Nintendo - "Everyone is a Gamer"

There's nothing that excites gamers like statistics; pie charts and graphs dominated the opening of Nintendo's E3 conference. Fortunately, the event had more than just business to discuss. They unveiled a 'Wii Zapper' housing that allows the Wiimote and Nunchuck to combine into a light gun, which will retail for about twenty bucks. They showed off a number of third party titles to prove the outside-the-company commitment, such as a Soul Calbur and Medal of Honor (which will be playable online) designed specifically for the console. Hardcore gamers were the focus of the early portion of the conference: Smash Brothers Brawl has a launch date of December 3rd in the US. They heavily hyped online play, with several EA titles and a Pokemon-like Dragon Quest title. Mario Kart for Wii will be launching early next year, will be playable online, and will have a Wiimote driving wheel housing packaged with the game. With the hardcore discussed, the attention shifted to mass market games. A new channel, 'Check Mii Out' will allow for a HotorNot-style voting mechanism and contests to make the most realistic celebrity Mii. There was much discussion of the Nintendo approach to expanding audience; Super Mario Galaxy was brought up as bridging that gap, as a second player can 'assist' the primary player in various ways. Galaxy will be launching on November 12th. Targetted more directly at this 'outside the norm' group was WiiFit, which uses a dedicated device called the Wii Balance Board. It allows for a daily exercise routine, can track data over time (and compare it to other family members) and includes some simple minigames like a soccer heading game. The press conference ended with Reggie Fils-Aimee revealing Nintendo's goal to make videogaming one of the pre-eminent forms of entertainment, across all age groups.

Comments

Re:Two years ago

[Osty]

Forward two years from then, and it's Nintendo press conference that made it to the front page, while Sony and Microsoft are nowhere to be found. How things changes...

Nowhere to be found, eh? Microsoft's conference was last night. Nintendo's was this morning. Sony's is next. Slashdot will cover all three.

Re:Mii Hot or Not?

[the dark hero]

Check this out

Re:Does Anyone Really Use Their Wii Anymore?

[ihatewinXP]

The "given up on it gamer"........

Which as the article states is the audience they are now going for.

I totally hear your sentiment, I was one of them too. Hell, I even picked up Zelda and was disgusted after spending 30 minutes to get a goddamned fishing rod and threw it out... But Tuesday night mahjong in Beijing with my far ranging expat crowd has now been replaced with Tuesday night Wii bowling league or Wario Whatever madness.... Laughing the whole time about how my bowling alley serves the finest wine and provides footwear par excellance ;)

Have you actually played this thing? One of our friends just got back from a 4 week stint in the States and it was the first thing she mentioned. I cant even make the word of mouth marketing on this thing up.

Sorry, im sold. This thing is Just Plain Fun -