http://news.myjoyonline.com/entertainment/200905/30443.asp

What makes the Queen’s “Royal Wii” different? It’s gold-plated, sucka! None of that lame white plastic for Buckingham Palace — the Queen needs her bling!

The Royal Wii

The Wii MotionPlus

The Wii MotionPlus will be on the shelves early June. It plugs into the Wii remote and allows users exact hand movements to be translated into the game. It’s claimed the sensing technology is a vast improvement over the existing approximated movement response.

“Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10″  from EA will be the first game to be included with new Wii MotionPlus gizmo when it’s released. The game will allow the ability to draw and fade a virtual golf club. It’s anticipated that over 30 million units will be sold in the first 12 months according to Wedbush Morgan video game analyst Michael Pachter.

More info (and conflicting sales estimates) …

This takes some seeing to believe it but luckily we have the video to prove it! This bald Danish boffin has managed to build a robotic lawnmower controlled by the Wiimote! Apparently it will even take your grandma for a walk while cutting the grass.

Imagine what this guy could achieve if he directed his energies towards solving global poverty! Okay maybe that’s a bit too much to ask and actually we think this robotic Wii lawnmower is quite cool.

Check out the video below….

The creators of PaRappa the Rapper including Masaya Matsuura and his NanaOn-Sha development studio teamed up with Majesco Entertainment to bring the first marching band game to the Nintendo Wii, titled Major Minor’s Majestic March. Rodney Alan Greenblat who is currently based in New York will also roll up his sleeves to share his expertise.

It’s great to see another quality game out for the Wii especially from this development team. We follow these guys avidly and always buy their releases. Not so sure about the theme on this one but the name is fantastic. Major Minor’s Majestic March … inspired! We will be giving this one a run for its money in the office that’s for sure.

Featured Inside Page: Wii Game Systems

Using the Wii Remote as a baton, players act as the band leader whose responsibilities involve recruiting new band members and picking up valuable items. Eight locations to explore and 15 different instruments to play should provide ample amount of gaming time. Among your tools are brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments that you have to keep in rhythm while avoiding obstacles.

Again the Wii comes into its own. Without the advanced remote technology games such as this could get tedious pretty quickly. But with the Wii remote we expect this game really comes to life. Looks like the difficulty will be in keeping time to the music and avoiding the various items in your path. This game should appeal to a wide cross-section of the population which is what the Nintendo Wii seems to be very good at.

You even get to impress the crowd in the brief intermissions with your superior baton twirling skills! Good honest family fun.

Source: qj

There comes a time in every system’s life when its parent has to take off the kid gloves and say goodbye. Nintendo might not being doing that just yet with the DS, but the company is decreasing the amount of developers working on DS titles.

Yep this was inevitable and we’re surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Nintendo’s coding teams have not really released all that much which deserves shouting about over the last year. This has allowed more third party developers to develop some decent DS titles in the last 12 months.

That doesn’t mean Nintendo will be facing empty nest syndrome, though. By coddling the DS a little less, more developers can (and will) be able to focus on Wii games.

We just assumed that was happening already what with the lack of titles being made available for the DS over the last year. With the Wii becoming much more popular and many people having to eat their words as far as its popularity is concerned it seems inevitable that energies will be focused more on the Nintendo Wii from now on.

The Wii will surely benefit from this, as more manpower means quicker game releases. As for the DS, don’t fret. The handheld is littered with third-party titles, and it’s not like Nintendo is jumping ship completely on its portable money-printer.

Exactly, it’s just a natural evolution. Wii consoles are selling like hot cakes and it was just a matter of time before Nintendo developers switched their focus on to this new revolutionary console. Many people might be unhappy at this turn of events but we see this as a logical progression. This will further open up the landscape for third party developers for the DS.

Source: nintendowiifanboy

A man on the inside has told Eurogamer that Okami Wii will be out here in summer. He sleeps in the walls.

That sounds a bit uncomfortable! Surely the dude can afford an apartment?

His words scupper suggestions from retailers that it will be out the same week as the US version that arrives on 25th March.

