Perhaps poor marketing is holding back Wii U sales for Nintendo. As Spike TV’s GTTV host Geoff Keighley noted on Twitter, a new campaign from Nintendo is using flyers to show just how awesome the Wii U is.
Except, instead of going after console rivals Nintendo decided to aim its attack at its own, older-generation console the Wii. To be fair, the Wii is probably the strongest competitor to the… → Read More
What I’m about to say is undoubtedly going to piss some of you off. And that’s fine. Because in a few years, I’ll be right and you’ll look silly.
While everyone is focused on the next generation video game consoles from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft — the latter two of which should be coming later this year — Apple is going to dominate them all. And it won’t even be that… → Read More
While Gamestop is reporting record Wii U preorders and sales, it looks like the Wii gray market is in full effect, driving prices of the console into the thousands as unyielding children barrack their parents into buying them the latest and greatest this holiday. → Read More
Six years ago, almost to the day, I remember sitting on the couch with my then one-year-old son playing Elebits on the recently launched Wii. I thought he’d understand the simple point and shoot game. It was sort of a shooter. You walked around a house and aimed at the little characters. He was enthralled.
I was a new parent and I was showing him the magic of the Wii – Nintendo’s… → Read More
The Wii isn’t exactly the hottest console on the market anymore, and the lack of HD support makes it less than ideal for watching videos, but that hasn’t stopped YouTube from finally launching its official Wii app today – just six years after the launch of the Wii. → Read More
Nintendo has dropped the price of the Wii console to $129.99. Of course, this is to keep pace with holiday demand and maintain an edge in a market that’s turned more difficult for the gaming company.
The value package includes a black console with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort on a single disc, along with a black Wii remote and Nunchuk controller. This replaces the current $149 version that… → Read More
According to WiiUDaily (and we’re confirming), the games shown at E3 are native at 720p resolution, a considerable step down from the 1080p, 3D-pumping action coming out of the 360 and the PS3 in many cases. Although there is no absolute proof that the Wii U launch titles will all be 720p, the site noted that “the representative couldn’t confirm whether the games can be upscaled to 1080p, only… → Read More
The folks over at Hulu originally promised Wii users would have access to their Hulu Plus streaming service by the end of 2011, but things didn’t exactly pan out the way they had hoped. Well, after a few extra months of waiting, the Nintendo-faithful are finally being rewarded for their patience: the Hulu Plus app can be downloaded from the Wii Shop Channel.
The app itself is free, but actually… → Read More
3DS sales have picked up lately, but Nintendo‘s financial numbers are still weak. Big N today released [PDF] another set of disappointing results for the first nine months of its fiscal year (April to December 2011). The company lost a whopping US$630 million, compared with a profit of US$635 million in the same time frame last fiscal.
Sales were down 31.2% year-on-year to US$7.2 billion. → Read More
Japan’s video game industry is the world’s second biggest (after the US), but it’s on a downward streak for the fifth consecutive year. Based on sales, the country’s video game industry has contracted by as much as 8% year-on-year, Japan’s biggest gaming magazine Famitsu is reporting [JP].
Between December 27, 2010 and December 25, 2011, Japanese game companies generated US$5.9 billion in… → Read More
They have been fighting against the concept of making customers pay for extra game content for years, but as previously reported, Nintendo has now changed its strategy. According to a report by Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Nintendo has chosen Fire Emblem as the first game on the 3DS to offer paid download content.
Fire Emblem: Kakusei, the latest title in the classic RPG series, is… → Read More
The Famitsu, Japan’s (and maybe the world’s) biggest video game magazine, has tested Zelda Skyward Sword (the newest Zelda game for Wii) in their newest issue. And apparently, they liked what they played: as the first game this year, Zelda Skyward Sword scored a perfect 40/40 score.
The four testers gave away ten out of ten points each, making the Wii title the third in the Zelda series to get… → Read More
Hulu Plus has long been missing from the Wii leaving Netflix as the only major streaming service on the gaming console. But that changes soon. Nintendo just announced that Hulu Plus will soon be available on both the Wii and the 3DS. The exact launch data wasn’t announced, but the release states that that the service will hit “both systems by the end of the year.”
