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No More GameCube, Wii 2.0 On the Far Horizon
The little purple machine that could is no longer being manufactured. Hardware revisions are in store for the Nintendo Wii eventually. These announcements aren't terribly shocking, but they're still interesting admissions from Perin Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing & Corporate Affairs for Nintendo of America. GameDaily has the interview, which also discusses Wii sales, the lull in games, new IPs, and some details on plans online. Don't worry, you won't have to buy a new Wii anytime soon. Kaplan is immediately talking about the planned Japanese version with DVD Playback capability, but does say 'Sure, absolutely' to the question of whether we'll eventually see hardware changes on the order of the DS/DS Lite.
How about "Vagoo"?
I would be happy if the Wii was available in the stores.
I'm anxiously waiting for my Wii Zapper. I think that will bring a whole new level of fun to muliplayer shooters. Before worrying about Wii 2.0, they need to get the zapper out and relase a new bond title for the Wii.
New hardware? Gah. The abominable hardware upgrade tactics they used on the game boy (2-3 versions of each!) really shouldn't be taken to the console market.
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I would love to get DVD playback and I'd buy. I'd send my old Wii to my brother as a Bday gift or something. As long as a game doesn't REQUIRE you to get one of the new Wii versions, then I'll be fine with it.
I have read elsewhere rumblings that the complete hardware setup in the Wii is ready to support DVD playback but Nintendo are waiting on software from a third party that is being developed to enable such a feature. Muck like the Wii browser being developed by Opera. I think this is more rumor than fact at this stage.
I am sure any Wii 2.0 will be much like the Playstation2/Plastation 2 Slim, or the Playstation/PS One type of upgrade. You know, CPU and GPU manufactured with a 60nm of 45nm technolgy resulting in lower power consumption and lower heat dissipation resulting in smaller headt sinks etc. I doubt the feature spec will be much, if at all different.
we're not even being told what new features it's going to have.
Settle down - that means you've still got a while to wait.
But it's not like they "tricked" you.
Any early adopter to any platform of anything has got to realize that there will be later, greater versions that come out, for even less money. You buy the console now, because you want it now. Not because they promise to stop innovating for your specified amount of time.
That would actually make sence from Nintendo's 'Keep it simple' philosophy. A Single cable for video and sound as well as auto enable progressive scan (as I have yet to see a SDTV support HDMI).
I don't think they need a new hardware revision for that. The Wii (like the early Gamecubes) uses a custom cable connector. That connector sends the data in its own format that can then be translated into Composite or Component. (Depending on which "cables" you use.) I imagine that an HDMI "cable" for the existing hardware is not out of the question. Just not very useful at the moment.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Well, at least the Wii had initial hype
Actually the line-up reminds me of the Nintendo DS which is the fastest selling console in history, and is still constantly sold out 2 years after it was released
Being that most people who own 1080p sets still watch DVDs and are not rushing out to buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players I think the Wii will be fine
Well, I actually think it is the PS3 that is in trouble being that it is selling as badly as the Dreamcast in both Japan and North America
Enjoy your $600 soon to be dead system
If the Wii lineup reminds you of the DS launch lineup, then you are looking at the DS launch through the cloud of nostalgia. There was absolutely nothing to play except for a barely playable port of Mario 64. I thought I had wasted my money for over a YEAR.
The Wii launch lineup is far better than the DS, or the PS2 for that matter... anyone who disagrees can have my copy of Fantavision.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
GameDaily BIZ: The Wii did quite well this holiday season. At last count Nintendo sold over 3.19 million units worldwide. Did you expect to sell that many or did that level of success surprise you a bit?
Perrin Kaplan: We actually projected really strong numbers like that before our launch, because any public company needs to do that... But again it was a really high risk to bring out something that innovative and different and we are really kind of in awe that consumers are so high on the product. I mean we had hoped for it, but when you do something that different you never really know how people are going to react, and the fact that everybody--teens, dads, moms, cousins, young kids--everybody is totally into it, and then the DS is selling extremely well... we're kind of in awe of all of it. It's a great, great thing and I think it means a lot of good things for the whole industry.
