickets with a 15 minute validity after opening to go and pick up our consoles. Altogether, Target was incredibly professional complete with signs, helpful salespeople, and an orderly process for getting the Wiis to the customers without any problems. My hat off to them (if I wore hats, anyway).
Okay, so after that little adventure, we were the proud owners of a Wii. I am not exaggerating when I say we've enjoyed this console more than any other. We picked up an extra Wiimote and nunchuck attachment, Rayman's Raving Rabbids and Twilight Princess. When we first powered it up and went through the setup, it was as easy as could be to get it updated and ready to rock. We played Wii Sports for a few hours, then Twilight Princess for a few, and finally Rayman for a few hours after that. The controllers worked almost perfectly, and the experience was not only fun but invigorating! Heck, we actually got some exercise from all the bouncing around with the wiimotes.
Just for the heck of it, I also bought and downloaded a copy of Donkey Kong for the virtual console. That worked as promised too, and I had a little bit of old school nostalgia that was easily worth $5.
So far, this is our favorite system ever, and we look forward to getting more games later. I'd say we're interested in the majority of the titles that will be available for the console, especially if they make use of the interactivity the Wiimote provides. Nintendo did an awesome job, and they're going to be receiving many more of my dollars in the future. Sony and Microsoft, on the other hand, won't see a cent.
I attended Nintendo's launch event in Los Angeles Saturday night and it was packed with people. I don't think even Nintendo expected this many people to be there. The PR folks kept assuring us there would be more than enough Wiis to go around even without a preorder, but sadly that wasn't the case. They ran out of wristbands for the people in line a few hours before the launch hour and people had to be turned away. Overall, the event was pretty disorganized and when they finally started selling Wiis, the line moved at a sluggish pace.
I don't see why it should ever take this long to move a line. You go in, you say, "Hi I'd like a Wii and X games. No warantee, thanks." Then you pay. But I think there were people who actually waited in line for hours who got to the checkout counter and said, "So...what game do you think is good?"
There's a full recount with pics on my site.
"Is there word yet on how much is onboard the Wiimote?"
"The Wii Remote features 4KB of internal flash memory. This memory is used to store Mii avatar settings." - Wikipedia link
The Gamecube graphics was actually done by Art-X, which ATI bought and assimilated. ATI had no part in the design, and only had their name on it due to buying the company.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns