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This has got to be one of the coolest Wii ads I have seen so far. If I were the owner of Nintendo, I’d asked my PR department to checkout on Super 78 and track down the person who had come up with the idea for this ad.

To make things a little bit more interesting, Super 78 should create something for competing game consoles as well and see who gets to them first for their next advertising job. By then, my guess is that there could be a lot of USD potentially change hands and someone will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Read [Guardian Unlimited]

Are you a Nintendo Wii owner who’s not satisfied with just going through the motions of swinging a baseball bat or tennis racket or a golf stick? Do you ever wish you were holding an actual bat, racket and/or golf stick? Well, here’s an accessory pack that will satisfy your need: the Wii sports pack. It includes a baseball bat, tennis racquet and golf stick extension that attach to the WiiMote for $22. Of course it doesn’t take a genius to predict that this will cause more window and TV damage than just a (flying) Wii-mote itself. Even if the accessories are safe as advertised and fit the Wii-mote perfectly, in the heat of the moment, furniture (and people for that matter) around the player would be in danger of getting smacked silly. It’s probably a good idea to make sure you have tons of empty space around you before using this pack. On a side note, if they extended that bat a bit, and put a green/blue/purple glow on it, it would really be a cool imitation of a Jedi Light Sabre.

Read [Addict3d] Product [Videogame.Brando] Read [GamerSquad] Read [RoJo]

You had had the time to wait online, drop a few Benjamins, and settle in with your respective next-gen gaming system, whether it be a Wii, PS3, or 360, but you just had to know that eventually your system would be out-of-date. Unlike previous generations (PSOne, PS2, Xbox, Game Cube, etc) these machines can be upgraded with new firmware and added capabilities over the internet, and at some point in time the hardware receives upgrades. Given the Blu-ray drive in the PS3, I expect that we won’t see many changes/additions over its life-cycle except for a larger hard drive and a decrease in size. The Xbox 360 may receive an internal hard drive and internal HD-DVD player to compete head-on with the PS3. What is in question is the Wii. Nintendo Of America president Reggie Fils-Aime dropped an interesting quote in a USA Today article:

“Tough choices about not including a DVD player at the start, tough choices about not including high-definition capability at the start. That’s because we wanted a mass-market price, and we believe the market will validate those decisions come launch day on this Sunday,” Fils-Aime said.

The key phrase here is “at the start.” Wiis currently cannot play DVD movies, but Nintendo has already confirmed that a new model will be able to in the latter half of 2007 (in Japan at least)—not that big of a deal considering most people have DVD players (originally thanks to the PS2 as well as the sub-$50 prices. I believe there will be a major upgrade of the Wii to a next-gen HD format as well as a HD firmware update of 720p/1080i/1080p support once the format war becomes more clear. Do not confuse this with an official announcement from Nintendo, just my speculation. Even though the company is looking to bring on the “casual gamer,” it just so happens that this person is likely to have an HDTV within the next two years and Nintendo will be the only one on the market without a pretty looking picture.

Read [GameInformer]

I caught a quick glimpse of a few Wii hacks on G4’s “Attack of the Show” and just had to post links to a few of the videos. In the process, I naturally found a few others. Hackers have already turned the WiiMote into a:

• WiiTar (a motion sensitive musical controller through a PC)


• Vibrator (via GayGamer.net and SlashDong, of course created by crashing the Wii browser)—NSFW hack


• Wireless PC Mouse (A joystick emulation application - GlovePIE - uses the bluetooth in the WiiMote to control the mouse cursor in Windows XP)


• Wireless Mac Mouse


• RC car controller


• The Uber Controller (Controls home electronics through the WACI NX server emulated through a Nokia 770)

The silliest Wii related hack of all, even though it doesn’t really involve the WiiMote, is that someone actually made their Target Wii gift card blink to music. Looks like they had to hardwire it, but still pretty crafty.

Site [phl] Site [ZedoMax] Site [GayGamer.net] Site [GearFuse] Also [Engadget] And [Joystiq]

As a special “gift” for Nintendo Wii owners, Super Mario Bros. will be available for download Christmas day (Dec. 25, duh) through the Nintendo Shop Channel for 500 Wii Points ($5). As if you didn’t already know, Super Mario Bros. was originally released in 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and has sold 40.2 million copies. It joins the 33 games already in the Wii Shop Channel along with four other games new to the Wii: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES, 800 points), Super Castlevania IV (SNES, 800), Toe Jam & Earl (Sega Genesis, 800) and R-Type (TurboGrafx, 800). Two more games, Baseball (NES, 500) and Urban Champion (NES, 500), will be available on the Shop Channel on January 1, 2007.

Depending on the game specs, downloaded titles can be played on the Wii game system from the system memory using either the GameCube, WiiMote or the Nintendo Classic Controller. Nintendo plans to add games to the Shop Channel at 9 am (Pacific time) every Monday for the foreseeable future.

Read [Nintendo World Report] Via [WiiFanBoy]

Although the Japanese game company has already begun its replacement program for the admittedly defective WiiMote wrist straps, a national class action lawsuit was apparently filed against the Washington-based Nintendo of America before the replacement program was announced. The lawsuit was filed on December 6, 2006, by class action lawsuit specialists, Green Willing LLP, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and contains language that alleges Nintendo violated the Consumer Protection Act by engaging in “unfair and deceptive practices” due to the “defective nature” of the straps.

The suit calls for an injunction that would require Nintendo to correct the defect (aren’t they doing that already) and “provide a refund to the purchaser or to replace the defective Wii remote with a Wii remote that functions as it is warranted and intended” (wouldn’t that be solved with the strap replacement?). The timing does seems to indicate that Nintendo responded by recalling the WiiMotes, though Nintendo has indicated that the lawsuit is “without merit” and they were taking action before they were alerted of the lawsuit. Hmmm…

Read [GameDaily] Read [Green Welling LLP]

Today Toys “R” Us claimed they have “thousands” of Nintendo Wiis, and 6,000 PS3 units ready to be released before Christmas.  Do you think they know how awkward of a time it is to be releasing new units?  It’s unheard of to be releasing new shipments less than a week before Christmas.  But as bizarre a move as it is, consumers will still flock to the stores scrambling to get a unit for their kid (or themselves).  The company has not announced the real number of Wii units they will have in stock… because let’s be honest, “thousands” is quite vague.

Joystiq points out the “fast one” Toys “R” Us pulled on shoppers on Black Friday last month.

But that sounds consistent with previous fast ones Toys “R” Us pulled on consumers when the company baited-and-switched Black Friday shoppers, forcing them to purchase a $450 bundle if they indeed wanted the $250 console. Prospective buyers beware.

Read [Next-Gen] Via [Joystiq]

How does that saying go again? “Patience is a virtue.” Although quite true in many cases, this is one cliché that is especially appropriate for gamers thinking of buying bleeding edge video game consoles at launch. Case(s) in point: look no further than the recent releases of the PS3 and Wii, as well as the Xbox 360 before them.

In all 3 cases, people who were really desperate to get them had to shell out twice or triple the price on Ebay, when they could’ve waited a couple of months and paid the regular price once more shipments came in. You could argue that the people who lined up for days outside the major retailers didn’t wait patiently and still got the console, but try to see it the other way; those are the guys who patiently lined up to get what they wanted, and so did indeed demonstrate great patience.

Now if people would just wait a few months, they might actually get rewarded. For example, there are rumours circulating that Nintendo will re-launch Wii in spring of 2007, with different coloured models (such as those seen in E3), and a price reduction to USD$200! Of course none of this is confirmed, but I don’t see why Nintendo would demo those units at E3 and not release them at all, so there is probably some truth to this rumour.

I think Nintendo has really outmanoeuvred Sony and Microsoft in this battle. They didn’t get sucked into head-on fights and try to build an all purpose entertainment machine (a.k.a. personal computer); instead they built what most people want when they think gaming consoles: a gaming machine at a cheaper and more affordable price.  I also think Nintendo knew they were going to reduce the prices in the near future, so that they would gain even more footing in the battle of gaming consoles. We’ll see if that is the case in the spring, and if so, great move Nintendo!

Read [GotFrag]

The Wii had successful launches in both the U.S. and Japan these past couple of weeks.  The popular console is now set to launch across Europe tomorrow.  It’s quite amazing how Nintendo seems to be having no problems at all keeping supply up with the demand.  Yes, the devices are sold out in the states, but I haven’t heard anybody complain yet.  400,000 units in the U.S., and another 400,000 units in Japan is quite impressive.  Sony - maybe you can learn something from them.

On a different note, Nintendo will launch around 23 new games and 36 additional Virtual Console classics by the end of December 2006.

A video just popped up on digg showing the Wiimote being used to control the mouse pointer on a Windows laptop.  There is no chance this will EVER be in Nintendo’s plans for the device, but what’s a console without some homebrew goodness?

Via [digg]