BIZ: That was actually something that Doug Lowenstein talked about earlier today in his speech. He said that the industry needs to take more risks, and shouldn't rely on the same type of content over and over. And he specifically mentioned the Wii and Will Wright's Spore...
PK: Well, consumers are really savvy. They've been enjoying [what the games industry offers] for a long time, but I don't think [purchase patterns] reflected a healthier appetite. Buying games has been sort of staying level, but I don't think people were feeling inspired. In fact, some of the core gamers were like, "I thought I was getting bored and I wasn't sure, and now I realize I was totally getting bored. And I now I feel reinvigorated." And those who've left gaming, we need them to come back in order for the industry to grow, and then those who've never played, we really want them to enter the fold because it's very fun. So yeah, we've got to get risky and get out there, and obviously sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
BIZ: Nintendo built up a lot of momentum over the holiday season, but what's the plan to keep that momentum alive and well? Inevitably there's going to be a lull, so how do you keep the buzz around the Wii and people buying it?
PK: Well, there's various buzz now. If you look on the Internet, there's everything from how to hold your own Wii party to how to do a Mii parade to change Mii codes to how to lose weight... all these different branches that have come off this tree. So the momentum has not slowed down. Conan O'Brien and Serena Williams were just playing Wii Sports tennis on TV the other night; that's the kind of stuff you thought would only happen during launch and it's still fast and furious. There's a lot, a lot of talk about it. You have to remember that even though you played the Wii many months ago, it's still new to a lot of people; there's a lot of "eurekas" to be had by a lot of consumers. So for us I think it's just about continuing to get the product out there, letting people have a chance to touch and feel it themselves and play it, because hearing about it is one thing; seeing someone play it is another exciting thing; and the third thing is if you play it yourself, for the most part, 99% of the time, people are like "I love this!"
BIZ: How much credit would you give Nintendo's marketing team for this early success? You've had some unique marketing where you took the Wii to an AARP convention, advertised with Oprah...
PK: Yeah, a lot of that actually started with the DS with Brain Age and Nintendogs and our efforts to try to take those products and populate it into different kinds of audiences. You know, the AARP thing was a little bit tough at first. They were like, "We don't really want to talk to you because we're all grandparents and we already buy stuff for our kids," and so we said, "No we want to talk to you about you." It took several attempts for them to finally say, "So why do you want to talk to us?" And it's because we have products for them as well now; so it really started with the DS and has continued on with the Wii. But I will say, at the end of th
Welcome to the world of PC gamers.
I myself have been playing video games both on consoles and on the PC since the commodore 64. If there is one thing I have learned as an avid PC gamer, it's this:
Never expect your top of the line system to be top of the line the day after you buy it.
Technology advances. Things change. New releases are let out, and people buy them because they are better. See, Nintendo released their product, heard what the public did and did not like about it, and are going to change it according to what the CONSUMERS say.
I don't care if you test something for five years with 10,000 different people doing the testing. Until you truly release your product to the (somewhat ignorant) masses, you will never know exactly what is and is not wrong with something, ESPECIALLY a gaming system.
Granted, some things such as noise, heat, etc. should be discovered fairly easily in testing...but there are really REALLY stupid people out there (yes, I'm looking at the Wii owners with broken TV's) that testers cannot possibly fathom. They can anticipate a lot, they can't anticipate the level of stupidity that some of their customers have achieved.
Don't be mad at them for trying to listen to their customers.
Living With a Nerd
I DRTFA, but I just wanted to note that just because the Gamecube is no longer being produced does not mean that there will be no more Gamecube games, thanks to the backwards compatibility on the Wii.
