Everyone loves the Wii

I brought the wii to a relatives house on Sunday and fun happened !

Wii-NERDS ROCK !

Yeaaahhh man….I haven’t slept in 5 days !

Watching this video = LOL

Poor Gilbert Arenas….

N’Gai Croal of Newsweek reports that even Washington Wizard’s point guard Gilbert Arenas can’t get a Wii or PS3 using that most powerful of skills: Celebrity. Arenas writes on his blog that if he had called up stores saying he was LeBron (LeBron James) or D-Wade (Dwyane Wade) that he would have gotten a system.

We’re going to go out on a limb here and guess that if Arenas wants a console bad enough he’ll have no problem scoring one on eBay, considering his six-year contract, expiring in 2009, will earn him $65 million. N’Gai Croal ends his piece advocating for Sony or Nintendo to, “Hook a brotha up.” Wish N’Gai would advocate to hook us and a couple readers up while he’s advocating for multi-million dollar earning athletes.

BEHOLD ! The Wii60 !

Well…..I did it ! This morning I gave into the pressure and purchased a Nintendo Wii to keep my X360 company….

 I woke up at 4am and went to BB where I found at least 300 people in line to buy portable DVD players for $29.99 or memory cards for $20 or a crappy LCd for under $500…Needless to say I didn’t stick around….I kept on driving and went to the gamestop inside pentagon city mall….I got there at 5:05am and there was already a line formed. The “leader” said “there is only 9 systems in store” and I was #4 in line. So I waited and when the line started to grow…we were up to 9 by 5:30am. I proposed that we start a “offical list”. We started the list and it grew to 15 by 6am…..The manager let us all in 1hr early (that gamestop wasn’t supposed to open until 7am). But, I got my Wii ,Zelda ,extra controller and Nunchuck !

Karina loves it ….we’ve played baseball ,bowled and golfed(her favorite game so far). It’s true what they say after playing this system for a few minutes …you forget about the graphics (though I still want a component cable…when they become readily available—they are going for $100 on ebay).

PS===I hooked my wii up to the net ..but apparently the weather and news channel are functioning yet. Is that correct ?

Sneak King and 2000 calories !

Well, I picked up a copy of “Sneak King” tonight after the bookstudy. I wasn’t planning to,but Karina was hungry and she actually wanted to play Sneak King since she first saw the youtube video. I’ll give a full review after I get done consuming a chicken sandwich onion rings, diet coke and some fries…..mmmmmm……2,000 calories at 10pm at night……. can’t beat that with a wii nunchuck!

Is Wii Worth It? 3 Reasons Why Many Say, “Yes!”

3. Its cheap

At $250 with a game included, Wii is an incredible value. For the price of a Wii, more controllers, and a few games you’d just barely hit the premium base price of its competitors. Games, too, are cheaper at a $50 MSRP.

And, tho some would have you the believe that the Remote & Nunchuk are an expensive controller combo, I’d like to see you outfit a 360 controller or a SIXAXIS with the tech innards of the Wii controllers. Did it cost you less than 10 dollars to add a speaker, internal flash memory, and an IR transceiver? (…not to mention a rumble motor for the SIXAXIS) I didn’t think so.

2. Its important

SLATE.COM said recently: A good book or movie provides a vicarious experience. A good game comes much closer to being experiential—to actually approximating the real thing. The Wii, Nintendo’s new console, takes gaming a giant leap forward in this journey. Like nothing else I’ve ever played, the Wii comes closest to achieving the grail of gaming: a home virtual-reality machine.

Being the gateway to full-on VR is reason enough for us nerds to snap one up…but, remember: your mother doesn’t care about Virtual Reality (or videogames, for that matter). Yet, the same massive percentage of the population that usually choose books over games is whom Nintendo hopes will make up the bulk of Wii users. What does this mean to you?

Simply put, anyone who has ever used a remote control will be ready to enjoy videogames with you. Finally, wives, mothers and little neices, grandfathers, and all those who are tech-averse in your family (or circle of friends), will see why you spend time and money on this stuff!

On top of all that, the controller is ambidextrous, (equally ergonomic for righties and southpaws) further diminishing an excuse to avoid joining the fun. Speaking of which…

1. Its fun

This the main reason you need a Wii system. Nintendo’s motto during E3 ‘06 rings ever true: playing is believing. I would tack onto that statement “at home” or “with friends” because Wii distinguishes itself as a must-have item when in your natural environment.

What exactly makes Wii so much fun is quite intangible, and therefore hard to quantify or describe. One thing is certain, Nintendo has given EVERYONE something to be excited about.

That excitement has “infected” developers, the media, and fans of gaming. They describe Wii, or present it in playable form, to others around them with rabid enthusiasm…enthusiasm that is absolutely contagious.

