Just checking some email while at Botcon 2006 and found something interesting. Take this with the usual grain of salt, but thissite is linking to a flikr image that appears to be packaging for the Nintendo Wii’s motion sensitive controller. I mirrored the image below for your perusal, but remember this is far from anything definite so consider this to be merely a rumor for now.

[via Digg] 

 

For the past few weeks, people have been talking about Link’s sudden change in dexterity in the upcoming ‘Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’.  Traditionally, Link has always been left-handed, until now…sort of.  According to Shigeru Miyamoto the game was simply mirrored, flipped completely, to enhance the sword combat.  Since the player will be using their right hand to swipe, the game was originally designed to have enemies attack the player from the left, so it was easier to just flip the game’s display horizontally.  Interestingly enough, Link will be left-handed in the Gamecube version of the game, and all of the maps will be left in their original form. 

Thanks to Maxcon for the find!

No, it’s not old news–it’s a week old rumor confirmed!  Game Informer did some peeking around Nintendo’s Offical Japanese Wii site and found some interesting info.  They list over 100 titles in development for the console including ‘Animal Crossing’, ‘Kirby’ and a “Gun Shooting Game” from Sega.  It also lists two new first party titles called “Forever Blue” and “Eye Shield 21”.

For days I’ve been wondering how much in Canadian money the Wii would go for. Speculating with friends and coworkers I assumed it would be in the whereabouts of 300$ as we always seem to get the short end of the exchange rate. Well I got tired and wondering and visited Nintendo of Canada’s website. Right there for everyone to see since September 14th was the announcement that the Wii console would launch in Canada on November 19th for 280$.

With a very appealing 1.10% exchange rate when compared to the US this is great news for Canadian gamers who are far too used to in excess of a 50% markup for some products such as comics.

Boy, there has been a lot of Wii news this week. And with all the press releases and announcements, it was almost easy to overlook that Nintendo showed off new videos at their press events. Note: all links are to Windows Media, but there are Quicktime versions available.

First up, GameTrailers has a legnthy video showing the fishing demo from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Nintendo also released a new all-gameplay trailer, showing off a lot of Link’s abilities plus the widescreen mode.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption had the same demo as E3, but this gameplay video goes over the game a lot better than anything I saw in May. Theres also a better look at the Ridley free-fall boss battle.

Oh yeah, I guess there was Battalion Wars, Wario Ware, and Red Steel too. And a Dragon Ball Z game that looks terrible.

Follow the Japanese and North American press conferences held in the past 24 hours Nintendo’s official Wii website has launched providing some great video coverage of features, information on games and technical specifications of the system too boring to be detailed at a press conference.

Movies featuring a user interaction with a number of features of the Wii channel give a good insight into what the menus and such will look like. The fact that wide screen displays are used in all these shows great promise for the possibility of widescreen support for many titles. This page gives a nice explanation of many of the services offered.

We get a nice rundown of some choice games. Wii Sports, Zelda, Wario Ware, Excite Truck, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid, Mario Strikers, Big Brain Academy and Batalion Wars are featured. There’s also another 42 games listed to be released by March 2007.

The Japanese version of the page features a great video combining clips of many games and some bozos playing them.

Now some noteable things about the Wii’s hardware.

– It’s tiny
– Wireless capable out of the box using a wireless 802.11 b or g
– Can be networked using a USB 2.0 LAN adapter which I figure is something you plug into one of the USB slots to accept an ethernet cable that does not seem to be included with the system
– Backwards compatible with Gamecube games, 4 controllers and 2 memory cards (which will hopefully support the Microphone peripherals)
– Stadard DVD sized discs for games
– 4 Wii remote capacity
– SD memory card slot
– AV Multi-output port for component, composite or S-video which, if as described is a single port, is not the same port we’ve seen on the SNES, N64 and Gamecube alike. Great to see them supporting component video again after removing it from later models of the Gamecube
– Blu-Ray

Here’s the run down in bulleted form for ease of reading.

• American Release: November 19th
• Wii includes Wii Sports game
• One color, white, in initial shipment
• One configuration available
• MSRP: US$249
• First Party games will be priced at US$50
• Wii Sports includes:
  • Wii Tennis
  • Wii Baseball
  • Wii Golf
  • Wii Bowling
  • Wii Boxing
• Zelda: Twilight Princess available at Launch
• Expecting 30 launch titles
• Virtual Console called Wii Channels
• Shop Channel for buying old games
• Disc Channel is for 130 Gamecube games(?)
• Mii Channel – lets you make an avatar and store it on your Wii-mote
• Wii Digital Photo Viewer (plays videos too!)
• Internet access with Opera Browser
• Cost of extra Wii-mote: US$39.99
• Cost of extra nunchuk attachment: US$19.99
• DS and Wii interaction will be announced in the future (seems to be a secret still)
• Wii comes with:
  • Console
  • cables
  • sensor bar
  • one wii-mote
  • one nunchuk attachment

I’ll make this pretty later, but there you go. The Wii. Coming November 19th.

Info from Engadget’s Live Blogging of the NYC Press event.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer has an article reporting a November 19th 2006 release date for the Wii at a price point of 250$ US. Shortly after this article was posted it was pulled and gave a 404 error but as of posting this the article is there again. Due to this the accuracy of the information is somewhat suspect until further verification can be made. It’s important to note that the article orginally did not mention the December 2nd release date for the Wii in Japan but rather had that information added to it after the Tokyo press conference with this announcement ended so this article can’t be considered to have been breaking this news accurately.

Here’s the relevant quote in case the article is pulled again:

In a move that may allow Nintendo of Japan to take advantage of stumbles by its main rival, the company plans to announce today that it will release its new Wii video-game console in North and South America on Nov. 19, just as the holiday shopping season begins, and that the machine will cost $250 in the United States.

The article goes on to mention that Wii games will be sold at a price of 50$ US, 10$ cheaper than the competition and that Wii Virtual Console titles will be going for 5 to 10$ US, a statement supported by what we’re seeing out of the Nintendo press conference in Tokyo.