Only last year was the last Dreamcast game released (in Japan), and the system has been out of production for at least four years. Every once in a while a PS1 game is still released, because it can work on the PS2. Since the Gamecube will be cheaper to produce for than the Wii, and there's a fairly good chance that many of the consumers will have the 'Cube controllers or easily get them.
The PS3 will also see a lot of this with PS2 games, especially with the massive increase of PS3 production costs.
Gamecube controllers will probably also see continued production by third parties, seeing as how they can be used with VC games and are generally cheaper than the Classic controller.
It does look like Nintendo is ditching the Gamecube internally, though.
You didn't like matching the panels. I did. I knew I would like it because I liked Tetris Attack.
The Wii launch lineup is far better than the DS, or the PS2 for that matter... anyone who disagrees can have my copy of Fantavision.<sarcasm>You mean the Apple IIGS precursor to Flash?</sarcasm> Still, you didn't like matching the fireworks. I did.
Point: I agree that it takes a while for any console to build up a variety of titles that everyone can relate to. This is as true for Wii as it is for any other system. I myself am waiting for Animal Crossing Thwii because I beat the GameCube version yesterday.
I hope the Wii with DVD support comes to the US. Personally, I would love to see something like WiiTV with some PVR and DVD support built into the Wii. I realize that nintendo was going for something that was cheap, and was puretly a gaming system- as opposed to the PS3 and 360 that want to be everything to everybody, but with the channels interface and the wii remote as it's controler, I can't think there has been a better fit since peanutbutter and chocolate.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Yes, you can emulate single-player Game Boy games on a Game Boy Advance or on a Nintendo DS in GBA mode using the Goomba Color emulator.
I don't even know where to look for that kind of stuff anymore since the evil bastards at Sony summoned Satan all over Lik-Sang.Froogle perhaps? What about gbadev.org's list of retailers?
Nintendo has no plans to leave the video game business at this time, so there will be either a new version of the Nintendo Wii or a new console designed to replace the Wii at some point in the future. The new Wii or the Wii replacement, code-named Armed Insurrection, will have some new features. We will announce those features closer to the release date.
Oh, and film at 11.
How do you "beat" Animal Crossing?
You build the biggest house possible, buy at least 1 of every item including all NES games, and owe nothing. At that point the only thing Tom Nook can sell you is time with his wife effectively making Tom your bitch for a change.
I myself am waiting for Animal Crossing Thwii because I beat the GameCube version yesterday.
I too am waiting for a Mii-enabled Animal Crossing Three that uses Wii Sims houses.
But, this makes me realize they forgot to ask some things.
[from the article] how will Nintendo's online plans evolve?
PK: Some of that friend code stuff is really built for the mass consumer, not just the gaming world. The Wii has tons of different offerings and a lot of it was brand new. The remote, brand new. The way in which it interfaces with the screen, brand new. The channel concept, brand new. And I think if we launched it and plunked it down and said to the absolutely uninitiated, "Here's 18 things it can do," I can guarantee you it would stay in the box. It's just too intimidating. So we really strategically wanted to roll out having nearly a year talking about the remote and getting people ready, why it's unique, because it is the Einstein of the system.
And then talking about the different things the box can do and then entering with the Virtual Console piece of it and the Wii Shop channel, introducing the channels one a time--the Mii channel has taken off and people really love that. Then ultimately we did weather, news and there's a lot more to come, but we're kind of rolling it out in a fashion that is consumable for people who are not highly experienced--and also giving you guys a chance to really explore it. And online stuff has come in the Pokemon game that has launched in Japan, and it definitely will come here and I think people will be very pleased with it. But I also think we've seen other companies launch with the entire menu of stuff, and I don't think all of it gets utilized at the start.
To me, that says that Mii-enabling many games is a prime area.
So, the three things they should have asked:
1. What will your 2009/2010 Wii 2.0 for HDTV have for chips and strength?
2. Will your Wii 2.0 be HD-DVD or will you region-lock it by choosing Sony's Blu-Ray format?
3. Can we have a Hamster dance-off game? And will there be a sequel to Duck Hunt for the Wii, involving small miniature dogs?