This is great news for me because it’s one of the games I really wanted to see released for the Wii. The other one being guitar hero. Now that they are both going to be available on the Wii I can scrap my plans to buy a PS2.

But Capcom Europe has remained reluctant to comment, leaving us with an initial and probably US forecast of spring to go by.

Hold on a second. I thought the guy who lives in the walls said it was going to be out in the summer. So is its springtime or the summer? I’m pretty sure that in March the UK summer is a long way away!

Okami is an action-adventure that Kristan bangs on and on about, claiming it was his joint favourite game of 2007. Which is probably why he gave it 10/10.

Well I think he’s right to bang on about it. It’s definitely one of my favorite games of 2007 and I think it well deserves his 10 out of 10 rating. We in the office are really looking forward to the Wii version and we hope it has proper widescreen support.

The translation to Wii is being handled by Ready at Dawn of Daxter and God of War PSP fame. Its paintbrush flourishes should fit the controls immaculately.

As far as we know Capcom are pretty much only trying to port the game in the exact same format with a slightly new control scheme. It would be great if they could include some visual updates and some extra content. We’ll just have to wait and see. That’s not to say that the game is lacking content but it would be nice to see the extra power available in the Wii used effectively.

This little number is definitely on our wish list and we’re getting quite excited about this release. We can’t wait to play the game and are confident that Okami will get the critical acclaim it deserves this time around.

Source: eurogamer

In case it wasn’t already obvious, more figures have been released that show that the Nintendo Wii is selling quite well.

Having owned a Nintendo Wii for some time now and since I read Gamespot’s excellent review of No More Heroes I think we can honestly say that Nintendo are making a massive comeback in the home gaming console market. Sony and Microsoft should be worried; Nintendo has made a clear battle cry.

According to an article in Famitsu magazine that quotes data from Enterbrain, the Wii has now sold over five million units in Japan alone.

5 million units is quite an impressive number but ultimately the success of the Wii will obviously be down to how many third party game providers actually produce some quality titles for this unit.

The report also lists the five top-selling Nintendo Wii games in Japan. At number one is Wii Sports, which has so far sold 2,663,938 units; followed by Wii Play with 2,139,084; Mario Party 8 with 1,153,648; Wii Fit with 1,113,626; and last but not least Super Mario Galaxy with 843,961. In Japan, Wii Play comes bundled with an extra controller, as it does in the UK and America, but Wii Sports doesn’t come with the console and has to be purchased separately.

That’s a whole lot of games and those numbers should be enough to convince third party providers that coding games for the Nintendo Wii is a worthwhile pursuit. Many people have been claiming that the Nintendo Wii will sink to obscurity relatively quickly because of the lack of quality games. These people have been proven wrong and these are the same people who slated the Nintendo DS. Wrong on both counts folks; the Nintendo Wii goes from strength to strength it seems. The situation where we have a lack of games for this quality system is possibly because many people didn’t anticipate such a runaway success for this console.

Nintendo’s third-quarter financial results are due to be released tomorrow, and one analyst has stated that he thinks the company is likely to beat its “conservative” estimates of a $14.5 billion guidance, and that it will be announced that some seven million Wiis will have been sold globally.

These fantastic figures make the people who are still bashing the Nintendo Wii sound pretty stupid. It is now the worldwide leader in home console sales and this is a fact which you simply cannot argue with. Nintendo have proven that they can take the home gaming scene to a much wider audience and they have proven this in spectacular fashion. We are definitely rushing out and buying a copy of no more heroes as soon as we can and in the meantime there are a few of us still playing the Dance Dance Revolution Wii!

Source: gamespot

When Wal-Mart accidentally posted the pre-order price of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl at US 19.8, fans jumped on the “deal” with glee. Shortly after, Wal-Mart noticed it and cancelled all the pre-orders which tried to take advantage of the mistake.

The operative word being ‘mistake’. People make mistakes, it happens all the time. We were aware of this amazing price offer from Wal-Mart for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the fibre optics were buzzing all around our office with our users going crazy for this deal. We were caught up in it too and recommended the offer to plenty of gamers who duly pre-ordered.

