I am sitting in a cyber cafe near the Game in Oxford Street, following the announcement of the European launch of the Nintendo Wii. Apparently:
'Scuse my language for a minute as I say "Holy fuckin' shit!". Finally one of the major games companies learns that those of us obsessive about rhythm action games don't care that we can't read them, and those of us obsessive about Japanese RPGs will willingly learn to read Japanese to play the game first.
The console will initially be available in white only, but other colours will follow. It won't contain a DVD player, but we all have a ton of those already. The controllers will be available in four colours: white, black, blue and pink (for the girls), and will be customisable in some way.
What Europe's getting isn't exactly the same as Japan. Apparently they're not getting the free game, instead getting six months free use of Opera, the web browser that'll be available for the Wii.
Also - Nintendo have finally decided to stop treating Europe like the third world of gaming. Now, all first-party games are going to go straight from Japan to Europe for translation, rather than having to go through America first. We had to wait 18 months for some games (e.g. Animal Crossing on the GameCube) because of the need to translate them into American English before sending them here :/ No more!
So - this is hot news!
Oh yeah, I met the guy who's the voice actor in the Mario series too. He plays Mario, Luigi, Wario, basically all of the characters. Photos to follow when I'm back home
Edit: Photos now up.
- It's coming out on 8th December 2006, one week after the launch in Japan
- It'll cost £179.99
- It's coming with a free game - Wii Sports. This includes five sports: baseball, bowling, table tennis and, er, 2 others. This is the first time a console's been launched with a free game since the launch of the SNES!
- If you buy a second controller, you get another free game - Wii Play.
- All first-party games will be widescreen!
- And the best news of all: The console and all first-party games will be region-free, so you can legitimately import and play games from any region!
'Scuse my language for a minute as I say "Holy fuckin' shit!". Finally one of the major games companies learns that those of us obsessive about rhythm action games don't care that we can't read them, and those of us obsessive about Japanese RPGs will willingly learn to read Japanese to play the game first.
The console will initially be available in white only, but other colours will follow. It won't contain a DVD player, but we all have a ton of those already. The controllers will be available in four colours: white, black, blue and pink (for the girls), and will be customisable in some way.
What Europe's getting isn't exactly the same as Japan. Apparently they're not getting the free game, instead getting six months free use of Opera, the web browser that'll be available for the Wii.
Also - Nintendo have finally decided to stop treating Europe like the third world of gaming. Now, all first-party games are going to go straight from Japan to Europe for translation, rather than having to go through America first. We had to wait 18 months for some games (e.g. Animal Crossing on the GameCube) because of the need to translate them into American English before sending them here :/ No more!
So - this is hot news!
Oh yeah, I met the guy who's the voice actor in the Mario series too. He plays Mario, Luigi, Wario, basically all of the characters. Photos to follow when I'm back home
Edit: Photos now up.
.