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If it's setup like the 360, then it would need a hardware revision. The 360 uses a custom cable connector but as of now can only support analog output. I would imagine the Wii is likely the same.
I thought Mii clothing could be only one color. Even ACPG allowed up to 15 colors in a 32x32 pixel texture for clothing. I wonder how Nintendo plans to reconcile these, and how it plans to reconcile charging for haircuts in ACWW with the predefined haircuts of Mii Channel.
I think as I read the plans, it sounds like you can Import your Mii into Animal Crossing for the Wii and Sims for the Wii (which I will call Wii Animal Crossing and Wii Sims) - once they are imported, you can modify their clothing (using player-designed patterns and clothing you received as gifts) and hair cuts etc. Expect a limited pallete in Wii Animal Crossing for face structure and hair - much more Mii in feel - but a wider pallete for Wii Sims for face, hair, and body, since that's a big deal in that. I did notice the Wii Sims seemed to all have similar bodies though, it was very much more Wii Animal Crossing in feel, so I'm not sure how much variation you get.
My question: can you import your Wii Animal Crossing neighbors into Wii Sims as Pets and can you export your Wii Sims Pets into Wii Animal Crossing as animal neighbors? That would be cool.
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Thank GOD I read this post. Otherwise I would have been completely off guard with no means of anticipating any further hardware revisions despite (as you said) they have a habit of releasing new hardware in less than 2 years. I wonder when the next one will hit?
Well, the US won't go to HDTV until 2009, so if I was a marketer or planning person (which I used to be), I would aim for 2009 December release for the next Wii major upgrade - and include HDMI as well as some cool peripherals the after-market had glommed onto.
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As was hinted at by the other reply, unless there's an HDMI encoder chip on the Wii logic board (there isn't), HDMI isn't gonna happen. Even if it was there, if it could do more than 480p, they would allow more than 480p on the component cables (they don't).
What, you think a $10 cable is doing "conversion"?
The connector has signal wires for the various parts of component signals. There's no signal wires for digital. Thus, there's no way to do digital out (say, HDMI) without a new connector.
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Kirby Canvas Curse Dude, rocked my little grey box!
Plus the HDMI standard requires the HDMI connector you can't use your own proprietary one.
Like actually putting an ethernet port on the box? I know some people don't mind it being WiFi only, but it's nearly a dealbreaker for me if it's an alway-connected system and I have to pay extra for a dongle to run a Cat5e to it.
Remember the early shots of the Wii that were in color back at E3 a while ago?
Yeah, who wants to bet that will be one of the 'upgrades'? Every Nintendo thing has come in multiple colors, I don't see them stopping that now.
Yeah, because all those new Gameboy games suddenly didn't work on my GBA anymore after Nintendo brought out the GBA SP. Except... they continued working just fine, and you have no point at all.
I would love to see a nintendo Wii covered in woad. But only if it came with a 'braveheart' game.
It's possible that Nintendo will update the Miis to have real clothes (and ears! I want ears!), thereby making it possible to "edit" your actual Mii in Animal Crossing. That would rule.
You can always flog the old one and get, maybe, 1/2 the money of the cost of the new one if you _really_ can't live without it.
Failing that they make good hand me downs... err.. presents for siblings or fiends. (I hope my bros isn't reading this. He got my old DS as a prezzy!).
Also, a lot of people enjoy collecting. I know people who have collected several (or all) variants of a machine just to build a collection and hardware updates especially useful, as Drinkypoo said, is when your SW catalogue isn't made worthless but backwards incompatibility.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
What's the second Turbographx-16? Unless you mean the Duo, or the Japanese version. As far as I knew, there was only ever one form factor/design of the TG-16 in the States. Or was there more than one release in Europe/South America/etc?
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