This story continues to develop. The Sacrament County Sheriff’s Dept. is launching a criminal investigation into the suspected “water intoxication” death of Jennifer Strange who died while participating in 107.9 The End’s “Hold your wee for a Wii” contest.
Apparently the hosts of the “Morning Rave” show the were told by many listeners that the contest was not a good idea and that there was a real danger in participating in such an activity. Most listener comments were met with the arrogance and the “I’ll do what I want on my show” attitude common among morning show hosts. One Dj’s response to the criticism was “Yeah, they signed releases, so we’re not responsible. We’re OK.” Still think their termination wasn’t justified?
The Sacramento county coroner has also confirmed that water intoxication was the cause of death in the Strange case, Confirming earlier reports.
Kotaku posted a picture of Jennifer Strange and her family to accompany their post but I decided against it. If you guys would rather see the picture of the women and her family drop a comment, and let me know.
Source:Kotaku & Officer.com
[UPDATE] Added Physiology of water intoxication
I hate Thursdays! I mean really hate them, way more than Garfield hates Mondays. Anybody can hate Mondays it’s so easy but it takes a special cookie to hate a day so close to the weekend. So in the interest of impartiality and not writing a scathing post on whatever issue in gaming is bugging me, I’m proud to introduce “Video Thursdays”. Every week I will try and find some of the best Wii videos on the net. I hope that will save you all from my coffee fueled “I’m in the worst mood possible” rants. Trust me on this one you do not want to see my ugly side.
My girlfriend Jen and I have been together for just over 3 years, that said me and video games have been together for about 15 years. Now there isn’t any competition between the two loves of my life but once in a while, I like to combine them and play games with my girlfriend. Sometimes that can be difficult. Jen never really left the 2D era of games she is waaaay better than me at Super Mario and can even hold her own with many of the other classics, Mega Man being one of her favorites. So it’s hard to find 3D games that she would enjoy, at least until I introduced her to “Mario Party”. She loved the simple gameplay of the mini-games and the game board mechanic, plus any game where she can play as Daisy puts a smile on her face.
According to IGN “Mario Party 8″ is due to hit stores sometime in March with more mini-games than you can shake a WiiMote at. So I’ve compiled a series of videos showcasing the gameplay of probably on of the best multiplayer games that will hit the Wii this year, enjoy.
Earlier this week I and many other gaming news websites reported on a story about a women in California who died from suspected “water intoxication” while participating in the “Hold you wee for a Wii” contest well according to a post I found on Kotaku 10 employees of radio station 107.9 “The End” have been let go by the station. Kotaku commenters have already weighed in on the news of the dismissals and the reaction is mixed. Some readers feel that it was a dumb idea for a contest and they should get fired. Others feel it is unfair to terminate employees when the women’s official CoD (Cause of Death) is still under investigation. What do you think? Is 107.9’s reaction 100% right? Should the employees be blamed for the women’s untimely death? Or is 107.9 a little premature in their actions. I throw this one into the court of public opinion.
Remember in grade school when all the girls were carrying around those little plastic egg things? I do, in fact I remember that no girl would ever let me touch their Tamagotchi for fear that I would snuff out its little digi-life. Well get ready to experience that all over again thanks to Namco Bandai.
“Tamagotchi Party On! is a seamless blend of both party game and board game as players swing, shake, and turn their Wii controllers in order to control their favorite Tamagotchi,” said Naruo Uchida, NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.’s Vice President of Localization. “It’s the wackiest and cutest popularity contest ever as up-to-four players compete in fun mini-games to become the president of Tamagotchi planet.”
Tamagotchi is coming to the Wii and has a little more to offer than just eating and pooping. Take “Mario Party” mix in some “Animal Crossing” add a dash of politics and you come pretty darn close to the formula. Will it be a winner? That remains to be seen but the original Tamagotchi did open the gaming flood gates to many of the female gamers I know today. So guys get ready to share that Wii once 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. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Monday to all. My weekend was good I kept true to my goal and played several hours of Resident Evil 4 with my buddy Brad. I’m also still reeling from last nights action packed premiere of 24 Jack is back to fight the terrorists. So terrorists beware of vampire Jack. Anyway on to new business.
Over the weekend 1pStart, CNN and several other gaming news sites reported on a story where a women in the US died trying to win a Nintendo Wii. A radio station was running a contest titled “Hold your wee for a Wii”. Contestants had to drink all the water they could without urinating (Not very healthy practice). Well one woman couldn’t handle the pressure (sorry bad joke) and scummed to water intoxication resulting in her death. Everyone wants a Wii but they are not worth dying for. So “BOOO HISSS” to the radio station for their tasteless contest and they’re terrible “Wii pun” leave those to me!
As we close the book on the second week of 2007 I wish to thank everyone who has been reading, commenting, digging, and linking this site. All of you make it worthwhile. So far Wii Rally has been my most successful website and we are only about a month old. I owe it all to you the gamers and readers of Wii Rally. THANK YOU!
