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 GameCubeâ„¢, 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.
Well everyone the first work week of 2007 has come to a close. This weekend is a good one to catch up on those little tasks that may have slipped your mind during the holiday chaos. One such thing that may have slipped your mind is to set the “Parental Controls” on your brand new Nintendo Wii. Well that’s why we have “Feature Friday” every Friday I’m going to try and go in-depth with one of the features of the Wii. Due to recent developments with the Wii Opera Browser I thought that parental controls would be an excellent place to start.
Now most parents don’t know this but for the last two console generations home consoles have come with a parental lock. Similar to those found on DVD players the Wii’s parental controls are no different from those that have come before it. The Wii’s parental controls work with the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) ratings that appear on all games so that you can restrict what game titles are played on your Wii console. To do this, simply follow the steps found after the jump Read the rest of this entry »
I was reading my daily blog rotation yesterday and found many sites had lists of their favourite video of the year. I found a post on gaming blog Joystiq and found a post about Tech E Blog’s list their “Top Five Fan Made Game Commercialsâ€?. Two of the entries were Wii themed and are pretty cool uses of the WiiMote.
When you think of Time Magazine you don’t exactly think of hard hitting games journalism, but they are one publication with an enormous amount of credibility. Well Time magazine has released their series of “Top Ten Lists� for the year and a couple of Nintendo Wii games made the “Top Ten Games of 2006“ list. That’s right Wii Sports took top honours and the number 1 spot, while Zelda: Twilight Princess took the number 4 spot. Not too shabby for a console that only launched in November here in North America and even later to the rest of the world. My guess is that Wii Sports was given the honour due to its intuitive and fun controls and mass appeal. My mom even played it and told me she loved the Wii Bowling.
Zelda: Twilight Princess is also poised to win many “game of the year� awards. In fact voting is going on for the 2006 1UP Awards as we speak on massive gaming site 1up.com. You can head on over to check out all the nominees and vote for your favourite.
On a side note another Nintendo game made Time’s list, New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS took the number 3 spot ahead of Zelda. Here’s to hoping that big N and all the other Wii developers out there have lots of fun surprises in store for us Wii games all throughout 2007 and well in to the future.
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.
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.
Bejeweled Officially Takes Over the World
Popcap cames has announced that Bejeweled has sold more than 25 million copies. That's a lot of casual games for casual game players. PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka had this to say about it, [...]
A Lot of Fallout 3 Pics
If you're interested in the development of Fallout 3 (and why shouldn't you be?) then you've got to make sure and check out a whole slew of images that were taken by an Asian blogger who, I [...]
Force Unleashed Demo "Unleashes" This Week... HAR HAR
If you can't wait for over the top, unbelievable and extreme to the max Star Wars action that's like, TOTALLY UNLEASHED, then you should be happy to know that Star Wars: Unleashed is having a [...]
BlizzCon Tickets Up for Grabs
While I won't have the luxury of attending myself, Blizzcon has always sounded like a fun filled event for enthusiastic MMO gamers, and I'd love to have the chance to go one of these days. [...]
Active Life Outdoor Challenge Ready for the next "get off the couch and move" game for the Wii? Well, get ready because it's coming early September.
Active Life Oudoor Challenge is the first in a series of games that [...]
New VC and WiiWare 8-18
Have some Wii points that are just burning a virtual hole in your console? Then check out this week's new offerings at the Wii shop.
WiiWare
Midnight Pool is a pool game for 1-2 players. It [...]
Expansion: Will We See Old Heroics?
Imagine stomping through the Deadmines at level 80, defeating Van Cleef in a challenging and interesting fight, nothing like the time you breezed through the place at level 20. Heroic versions of [...]
Overlord II Screenshots Ahoy
Overlord was the rare game that was fun, funny, and pretty good. Sure the thing had it's faults, but it was damn fun being a bad guy controlling a mob of hilariously devoted minions. While never [...]
Miyamoto is Not as Popular as Spielberg
On David Jaffe's blog, the mind behind God of War said that creator of almost anything famous by Nintento, Shigeru Miyamoto, and legendary game creator Will Wright are not as well known as Steven [...]
A Good Batman Game? No Way!
If there is one great question that mankind has stumbled with it's got to be, "Why isn't there a flipping awesome Batman game?" There may be no true answer to this problem, but the solution may [...]
Hot Off The Press
NiN in Dallas I had the opportunity to see Nine Inch Nails in Dallas last night at the American Airlines Center. This was the second time I've seen a concert at this venue and I quite like it. According the the [...]
The First Episode Is Useless
I've said it before and I'm going to say it again.
You have to watch more that 1 episode before making up your mind.
I was reminded of this recently when I checked out the anime Air. I'll be [...]
Ronn Moss Is Doing A Disney Film
Ronn Moss (Ridge) of The Bold & the Beautiful will be doing voice over work in the new animated film for Disney called Bolt. John Travolta and Miley Cyrus are also doing voices in the film. The [...]
Japan
I did my doctorate in Sydney in the 1980s. All these Japanese recipes are therefore from students in their twenties, who, in the 1980s, were studying in Sydney. Why does that sound dull? It [...]
IMPEACHMENT AND PEACHES THEME OF GREEN PARTY FUNDRAISER GREEN PARTY OF CONNECTICUT
Peach iced tea, peach shortcake and impeachment are on the menu Thursday in Hartford for a rally and fundraiser to remove Bush and Cheney, sponsored by the CONNECTICUT [...]
Pushing Daisies Season 2 Episode 1-10 Guide
Warning: I'm keeping the guides right after the cut, in case some of this blog's visitors don't want to be spoiled of the story...
These are what we have so far and we're going to update [...]
Originality and Writing Is There Anything Original?
I don't like those Facebook quizzes that tell me that I'm a 75.7% match with someone I barely know on movie preferences. I don't want to know how very, very like other [...]
Auburn Soccer Season Kicks Off On Friday Night Vs. Grambling The Auburn soccer team will kick off the 2008 season and head coach Karen Hoppa's 10th year at the helm of the program on Friday night at 7pm CT against Grambling at the Auburn Soccer Complex. Auburn [...]
