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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?
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
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
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
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"
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
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).
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
...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 do. Super Mario Sunshine sold less copies than Halo, however... Nintendogs outsold Halo 2 and almost every entry of Pokemon outsold GTA.
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! ;-}
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.