Wii Rally

Our local Wal-Mart has had a bundle featuring Wii points and a classic controller glove on sale for $14.50. They had at least 50 of these units to move, so I felt certain that they would come down even further in price. And they have.

I got 2000 Wii points and a classic controller glove for $12.00. I like to buy Wii points in blocks of 1000 anyway, so for just $2 more I got 1000 more points and a glove.

Not sure if all Wal-Marts have this deal or not but it’s worth checking out.

While looking at the EBGames.com websites Wii section, I noticed a price drop section. Curious, I clicked in the link and found some titles I’m interested in picking up are not cheaper.

NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams is now $29.99
Luxor: Phraroah’s Challenge is now $29.99
Petz Dogz is now $19.99
Pimp my Ride is now $29.99

There are 45 items listed under their Wii price drop section. Listed above are the games that I am most interested in playing. Usually I try to hold off buying new games until they drop in price. Of course, some titles, like anything with the name Mario in it, will take a very long time to drop in price. But for most titles, they drop a few months after their release, which if you can hold out will save you some money.

The holiday deals have already begun. Beginning today and ending November 21st at Toys R Us, you can buy two Wii games and get a third Wii game free.

The sale is good on all Wii games. I was thinking of picking up a new game this week, so why not make it two and get a third game for free? The holidays are coming up, and I will be taking the Wii when we go visit family. More Wii games will give us more reasons to play.

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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Good news for Reggie and anyone who happens to be a Nintendo shareholder.
Today Nintendo posted their consolidated fiscal year revenue numbers for the year ending March 31st 2007. Now I aint no stock/money dude but the numbers are quite stellar.

Nintendo posted revenues of around 8.08 billion USD and operating profits of about 1.89 billion USD which would equal an increase of 90% and 150% respectively, company records on both accounts according to the release.

Why such strong numbers you ask? Well it’s no secret that the Wii and DS have been selling like well for lack of a better simile “hotcakes”. DS unit sales were about 23 million last year resulting in lifetime sales of over 40 million.

The Wii numbers are far more impressive. Nintendo has sold about 5.84 million Wii consoles since launch in November. Pretty nice for a console that has what one game design student would describe as “Xbox 1 graphics” but since when does that matter?

Short story: Big N is making tons of dough.

Up until November 2006 I never really saw any advantages to pre-ordering anything consoles, games , handhelds what have you. Living in Canada and close to major city (Canada’s Largest) stock never appeared to be in short supply. I only found myself going into “Hunting” mode in order to find games that were particularly rare. Last November that all changed when the Wii was released. Weeks and months passed, Christmas came and went and I still found myself Wiiless with a budding Wii-dependent job on the horizon. I won’t go into to details how I ended getting my hands on a console but I will say that it was through some unorthodox although legal means.

All the hunting and disappointments aside the lesson was learned “Next time I pre-order” This week marks the release of the highly anticipated GameCube Wii game Super Paper Mario. Seeing as how many Mario fans will not hesitate to pick this one up it may or may not be difficult to find copies. One US electronics retailer is trying to put those fears to rest by guaranteeing that they will have copies of Super Paper Mario for sale or they will pay you.

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The sun beats down on my back as I crawl forward in search of refreshment. “Water? Water!” I yell “Water and games, will this drought never end?” But wait as I look out into the horizon I see it. Relief from this crazy drought we have been stuck in since January. Get ready for a flood here come the games of March.

Getting serious now. Reggie once promised us that we would see no game drought for the Wii in 2007. Well what do you call the last 2 months big man? Sure there’s been some hotness on the virtual console and both Sonic and Wario have made their debut on the Wii but still there hasn’t been that much to be excited about. Hopefully March will change that with 8 new Wii games set to make Wii owners the busiest they’ve been since Christmas.

March will see the release of some original content along with a couple of shoe-horned “Wii-makes”. It would seem that almost every major publisher has a game coming out for the Wii in March. Nintendo kicks off the party right at the beginning with the release of the anticipated release of Mario Marty 8. You know what they say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, well the same is true for games. The month of march starts strong but then kind of peters out at the end.

Who will rule the charts Ubisoft’s TMNT? EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘07? or Hudson’s Wing Island? We shall see.

Hit the jump for the complete list of Wii games launching in March. (more…)

The Nintendo Wii has been in the retail market for about 2 months now and Nintendo couldn’t be happier. Crazy sales resulted in massive profits over the holiday season but you already knew that. What you might not know is that a nice amount of Nintendo’s sales were not just for the console and its software. At launch Nintendo had many 1st party peripherals available for purchase including the WiiMote, nunchuck and the “Classic” controller. These items flew off store shlves and were sold out all across North America. Now with every console it is only a matter of time before 3rd party companies take the initiative and develop their own controllers and peripherals for a given console which are often sold at a lower price point than their 1st party brethren. Well Nintendo consoles are no stranger to 3rd party peripherals and the Wii is no exception.

An inside source from Wal-Mart reported on GameTrailer’s forums about a 3rd party WiiMote and nunchuck being made by peripheral manufacturer MadCatz.

I personally wouldn’t recommend this one; in fact I would stay away from MadCatz all together. Their products are often flimsy, poor quality and have a very different feel to them than their 1st party counterparts.
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Well the Christmas shopping rush is long over and the numbers have been crunched. NPD group is reporting that the Xbox360 sold the most units over the holiday buying season. Nevertheless Nintendo had a record breaking Christmas as well. Due to the over whelming popularity of their newest gaming device combined with the overall strength of the DS and sprinkled with a fair amount of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Key results from the press release.

* Consumers purchased every Wii console available at retail—more than a million in just the 44 days between U.S. launch and year end.
* With sales of another 1.6 million systems in December alone, Nintendo DS achieved full year sell-through of 5.3 million.
* The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was purchased by an extraordinary 86 percent of Wii buyers, or more than 900,000 games for that system alone. Coupled with the companion version released in December for Nintendo GameCube™, the two versions of the newest Zelda title totaled approximately 1.5 million unit sales in less than seven weeks, which would represent one of the five best-selling games for the entire year.
* Wii owners also purchased an average of three additional games from a wide library of choices, in addition to the Wii Sports title packed in with every hardware system.
* Two Nintendo DS titles, New Super Mario Bros.® and Brain Age™: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, also were top-10 sellers for the year.
* Throughout the November/December holiday shopping period, Nintendo accounted for more than half of all video game hardware systems sold in America.

Due to these results and the continuing strength of the Wii and DS Nintendo has even gone as far as to increase their earnings projection for March 31st 2007. Which must make Nintendo stock holders very very happy.

Source: Nintendo via GamesPress

Wiis in Canada are sold out everywhere…still?

I drove by my local Best Buy last week, Friday morning to be exact. I was intrigued by what I found… a line at 7:00 in the morning. Now all the Boxing Day brouhaha was over and done with most sales only last two days anyway but I digress. As it so happens these people were in line to purchase this particular Best Buy’s shipment of Nintendo Wii’s. The store confirmed that they had 27 available for purchase and most people had been in line since the night before. I counted more that 27 in line by the way, good thing there were no children. I would hate to see a little gamer disappointed for reasons he can not understand.

Why are people still lining up to for hours to get a Wii? There should be plenty of them in the stores by now. The console launched back in November. Now, I know that Nintendo has seen some very impressive sales over the holiday season, but this is after Christmas and Boxing Day. I have not heard about any of this happening in the U.S. My understanding is that Wii’s are plentiful there. I really can’t imagine lining up to purchase a console or game on any day other than launch. I contacted Nintendo for comment but they were unavailable (Holiday) but the second they get back to me I will post an update.