Since everyone seems to be all talking about important stuff like Pope’s and wars and such, I thought I would lend more of a completely trivial note to my corner of the blogosphere.
I can not wait to see the Nintendo Wii in action in my living room.
For those of you who don’t follow the whole console video game scene, the Nintendo Wii is nintendo’s ‘next gen’ product, and will compete directly against the PS3 and XBOX 360. Last Thursday Nintendo announced that this would be seeing a North American release date of November 19th, and a price tag of $249 which includes a sports game.
The reason I’m pumped about this is that $249 is much less than the XBOX 360, and you could almost buy an XBOX and a Wii for how much they are going to charge for a PS3. Unfortunately my wife informed me that this is still to much for us to buy one particularly soon, but at $249, it is much more likely that I could get one when compared to other possibilities, and I like nintendo games better than most other games.
The super exiting part of the Wii is the new controller. It is a remote that you can hold in one hand, and it detects where the remote is pointing, if the remote moving, and what position the remote is in. So, for baseball games, you hold the remote, and mimic the action of throwing a ball to pitch, and then swing it like a bat to make the character swing. In a driving game, you hold the remote on each end, so it looks like it is laying on its side, and then you literally move the remote the same way you would a steering wheel, and the car turns.
I think a lot more people will enjoy playing video games, and it is exciting that they are packaging a sports game because it will really showcase the potential of the remote. I’m hoping to really enjoy some multi-player games with people who would normally never pick up a video game (like my dad), and at the same time, explore some new depth in some of the classic ‘hard-core video gamer’ type of video games.
Also, they are going to allow you to buy classic NES, SNES, and N64 games over the internet and play them on the Wii for $5, $8, and $10 respectively.
It already sold out of pre-orders on Amazon, so I’m hoping whenever I can afford one, there will be one available for me to pick up. And then, there will be video game parties….oh yes, there will be parties and tournaments.
Gregly says
I don’t know if I’d say it will compete directly with the PS3 and X360. Nintendo knows to aim for a different market — the casual gamer, and their non-gamer friends and family — rather than the “OMG I GOTZ TA HAVE TW0 M0R3 FPS!11!!11!!11” lunatics. Hence why Nintendo’s PR folks say “Hey, give this a shot”, whereas Sony’s PR folks say, “HA HA, you’ll buy whatever we tell you to buy, at whatever price we choose, so SUCK IT.”
Because they know Sony fanboys will.
BigCat says
I hear you there Greg.
I kinda directed the post more at those people who look at the PS3, XBOX360, and the Wii and wonder why we spend money on it at all. Most of those types, as you say, are not or will not be interested in anything but the Wii. So, in that sense they are competing…maybe in a strict shelf-space sense anyway. But
Also, I’m a hardcore Nintendo fanboy. I can’t get enough of their first party titles. it is a shame it has been a while since the put out anything I wanted. I think the last game I bought was Metroid Prime 2.
I really hope mario kart gets some good treatment for the Wii….I’m wondering if a new / more intuitve controller scheme will help me be better at the game, or just make everyone else more competative.