Wii seen outselling PS3 by six to oneBig in JapanBy INQUIRER newsdesk: Tuesday 03 July 2007, 15:04JAPANESE CONSOLE COUNTERS said Nintendo's Wii console outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 by six to one in Japan last month.The success of the Wii and its wiggling stick is shocking onloookers. And on home turf, Nintendo is leaving Sony with barely a pot to point the proverbial at, as the world goes Wii nuts.Japanese publisher Enterbrain reckons Nintendo sold 270,974 Wii consoles during June, while Sony sold 41,628 PS3s. Microsoft's Xbox 360 brought up the rear, notching up around 17,616 sales.According to the firm that makes 2.76 million Wii consoles sold in Japan since it launched in December. Sony, with a month's head start, has sold less than a million PS3s.
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Wii)By Patrick Joynt | July 6, 2007Our exclusive hands-on with the Wii's first lightsaber! We had the good fortune to visit LucasArts' San Francisco offices recently, to get an exclusive first hands-on with the upcoming Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. More to the point, we got to be the first people outside of LucasArts to use the Wii Remote, in its full motion-sensing glory, as a lightsaber in a videogame. And it was fun. If you love the original Lego Star Wars games for their charm, humor and visual style, then being able to swing your Wii Remote to slice your lightsaber through your adorable Lego foes is going to be delicious icing on the cake. The fresh content and revamped prequel levels won't hurt either. If you didn't enjoy the original games, and the sheer joy of swinging a controller to swing a lightsaber doesn't move you, we're not sure we have anything to say to you....To use the Wii's functionality, the Complete Saga team essentially added a layer of motion-sensing controls over the primary set. You can press the Z button to build, but if you piston your arms up and down to pantomime the character's animation, you'll build much faster. Similarly, you can just press the Z button to use your Force powers, but if you direct them with the Wii's controls you'll get a much faster or more powerful response. Although it might not make it into the final build, blaster characters will probably be able to fire their grapples by flicking the remote from down to up. And, finally, you can use the Wii Remote to swing your lightsaber.If you waggle the Wii Remote, a character armed with a lightsaber will swing it with the same abandon you swing. If you jump or double jump first, you'll perform a slam or super slam attack. In addition, if you swing when a bolt is incoming, you'll be able to swat away blaster fire (rather than just having to hold your lightsaber still). Swinging the lightsaber with the Wii Remote is a bit faster than just pressing the trigger, and the effects you generate more powerful, but the real payoff is simply swinging your "lightsaber" in real life.We spent a good chunk of time playing as a few Force-using characters in the Wii version of the game -- Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon -- and were really pleased with the Wii control scheme. It's not the dueling game everyone is hoping for, but it fits the gameplay of Lego Star Wars and the Wii itself perfectly. It's fundamentally more fun to play Lego Star Wars swinging a lightsaber instead of clicking a trigger to make your character swing a lightsaber. LucasArts' task was to make the game a bit more ridiculously fun for adults but to keep it accessible for kids. It's a tall order, but one The Complete Saga looks ready to fill.
Nintendo introduces Wii device for feetSuper skateboarding, Super Waltzing and ski boarding Mario Bros pairBy INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 11 July 2007, 20:12THE PEOPLE that created the Super Mario Bros and the infamous Wii console have introduced a new device which works with your feet.According to the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo introduced a "balancing device" which no doubt will let you do virtual skateboarding and skiboarding and keep you fit.The Japanese company has already astounded Sony by grabbing loads of sales from people who want to play virtual golf and the like and darts without setting a foot outside the house.But now the "balance board" introduced at E3, according to the Journal, will let you do things like aerobics, pushups and other sporty things.We're sure many of our readers remember the era of the "exercise bike", which are no doubt stored in attics and lofts for our grandchildren to find, and wonder about. A virtual Wii bike obviously occupies less space.Dancing is also an obvious niche for Nintendo Wii games developers. Many people love dancing, and if you can be instructed by your TV and Nintendo Wii program to dance the Foxtrot or the Tango, then life could be a real bowl of cherries.If the atmosphere continues to get a bit smoggier, and the temperature hotter, perhaps there will be a time when it's safer to stay in than venture out into the yellow mist outside, no doubt caused by nicotine addicts rather than people driving automobiles on the Yellow Brick Roa
It seems like ages since Nintendo first showed off the Wii Zapper shell -- a controller add-on styled after the classic NES light gun, and a natural fit for the Wii. Shooting stuff with the Wii Remote is, after all, pretty much what the controller was made for. But while the Wii's seen a handful of first-person shooters since its launch, the Zapper's been missing in action since its hands-off debut.Fans of shooty mayhem will be happy to know that Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime announced during today's E3 press conference that the Zapper will finally become a reality. Describing the shell as "the first offspring of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk [attachment]," Fils-Aime showed off the final product: a submachine gun-style shell that uses the remote as the barrel and the Nunchuk as the back handle -- a design that resembles a two-handed version of Namco's GunCon 2 for PlayStation 2... except that it's not a hideous orange color.Several third-party titles are earmarked to take advantage of the Zapper, including Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Ghost Squad, and Medal of Honor. A Wii version of Duck Hunt was conspicuous in its absence, but Fils-Aime did mention that the Zapper would launch later this year at $19.99 with software included. Duck Hunt would be a no-brainer (note to Nintendo: We'd also accept Gumshoe).
Wii pours gold into Nintendo's coffersBoppity bobBy INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 25 July 2007, 12:09CONSOLE FIRM Nintendo saw its net profits soar by four times in its financial first quarter and said it expects its whole year profit to be 40 per cent over its previous estimate.The firm turned in net profit of $669 million, on the back of sales that have doubled.The firm's DS game machine is also doing pretty well.The Wii is the ace in the console joker pack, particularly so as Sony isn't doing brilliantly with its Playstation III and Microsoft has headaches over hardware problems with its Xbox 360.According to reports, the Wii outstripped Praystation sales last month by four to one in America. µ
Ok so I'll be out of the country for good as of next month's end, and would like to try to get on the net at least once with my little white box. The problem I have is that I don't want to waste any money on a router just like dat cuz my home is made of 8"(not 100% on this) Concrete blocks filled with cement and steel, and I would like to know beforehand if anyone has any ideas on how I should approach this. The router would most likely have to be positioned in a room upstairs while the wii would be in a room downstairs. Usin Flow btw.