This comes as Nintendo is… → Read More
I remember the time when you were either a Nintendo kid or a Sega kid — assuming you were lucky enough to have one of the consoles at all. You’d ask your friend if they had played Super Mario Bros 3 warpless, and they would respond that no, they were still trying to beat their Casino Zone times in Sonic 2. Things would be a little tense after that. And this was a prejudice that I felt would… → Read More
Ever heard of the Wavit remote? It’s totally okay if you haven’t; that’s not what this story is about. The Wavit Remote’s makers on the other hand… Well, they’ve decided to up and sue Nintendo over the Wii. Not only that, but they’ve included other retailers and manufacturers — including WalMart — in the complaint as well. And they’ve chosen the setting most likely to yield a win… → Read More
The Tokyo Game Show 2011 is just ten days away, but Square Enix preferred to hold a separate press conference in Tokyo to announce their next big game, Dragon Quest X [JP]. Perhaps the biggest surprises, after months of anticipation, are that the tenth installment in the 25-year old RPG series will be an online RPG and available on both the Wii and the Wii U.
The full title of the game will be… → Read More
Nintendo is prepping a slightly retooled Wii for a pre-holiday release. This streamlined model sits horizontally (as a game console should) instead of vertically like the original. It’s also slightly smaller, lacks the ability to play Gamecube games, and will likely hit at a lower price.
This move has standard procedure for game makers ever since the original NES. In an effort to revive sales… → Read More
While I haven’t heard any popular outcry regarding the Nintendo 3DS price drop – a quiet that, is, in a way, the most interesting part of the entire affair – Nintendo has decided that it’s time to explain itself to the early adopters. Satoru Iwata, CEO of the company, stated that the move was, in fact, unprecedented, but Nintendo had some very good reasons for cutting the 3DS price: → Read More
Although his statement could be an elaborate prima aprilis prank, Nintendo COO Reggie Fils-Aime stated that the Wii U would be arriving after April 1, 2012 and would co-exist on the market alongside the Wii, DSi, and 3DS. In a Forbes interview Fils-Aime said that the two major Nintendo consoles would be on the market simultaneously until they stop supporting the quickly aging original Wii. → Read More
China has always, as Kotaku writes, “cockblocked” consoles. The reasons are manifold, but the official party line is that a ban on consoles will prevent kids from poisoning their minds with video games and gaming. Considering the market is huge in China, fat lot of good the ban did but that’s how things break down.
Now, however, Lenovo is skirting the ban by selling a home entertainment device… → Read More
At this E3′s Nintendo press conference, we were treated to a nice little dose of Zelda music, and told there would be a sweet 25th anniversary soundtrack, as well as some traveling concerts and a free DSiWare game. All very good, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed at the lack of a collected edition like that issued for last year’s Mario 25th Anniversary. And according to Nintendo’s CEO Satoru… → Read More
A Sega marketing exec, speaking to Gamespot, blurted out that the Wii U will probably launch spring/summer of 2012, a proposition that sounds a bit fishy. We could see Nintendo announcing availability at E3 2012 and then selling it around the holidays, thereby sewing up 2012 and 2013 in terms of console sales, but a spring launch just doesn’t make much sense. → Read More
Let’s ignore that 2010 was the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. because these are pretty sweet Wii Decals. They’re only $7.99 and come in black, red, gold, or white for those non-standard Wiis. Shipping is only $1 for within the states and $2 everywhere else. If SMB isn’t your thing, the Etsy store is loaded with other decals for gaming systems, computers and toilets. [Etsy… → Read More
What would you do if you were Nintendo, sat on a 5-year old console and were about to announce its successor? You would probably lower the price to boost sales, and that’s exactly what Nintendo in the US today did with the Wii. → Read More
The Wii successor/Project Café rumors have died down since Nintendo’s official announcement a week ago, but there’s still a little info leaking out (allegedly) here and here. Today has brought a few more nuggets to the web, so let’s take a look. → Read More
Nintendo posted a new financial report today, and in a nutshell, things aren’t looking too good. The company’s net profit dropped a whopping 66% to $944 million in the fiscal year that ended March 31, compared with $2.78 billion in the same period a year earlier. Revenue in the same time frame fell 29.3% to $12.2 billion. → Read More
Looks like a Wii price cut is incoming. Reports late last night surfaced about a May 15 move to $150 (down from $200), and today internal documentation~! from K-Mart also shows the console moving down to $150. → Read More
This, this is a pretty nifty case mod, and it’s for the Wii—you normally don’t see too many Wii case mods out there. It’s called the Wii UNLimited Edition, and it’s water-cooled. Thumbs up for completely superfluous water-cooling. → Read More
Nintendo hasn’t announced anything, nor have there been any leaks or even indications that Nintendo is doing anything but stay the course. That said, Wii sales have dropped quite a bit since last year, and the Kinect has replaced it as the must-have family-friendly gaming device.
Some would have said that Nintendo should have preempted this decline by announcing a successor last year, but others… → Read More
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