Wii Rally

Can’t be at E3? Well neither can I, So I’ve got the next best thing Internet video.

OK here Wii go.

First up for the Nintendo media briefing is a 2 minute video of some news stories and user videos which have used the Wii as a focal point. Nintendo begins by tooting their own horn….obviously.

After the short video a gigantic man in a beige suit [Reggie Fils-Aime, NoA President] walks to the middle of the stage and says “Hi I’m Reggie and I am Happy!”

The first segment of Reggie’s speech is about all the stuff that only venture capitalists and investors care about. You know stuff like expanding demographics, sales figures, and market share info….BORING!

Now some interesting stuff. Reggie states that by the holiday shopping season there should be over 160 Wii titles available in North America and over 430 DS titles for the same territory.

After a second video similar to the first Reggie introduces to the world the first offspring of the Wii Remote and nunchuck. The Wii Zapper a housing for your Wii Remote and nunchuck making it look like a small SMG. Reggie goes on to talk about 3 new games that are being designed around the new housing, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Sega’s Ghost Squad a popular arcade light gun game, and the newest addition to the Medal of Honour series will also be centered around the Wii Zapper which will retail for about 19.99 USD. Reggie also mentions plans for a 1st party title that will come packed with a zapper later this year.

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While hanging out in Nintendo’s Online press room I found this .PDF document which contains a Q&A session with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. To be honest it kind of reads like one of those White House briefings I see on CNN. Seeing how this Q&A is directly from Nintendo you really have to take it with a grain of salt. The document has most likely been screened by both Nintendo’s lawyers and PR department so don’t count on any big bombs being dropped. The document contains about 27 questions which I’m guessing are from all sorts of different people.

Iwata does his best to answer every question, he only passes over the questions regarding former Sony Computer Entertainment Chairman Ken Kutaragi.

Here are some highlights.

Q1: Please tell me when and what game titles will be launched that can satisfy hard-core gamers.

Iwata: “It will be from around the end of this summer to the end of this year.
We will then launch a new title of Super Mario (Super Mario Galaxy), Smash Brothers (Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and Metroid Prime (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) although the last one is primarily for the overseas markets. These will be the key titles for the period ranging from the summer until the holiday sales season of this year, and I think we will be able to cater to the specific needs you mentioned.”

Big titles coming out in the window between Labour Day and Christmas; now that’s thinking “outside the box”

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Bashcraft over at Kotaku is reporting that Nintendo will have a full blown booth at this years TGS (Tokyo Game Show). Nintendo has always had a presence at the show but this will be the first time where they will have booth space set up. Nintendo normally saves it’s budget for the other industry trade shows like CES, E3, or Nintendo’s own exposition Space World but since E3 has been scaled down this year I guess Nintendo had some extra money and no where to spend it so they decided to up the ante at TGS.

Well as always I like to play the speculation game here at Wii Rally. So what big announcement(s) do you think Nintendo will make as the summers trade show season gets underway next month. New Zelda? Online play? How about a new and exciting 1st party IP? Who knows? All I know is that with the warm weather comes the summer game drought which according to Reggie shouldn’t happen. Maybe that’s why the latest virtual console release have been less than drool worthy. Nintendo could be saving the big dogs for when they have no new games coming. Any thoughts?

A nice little story is floating around the inter-tubes. According to Cubed3 and the Tanooki Nintendo is increasing Wii unit production. Most likely in response to consumer demand. It seems to me that since Nintendo was so confident in their little white consoles they should have had large production numbers from the get go. Then again this is an international business with different market trends so you really have to be careful how much you spend on initial production and most companies know you can’t bank on hype and brand integrity alone.

What this means for everyone out there in video game land is that it may soon be easier for the average consumer be able to find a console without too much effort. The looming question that remains is “did Nintendo intentionally keep their supply short to increase consumer demand?” the answer is of course kept behind the closed doors of Nintendo Co.