Apparently, those who tried to pre-order the wrong-priced game got a generic email from Wal-Mart informing them that the retailer acknowledges the cancellation of the transaction on the part of the consumers. Upset, some trooped to the Internet to flame Uncle Wally.

Some of the comments we saw about this state of affairs were downright stupid with people saying Wal-Mart should be taken to court over this … oh please! It was a mistake. A store is well within its rights to amend mistakes which is exactly what Wal-Mart did. I’m not a big fan of the multi national retailer but some people go a little overboard when companies like this make a little error like this. I say we behead the CEO

Wal-Mart is now acknowledging their mistake and is offering a nice apology in the form of a US 10 electronic gift card. Those who had their pre-orders cancelled can use it to shave off 10 bucks when they order Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii at its real price.

Acknowledging that they made a mistake is more than some stores would even bother to do. Oftentimes, in a similar situation, many stores would simply cancel the pre-orders without any notice or explanation. Wal-Mart have actually gone above and beyond the call of duty to inform their customers who pre-ordered and not happy to leave it at that have offered nearly a third of the pricing error off a purchase. Grab it with both hands we say.

Source: qj

It was a stormy night in April, a tornado touched down in our neighborhood, two miles from Walmart. Dorothy (Chris’ mother-in-law), knowing the local Walmart was expecting some Wii’s on this date, called to see if they had arrived.

Note that the words, “a tornado touched down” was mentioned here. These are big, powerful things of nature. They kill people and destroy homes – literally!

The sales associate said they had and she could get them tomorrow. Dorothy stated she would come now. The sales associate said, “Maam we are having a tornado”. Dorothy said, “I know but I’ll be there anyway”.

There’s that tornado mentioned again. OK, find a place that actually has a Wii console for sale and getting the Wii’s for your grandchildren is important, and I certainly can’t fault her on that point, but – I mean, have you seen those tornados? Well, think back to the last time you watched “The Wizard Of Oz.” Yep, it was Kansas, but it was a big old tornado that started the story off. Anyway, here’s how Chris’ story ended…

She drove to Walmart during the tornado just to purchase your product. The tornado did over 1 million dollars damage across the street from Walmart, but no damage to my 71 year old mother in law as she walked out of the Walmart carrying her three Wii purchases (1 for herself).

Well, of course she had one for herself. If the Queen of England can play the Wii (she does!), and she’s 81, then a mere 71 year old can have no problem – regardless of tornadoes!

For the second year in a row, Nintendo Wii video game consoles have flown out of stores before they even reached a shelf. Online retailer Amazon.com sold an average of 17 Wiis per second in 2007. There is apparently no slowing down the cost-friendly giant, even as competitors scramble to develop their own answer to the Wii Remote and Nunchuck.

How do you sell 17 Wii consoles per second? I mean, that’s whizzing through them a bit! You’d be hard pushed to sell two discount wii systems a second if it were me, let alone normal priced ones, and 17 per second at that. OK, I guess it wasn’t always the same sales assistant. And if it was, then he or she certainly didn’t get too many bathroom breaks…

Now that Nintendo is predicting 14 million Wii consoles sold through March 2008, the bigger question becomes “what games do I plan on it?” Besides the obvious hot hits, there are approximately 65 new games in the pipeline for the first half of this year, and Nintendo has been kind enough to let everyone know what they are.

Well, March is but a matter of weeks away. So, who is going to buy the 14 million consoles? I’d have thought everyone who wants a Wii already has one. But apparently not. And 65 new games – more than one a week. Now, that’s the kind of game support I like to see!

The list reveals some previously postponed games have been given a new time line for release. Wii Fit, originally slated for this month, has now been lumped into Q2 2008. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, is on tap for this summer. And Mario Kart is on tap for this spring.

Nintendo have had their problems, mainly in getting their finger out and waggling. But it seems that they are finally getting it together. It will soon be spring. Mario Kart? Yes! For me at least…