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The Wii Launches in Japan
The Wii has launched in Japan, successfully and without many of the incidents associated with the PlayStation 3 launch. Joystiq's coverage of the Wii's painless Nippon birth has nothing but praise for the crowd control efforts of electronics outlets. The talk is entirely of sellouts and happy gamers. From the article: "Numerous methods of retail were used to launch the Wii, and these varied from store to store. Yodobashi kept its customers camped overnight in a parking lot, distributing numbered tickets to determine the order of entrance, before opening its doors at 7am. Bic Camera also opened at 7am, although most of the 650 people in line there didn't arrive until the first trains of the morning began to run at around 5am. Famitsu reports that the Tokyo Ikebukuro branch of Bic Camera sold out if its allocation of 1,200 units, while the Tokyo Yuuraku-cho arm of Bic Camera declared the console "sold out" at 5.41am when the 1,500th person arrived in the queue there." Kotaku has even more extensive coverage, with plenty of photos of the waiting lines.
1200 units at one location? Now that's a launch!
If only I lived in japan -_-. Anyone else see their VC launch list and feel jealous? They get: Zelda 3, Super Mario Bros and World and we get: Baseball for NES. WOooooooooooOOooOOo Those games arent even coming to the US 2007.
Dooom
They said they could not keep up with Sony and Microsoft for technology a few years ago. There was even talk of them becoming software only. Yet here they are, focussed on gameplay and fun, and doing brilliantly. And of the big 3 they are the only ones makign a profit.
You have to admire that.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
I hope Sega releases the Bleach game for the Wii in the US. It looks like a lot of fun. It makes excellent use of the Wiimote. And you get to look really stupid while playing it. Ban Kai!!
[Insert pithy quote here]
over 1 million units, they currently are at 1.1 mio units sold according to http://www.nexgenwars.com/ and by the end of next week they will hit the 2 mio marks, because the rollouts in europe and Australia are still to be done.
And Europe alone will count for 600.000 while Europe is not that Nintendo crazy, I do not expect lines as long as in Japan or the USA, it still will sellout within the first day, I assume.
The reason why Europe is not as Nintendo crazy as the rest is easily explained, they usually charge the highest prices while often if not always are the last to get the releases. Big vendors do not push Nintendo too much over here due to many reasons (the average ds corner in the big stores over here in central europe is more like ok we have it too, but we want to sell PSPs). Or to some it up in other words, Nintendo Europe is a bunch of morons who really should get their act together, the same goes for Apple Europe!
Sums it up pretty well...
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
Assuming all of the allocated units were sold, the Wii will probably sell more units than the DS Lite this week. That would end the 39 week string of the DS Lite at the top of the Japanese weekly hardware sales charts, which it has held since its launch in March.
Who would have guessed that Nintendo would have to dethrone itself...
I can't help but wonder why stores in the US can't be more organized and responsible like they are in Japan. I really feel like people in the US lack any sort of pride in what they do, and it's especially bad in the retail space.
The Wii launch was more civilized than the PS3 only because there were more units to be had; otherwise we would almost certainly have seen the same sort of nonsense.
Are there any titles that make use of the potential for using the DS as an input/controller for the Wii yet (or any planned)? I've seen Nintendo chat up the potential, but haven't seen any actual examples of titles that use the DS as a microphone/drawing tablet/distributed console accessory yet.
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It seems to probably be true. It was a big deal when it happened, and every news site reported it as the first ever loss for Nintendo "since going public in 1962."
Actually, if you watch Famitsu's pictures of the launch you'll see a frightening amount of women (that's like guys, but with more breasts and less penises, if you don't know what it means) for a japanese system launch.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
So, Nintendo is making its way to the throne, and we can see by now. I really hope this continues this way, I think Nintendo deserves the first place once again, with such an innovative and small white VIDEOGAMES console.
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
it's been years in the making and you loose intrest because it takes a month longer than the absolute minimum to get your hands on one?
...I got nothing.
SO I get my Wii, take it home and have been playing it since. It's an awesome system, but it can't tell when I'm putting a disk in it, so I have to shove it all the way in, then turn it on for it to suck it in. Then, when it spits one out, it comes ALL THE WAY OUT. I have to stand there to catch it. Then there's the fact that if the game doesn't have a "sync" function in it for the controllers, I'm fucked for getting more than one controller in the game. I tried all the things it says online and in the instruction manuals (both the Japanese and English ones (the Jap manual is scarce on tech support)). I guess I gotta work through Nintendo of Japan to get this shit taken care of. Pain in my ass, but that's what I get for getting a launch console.
BTW, Made in Wario rocks, as well as elebits. Zelda is so-so, and the sports/wiiplay are also a lot of fun. I just wish Wario had a sync function in game. Remotes changing hands isn't a huge deal, but I've got 3, so why should I have to worry about it?
I got my Wii pre-ordered but went to the store (in a decent sized city in rural Japan -- allocation was 40 consoles + pre-orders, everyone in line got one). Fully half of the people lined up were of the fairer sex. Some were there with their boyfriends, there were a lot of families with the kids in toe, and at least two groups of high school girls were getting Wiis for themselves.
The launch was, incidentally, as smooth as silk. 45 minutes before the door opened they gave everyone in line a "you are guaranteed to get a Wii when we open, no need to rush" ticket. There were only about 20 people in the store when I picked mine up, most browsing the Nintendo sections while two queues proceeded in a very orderly manner.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I remember getting my wii... Walk into Walmart 7am in the morning and ask, so where's the line for the Wii? I'm escorted to a moderately warm room and told: "Take a seat in this chair, the chairs are numbered, each chair is 1 wii." With it being a comfy chair, I got to sit around all day playing video games, 10 man tetris, and generally having fun instead.
~ChibiSkuld~
In case of the wii the numbers are very clear... USA roughly 700.000, sold out. Japan 400.000 sold out.
Actually it was confirmed that Pokemon Battle Revolution will be the first Wii title to go online. I'm not sure for what specifically, but the DS versions are online enabled to trade, battle and includes voice chat.
In that case, you may want to import a North American Wii. Wii games are region coded, so they will only play on the system from the same country. If you don't mind paying a premium, you might want to try picking one up off ebay.
just some guy