Wiiblog.

(yes, that was lifted from the Daily Show)

I think its a humorous name, so it’s the title of my first poll.

As a slight update to Wiiblog, though not necessarily an update due to Nintendo not posting more Wii Experience videos, ten Wii Experience videos exist at Nintendo’s Wii site.

Nintendo is lacking a large amount of marketing as of yet, even though they are close to within a month of release. These short videos curtail the initial reaction to playing with the Wii and its unique, intuitive remote control. Watch one of my favorite of the initial the videos, just simply because his reaction seems so genuinely excited.

Friday Morning
1am: Upon hearing rumors of people waiting throughout the night for their slight chance to preorder a Wii piques my interest and makes me curious as to whether people will go through with their plan or whether they were just saying that to startle me into waiting. I slowly drive by EB with a look of relief as I see no one waiting in front of EB and no cars waiting around the area. Having seen this with my own eyes, I decide that it was just talk and go home for a quick rest before coming back in the morning.

7am: I eagerly rise out of bed in what I hoped to be an easy experience heading out to the local Electronics Boutique (EB Games) and reserving one of 20 Wii that will be sent to our local store.

8am: I arrive at EB to find approximately 30-40 people standing in front of the EB that is scheduled to open at 10am. The wait for whether everyone in line is here to get a Wii or not begins.

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Friday the 13th will mark the beginning (and most likely end) of Wii preorders at GameStops and Electronics Boutique nationwide. This preorder will allow buyers to set aside a specific amount ($50-$100, the Stillwater employee wasn’t sure) to set aside a Wii system when they are released November 19th.

According to the voice mail I received earlier today, Our local EB will be receiving approximately 20 Wii on launch date, with more to follow with each coming shipment. While this may seem like a minuscule amount, the PLAYSTATION3s Stillwater’s EB will be seeing come launch day (November 17th) is 12 or less.

Although our EB is scheduled to open at 10AM to allow preorders, a few gamers have expressed their concerns of such small amounts of units. One in particular has told me he may end up camping outside to try to stake his place in line. I will hopefully be attending this to see how the preorder situation in Stillwater is handled, as well as to secure my own Wii come launch day.

Nintendo intends to ship 1 million Wiis at launch to try to satiate America’s desire to play with the next new generation of games, as Nintendo has dubbed their console.

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November 19 may be later than what most speculation had been saying. The $250 price is as expensive a price as Nintendo had quoted since they ever explained the price in any way, that time being E3 2006, which occurred in May. It only comes with one control ($39.99) and analog stick ($19.99) with no virtual console attachment ($19.99) (grand total of ~$80 for a set, not including gun and others that may arrive), but at least the US gets a game in the package, which Nintendo has not done at launch since the initial release of the Nintendo Entertainment System.

This was all explained early this morning at a press conference held in New York City. Nintendo of Japan had their conference at midnight CST. The major difference between the US release and Japan’s own release is that American’s Wii will be shipped with Wii Sports, a compilation of 5 simple games to help draw a new crowd to console gaming. Those games being golf, baseball, tennis, bowling and boxing (the last two of which were announced new today).

In related news, Sony isn’t the only one to delay something promised at launch (poor Europe) because Nintendo regretfully admitted today that Retro Studios will delay the release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption until 2007. Not to say there aren’t plenty of other releases for the Wii at launch to satisfy even the core Nintendo gamers.

Check out more on Nintendo’s newly launched Web site.

According to several sources, vast quantities of PLAYSTATION3s have been delayed from launch. Sony at E3 2006 originally set the numbers at 6 million units worldwide by the end of the fiscal year (March 2007). The numbers have been cut to 500,000 “worldwide”, where worldwide specifically means 400,000 for the US, and a mere 100,000 in Japan.

You may be asking, “Hey, what about the people in Europe? Aren’t they part of the world too?” European launch has been delayed until Spring 2007 due to the apparent lack of BluRay lasers on the market.

While this may not be Wii-specific news, it shows Sony seems to be stumbling to gather parts for their units made to be made, and hence, sold. All this time, Nintendo, who decided to go with cheaper, easier to manufacture parts for their Wii, should have no problem meeting the demands of the hungry consumer..

Sony –Kotaku

Nintendo –IGN Wii

Release information should be posted on or after September 14th. Until then, maybe a few speculations.

Oh, and welcome to Wiiblog.