Nintendo this morning announced that its DS family of portable video game systems has sold more than 47 million in the United States since the original model launched in November 2004. The company also said that, according to its internal sales figures, the Wii system has gone over the counter more than 34 million times in the United States alone.
Of those 34 million, roughly 21 million Wii systems were sold in the last three years, Nintendo says. According to the company, the Wii home console marked its third consecutive calendar year with U.S. sales of more than 7 million. → Read More
Help me parse the following sentence: “The record-setting and award-winning Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is coming to Nintendo. Activision Publishing, Inc. will release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on Wii on November 10 in conjunction with the launch of Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2.” Does that mean Call of Duty 4 is coming to the Wii, or some other Call of Duty game? → Read More
Not to be outdone by Gamestop, Walmart is now offering one free Wii title with the purchase of a Wii system for $249. But are the games any good? Hit the jump to find out. → Read More
Did you know that if you buy a Nintendo Wii from GameStop this month you’ll be able to get one of the following games for free? That’s what they tell us! → Read More
This has to be a viral campaign of some sort, but seeing as though we’re on the cusp of a three-day weekend I’ll bite. GameStop is selling three unusual Nintendo Wii bundles that, I don’t know, belie all logic. There’s the “Take a Bath With a Buddy” bundle, the “Pirate Tattoo” bundle, and the “Summer Fun” bundle. Yeah. → Read More
Induction charging equals magic. OK, not really, but if you were to show such a thing to a caveman he’d probably keel over and die. Actually, he/she/it would probably freak out and club someone, which is the exact opposite of what Brendan Fraser did in Encino Man. Sorry, I’m delirious from malnourishment.
Anyway, I’ve had a week with Energizer’s Induction Charging System and so far it works as advertised, sort of. Charging time is, in fact, around four hours. However, I’ve also been using Nyko’s Wand over the last week as well but the Energizer battery pack doesn’t work with it. In fact, you can’t even charge the pack if it’s installed on the Nyko Wand. → Read More
To be quite honest, I’m surprised that it’s taken so long for someone to dig up the old patents for the Nintendo Wii Remote. Not that I’m the type to have gone digging for it, but the Wii has been out since ’06. Well, kudos to Siliconera for doing all the hard work on this one. Other patent images were found for the Classic Controller and Nunchuck, but the Wiimote seemed to have gone through most of the change. Hit the jump for a detailed image of the evolution of the Wii Remote. → Read More
What’s the best way to encourage the adoption of strange video game accessory? Right, bundle it with a popular video game, like Nintendo did with the Rumble Pak and Star Fox 64 nearly 12 years ago. (God, 12 years!) Now EA is helping to ensure that the Wii MotionPlus isn’t a huge bust by shipping it with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10. The game comes out this summer, but no North American prices have been revealed yet for the bundle. → Read More
In case you’re stuck at work or away from your precious Wii, Doug was kind of enough to take this quick video of today’s update to the Wii Menu System. Enjoy. → Read More
Among the many Wii rumors today, QJ was tipped off that Nintendo is working on a “double USB hard drive” for the Wii. Since, you know, storage on the Wii stinks at the moment and only supports 2GB SD cards. → Read More
The storage gods have smiled upon us, friends! Starting this March, Nintendo will sell a 2GB SD card for the Nintendo Wii. Yes, you could have purchased such a card, or bigger, from, say, every other company on Earth, but this one has the official Nintendo Seal of Quality. (Remember that?) As always, Japan gets first dibs. → Read More
Everlast is cashing in on the Wii money train with a pair of $30 boxing gloves. The gloves have straps for the Wii remote. All you do is put your remote in there and punch away. If you already own a pair of boxing gloves—who doesn’t?—you can save yourself some money by whipping out the duct tape because there’s nothing here to make these gloves any different than regular gloves. All of a sudden, Wii Boxing is marginally more realistic. via Kotaku → Read More
This month’s NPD numbers don’t officially come out until Thursday, but a single note written by Lazard Capital’s Colin Sebastian has prompted all sorts of knee-jerk reactions. Lazard says it’s possible that the Wii could see a decline in sales for the month of July. Now, that’s not necessarily because demand has gone down, but could merely be a function of pre-holiday retail wizardry (read: retailers are stocking up for expected holiday demand). More interesting is Lazard’s expectation of some sort of DS and PSP “enhancements” this fall. What that even means, who knows. Besides, I’m pretty sure like 10 of us could get together and form our own research group based on random Digg comments and Web comics. We could call it CG Research 4 Real, or something equally silly. → Read More
Dear gamers, Your body may hurt, may “cry,” if you will, after playing Wii Fit. → Read More
[photopress:wfl.jpg,full,right] Datel has released Freeloader for the Nintendo Wii (which, incidentally, is a lot more fun when you’ve got a nice buzz going, as I found out last night). The unlicensed disc lets you play Wii games from any region on your console. So, if you’re living in beautiful Leeds and want to play, I don’t know, some U.S. game, now you can. It also functions as a cheat device à la GameShark. That’s what I used in my youth, I don’t know the kiddos use nowadays. Wii FreeLoader Allows for Region Free Gaming [Next-Gen.biz] → Read More
This is a new one. Apparently the Nintendo Wii gives off a frequency that attracts cockroaches. This information comes from Japanese web site Barks and has been reported by The Register. Is it true? I don’t know. I can’t read Japanese and I know nothing about insects, including whether or not cockroaches are actually insects. Can any entomologists out there lend any credence to this theory? Nintendo Wii said to ‘attract cockroaches’ [Reg Hardware] → Read More
How long until the shortage of the Wii starts to negatively affect Nintendo? That’s the idea of this one Times piece, which does the usual interviewing people who want a Wii but just can’t find one. Grown adults, snot-nosed kids, you know the drill—the Wii crosses demographic lines unlike any other video game console (or toy, for that matter) before it. Too bad no one can buy it. Some analysts think that Nintendo is artificially keeping the supply down so as to ensure the console’s “buzz” for some time. If that’s the case, not only is Nintendo losing money (estimated to be around $1 billion) in the short term, but those selfsame analysts think that it could be upsetting those potential customers to the point that they’ll skip the Wii and Nintendo altogether. I know one thing: my little brother has wanted a Wii since last Christmas, and if he doesn’t get it this year he could well burn the Christmas tree in protest. A Year Later, the Same Scene: Long Lines for the Elusive Wii [New York Times] → Read More
I hope you weren’t looking forward to a Wii price cut in time for the holidays because it looks like it ain’t gonna happen. Nintendo big wig George Harrison said that the company is still selling “everything [it] can make,” so there’s no reason for a price cut. Apparently $250 is the sweet spot for enough people (or maybe the people who are buying the Wii—older folks with plenty of disposable income—have no problem spending $250 on a toy) that it’s still selling well. Remember when we all used to tease Nintendo for choosing the name “Wii”? I guess people love their Wii Sports. Nintendo says to keep Wii console price at $249 [Reuters] → Read More
Somehow I just don’t see the Nintendo Wii-skateboard connection, but Black Market does. Unofficially, that is. This upcoming skateboard deck—I think that’s what you call them; my Tony Hawk days are long gone—looks a hell of a lot like the Wii remote control. It also doesn’t seem to have Nintendo’s blessing, which means we can expect a lawsuit in 4.2 seconds. I don’t know, would riding around on a Wii skateboard add or remove “cred”? To me, gamers and skateboarders seem like opposing cliques. Black Market via Kotaku → Read More