As an extra little tidbit 451 Press (the Publisher of Wii Rally) is running a contest for everyday people who comment on 451 Press blogs. Every time you comment on a 451 Press blog like Wii Rally or 1pStart your email address will be submitted for a random drawing and a chance to win 500$ USD. Good luck to all who enter, as a bonus you can use the money you win to donate to your favorite Wii website *cough*HINT*cough*
For more info on the contest go to 451press.com
Well that was this week at Wii Rally see you all Monday, but before I go I wish to leave you all with this question. What are you playing this weekend? I am going over to my friend Brad’s place to play some RE4 while our girlfriends watch Laguna Beach, do each others hair, have pillow fights and practice kissing…. you know girl stuff. Later!
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.
Well another week has past which means it’s time for Wii Rally’s Feature Friday. This week we will be talking about the Wii’s Forecast Channel.
The Forecast Channel allows you to get a weather forecast for your local area or a vacation spot on the other side of the world. The Forecast Channel gives you a lot of information like wind speed, UV index, temperature and conditions. Now the reality, the Forecast Channel has gotten a lot of flack lately for not being the most up to date. I can see how this would frustrate some users but if we are only talking about a couple of hours or degrees than I don’t see the problem. Do you get angry at your local news caster for being off by a degree or two? I think not.
The Forecast channel has practical gaming applications as well. Madden ‘07 for the Wii uses the forecast Channel to generate local weather for games. Like to play as the Sea Hawks well you might be playing in the rain. If Green Bay is your team, hope you like playing in the snow. This is just one example of how the Forecast channel can be used to provide a more immersive game experience. There is the potential to see this used with other games like EA’s upcoming MLB ’07. Can you say “rain delay”?
Using WiiConnect24 allows the Forecast Channel to constantly update itself and attempt to provide you with the most up to date weather conditions. So whether you want to know what the UV index is in Cancun or just like watching the globe spin check out the Forecast Channel and never miss another sunny day.
Have an Idea for a Friday Feature? Drop a comment or send an email with “Feature Friday” in the subject line.
Well I’ve been looking all day and today is a rare one. There is little to no Wii news out there so I’ve scoured the internet for some new Wii game play videos.
The first is for the upcoming Wii release of the classic cutesy puzzler Bust-A-Move. Can the Wii introduce one of the finest arcade titles to a whole new generation of gamers?
Yesterday I posted a quick little update on some new Virtual Console titles courtesy of our friends at Sega. It was then that a couple of readers started asking about specific Genesis/Mega Drive titles, Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe etc. So I thought that I would post the entire list of classic Genesis titles that are currently available on the virtual console. Generally Sega’s Virtual Console titles go for around 800 Wii points.
I woke up this morning and checked my daily digest of gaming press releases and came across one about developer Konami’s first venture into Wii gaming with a title called “Eledees”. Now at first I was confused by this because as far as I knew Konami’s first Wii game was the kitschy yet fun, little critter hunting game “Elebits” which came out shortly after the console’s launch.
So I was thinking that either I was wrong or that Konami had snuck something under my radar. Once I got past my ego and investigated further I found that “Eledees” is just the European name for “Elebits”. Too bad I kind of had my hope up for some new Wii action.
Switching gears now I also came across a post on Kotaku for all you old school gamers. It’s about UK gaming website MeanMachines and their Virtual Console Archive. It is very detailed they tell you everything from when the game was released to where it’s available. (Either the US or UK) The most useful part I found was where the site tells you which controller you will need to play a given game.
I also learned that those lucky chaps in the UK have access to the Virtual Console version of the Rare developed classic “Donkey Kong Country” Jokes on them though we have “Street Fighter II: The World Warrior” take that you Kong stealing Brits.
Good morning everyone hope a good weekend was had by all.
I went Wii hunting with a couple of friends this weekend to see if I could increase their chances of procuring a console. While I was in downtown Toronto, I was walking along Dundas St when I noticed people milling about in front of the Best Buy. No line this time, just a bunch of people hanging out in front of the store. Well the journalist in me never sleeps so I went over to see what the fuss was about.
It was the same deal as last week, Best Buy had 15 Wii Console’s for sale and had already given out tickets. The people were standing around because there was no need for a line anymore but I asked the Best Buy rep for more info. He told me that this is the last of the pre-opening line-ups. From now on Best Buy will be putting all their Wii Consoles on the store floor. Will this increase your chances of getting one? That remains to be seen but at least the playing field should be levelled instead of stay at home mom’s and people with no jobs having the advantage. Why are they buying Wii’s when they have no job anyway its called priorities man! Personally I think the idea of lining up on any day except launch day is rather silly but hey it’s just another example of how the Wii is unique.
Well, to all those who are still trying to get a Wii, I wish you good luck and happy hunting. You could also just go out and buy a PS3 I hear Best Buy has plenty of those.
Well 2007 is off to a running start and seems to be shaping up to be quite a year. Every weekend I will be doing these “Wiikend Wrap Ups” So you readers out there can find all the weeks posts in one spot.
Wii Rally is the source for all your Nintendo Wii information. Daily news updates, weekly features, videos, product and game reviews Wii Rally has it all with insightful commentary. Miss one of the daily updates? Well you can catch everything you missed in the Wii Rally Wiikend Wrap every Saturday. Why search dozens of blogs looking for info on Nintendo's innovative console when 451 Press has it all in one place. So welcome to one of the fastest growing Wii blogs on the web.
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