I think that developers having fun making Wii games is what contributes to the inexplicable fun-factor. Their passion comes across quite tangibly to the user, even if its just a subtle touch to make a game more intuitive and easy to grasp. You really have to play it to “get it”.

Nintendo garaunteed a product that has a little something for everyone in the family. They promised a system you would want to turn on everyday. They wanted to make a system that could play every Nintendo game ever made.

They delivered.

ZTP = 9.5 on IGN

IGN Reviews Twilight Princess
“The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is, in my opinion, the greatest Zelda game ever created and one of the best launch titles in the history of launch titles – second only, perhaps, to the at-the-time ground-breaking Super Mario 64. It is also one of the finest games I have ever played. The experience is made better and not worse on Wii. The Wii remote and nunchuk add accuracy and speed to exploration and combat for a heightened sense of immersion. …The game has just about everything going for it, including improved controls, a long and engrossing quest, brain-teasing dungeons and some beautiful graphics…Twilight Princess is must-see, must-play and must-own entry into the series that proves over and over again why Nintendo is the best developer in the world.”

Nooch Needs Your Help

 

Mike Antonucci, game guru and co-writer for the A+E Interactive blog, wants your first impressions of the systems launching this weekend. PS3. Wii. Friends reactions, graphics critiques, and hands-on impressions of how the controls REALLY work.

Express yourself here.

DS Second To None During PS3 Launch Week

 

Generally, a new system’s launch is heralded by chart-topping sales numbers. Generally. Nintendo’s DS didn’t loosen its firm grip on the Japanese sales chart throne, asserting its kingship even in the face of a new shiny black nemesis: SONY’s PS3. The DS’s dominance is documented below:

Hardware – This Week | Last Week | Total 2006 Sales

1.) Nintendo DS Lite – 148,174 | 113,097 | 5,625,283
2.) PlayStation 3 – 81,639 | NEW | 81,639
3.) PlayStation Portable – 19,123 | 23,725 | 1,492,596
4.) PlayStation 2 – 16,157 | 20,982 | 1,233,221
5.) Xbox 360 – 3,864 | 6,580 | 95,393
6.) Game Boy Advance SP – 1,320 | 1,443 | 211,205
7.) Game Boy micro – 1,213 | 1,299 | 133,195
8.) GameCube – 496 | 647 | 70,149
9.) Nintendo DS – 279 | 373 | 956,813
10.) Game Boy Advance – 12 | 20 | 3,313
11.) Xbox – 3 | 0 | 1,699

Software Sales – This Week | Total Sales

1.) Common Knowledge Training (NDS, Nintendo) – 102,240 | 451,106
2.) Pokémon Diamond (NDS, The Pokémon Company) – 78,744 | 1,682,896
3.) Kirby: Squeak Squad (NDS, Nintendo) – 77,949 | 244,081
4.) Pokémon Pearl (NDS, The Pokémon Company) – 65,574 | 1,423,990
5.) Kanji Brain (NDS, IE Institute) – 33,932 | NEW
6.) New Super Mario Bros. (NDS, Nintendo) – 27,361 | 3,393,921
7.) More Brain Age (NDS, Nintendo) – 24,166 | 3,412,008
8.) Winning Eleven DS (NDS, Konami) – 23,653 | 112,928
9.) Ridge Racer 7 (PS3, Bandai Namco) – 21,655 | NEW
10.) Gundam: Target Sight (PS3, Bandai Namco) – 21,310 | NEW

[ via CUBED3 ]

You Don’t Have To Take My Word For It..

Various North American media outlets [& blogs with clout] have received a package we’d all welcome: the Wii console, and extra Remote & Nunchuk, and two games.

The games in question? Twilight Princess & Excite Truck. Oh, and don’t forget WiiSports. Make that three games. Fifteen news outlets and their headlines below, notable quotes after the jump..

TIME Instant Wii Play: Nintendo’s New Console Wins the Hearts of Non-Gamers

FORBES Nintendo’s Wii Is A Revolution

LAWRENCE.COM Hardware Review: Nintendo Wii

PC MAGAZINE Nintendo Wii

ASSOCIATED PRESS Review: Consoles Enrich Video Experience

CNN MONEY Nintendo Wii: Funny name, Fun System

CNN MONEY Wii: How Are The Games?

CTV.CA Let The Wars Begin: PlayStation 3 And Nintendo Wii Hit Stores

WINNIPEG SUN Wii Will Rock You: Nintendo’s New Sytem Let’s You Get Right Into The Action

EDMONTON SUN Who, What, When, Where And Wii

EDMONTON SUN Whee Wee Wii

TORONTO STAR Testing The Wii

TORONTO STAR Wii Whets Our Whistle

TORONTO STAR Wii: The Weekend Warrior

L.A. TIMES PS3 vs. Wii: A Battle For Hearts And Thumbs