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Club Nintendo Japan Members Offered New Premiums
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Club Nintendo members in Japan with enough points qualify for one of two limited time offer premiums that put the freebies in other territories to shame. Club members that have accumulated over 400 points can choose either a battery cover for their Wii remote customized with an image of their Mii or a limited edition DS game Tingle’s Balloon Fight. Either offering is much better than anything Nintendo of America has offered its site members; loud complaining or petitioning Nintendo might help, but such premiums are highly unlikely for the United States.
Read More 
| Club Nintendo Japan
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Japan’s January Virtual Console Titles Announced
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Retro, Wii,
Nintendo of Japan has announced the latest batch of Virtual Console titles to be released in January, and it looks like US gamers will have more titles to envy. While the US has already seen the release of Alien Crush, there are a number of new titles that will hopefully make their way to other territories. NES titles like Ice Climbers, Kid Icarus and Zelda II: Link’s Adventure will be offered, along with Fire Emblem for the SNES and Mario Kart 64 for the Nintendo 64. A couple of Genesis titles have been announced, including Gain Ground and a few more TurboGrafx-16 titles also round out the list. Siliconera has the fully translated list; while there is little hope for a Fire Emblem port, some of the other titles may yet be released in the US.
Read More | Siliconera
The trial version of the Opera Browser for the Nintendo Wii is now available. The browser is available from the Wii Shop Channel, and as promised, currently costs 0 points. The browser takes up around 280 blocks of memory for the Wii and downloads within a minutes. Overall, the browsing experience on the Wii is fairly good; most websites work correctly, including AJAX sites like GMail and others. Flash support seems hit or miss, some sites work correctly and others say that the user needs to upgrade their Flash version. Hopefully the Flash engine will be updated by the time the browser fully releases this spring.
The web browser has a default view that scales web page output to fit the 480i/p screen, but users can zoom in to get a cleaner view of the page, and there is an alternate rendering mode to allow slightly better text rendering at the cost of re-organizing the page. Users can scroll up and down using the “B” trigger on the Wiimote, and the “A” button selects links. The virtual keyboard works surprisingly well, and the Wiimote does an excellent job of acting as a mouse. Overall, the experience appears to be vastly better than the portable browser released for the DS; one could actually do some light Internet browsing and e-mail on the Wii, something that is pretty painful for the DS.
Read More | Wii.com
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December 10 - 17 Media Create Numbers Online
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii,
The Media Create Japanese Software sales numbers for the week ending December 17th have been released and it looks like things have gone back to the status quo in Japan. The first seven spots in the top ten belong to Nintendo DS titles, with Pokemon Diamond and Pearl taking the top two spots. New Super Mario Brothers and the super-popular Love and Berry DS Collection appear on the list as well. The first non-DS title is Wild Arms 5 for the PS2 at the eighth spot. Two Wii titles round out the top ten: Wii Sports and Pokemon Battle Revolution. The week after the debut of Blue Dragon sees that title dropping completely off the top 30, which would appear to be a bad sign for Xbox 360 sales in Japan. Japanese hardware sales should be updated soon, so time will tell for Microsoft’s console.
Read More | eg Japan
Forbes Breaks Down Next Gen Game Costs
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
For gamers with an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, game costs are rising; most games for these new consoles now cost $60, a 20% increase over the previous generation’s games. Many developers claim that the increased capabilities of the new consoles and the ever-increasing complexity of developing games have increased budgets to the point where a price increase is inevitable. With game companies needing to sell anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million units to start seeing a profit, the publishing community is becoming increasingly risk averse.
Forbes attempts to break down the $60 that a gamer will spend on a next generation experience like Gears of War. Some of the interesting costs broken out include roughly 45% for art design and programming, about $27 out of the $60 MSRP. Retailers grab another $12 off the top, with wholesale prices ranging at about $48. A little over 10% of the product’s cost goes towards console licensing fees; this averages about $7 going to the hardware manufacturer for each console sold. Other cuts go to the publisher, marketing, distribution, and packaging for the game.
Despite the additional cost to the consumer, it seems like game publishers and developers aren’t seeing their profitability increase. If game costs do break down like the estimates from Forbes, and game development costs are rising, one has to wonder how long a model like this is sustainable. Nintendo has made a conscious choice not to follow the escalating budget path, while other developers investigate other revenue streams like in-game advertising, downloadable content, and episodic releases.
Read More | Forbes
Wii Opera Beta To Be Available December 22
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Nintendo, Wii,
Nintendo of America announced that a free beta version of the Opera Web browser for the Wii will be available for download on December 22. The browser was initially intended for launch, but it looks like delays have pushed back the final version until March of 2007. Nintendo of America still promises that users will be able to download the browser for free until the end of June 2007.
In addition to the launch of the beta browser, Nintendo’s weather Forecast Channel is set to launch on December 20th, and their News Channel is scheduled to launch on January 27th.
Read More | Nintendo
Nintendo Offering Free Wiimote Strap Replacements
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Wii,
Nintendo of America is offering free strap replacements for those with the original Wiimote straps. The company has already been slipstreaming in the new straps into the supply chain, so not everyone will need to have a replacement sent. Those needed a replacement can fill out an online form with their address and their Wii console serial number. Nintendo believes that the replacement should arrive within 5 to 9 days.
Read More | Nintendo
December 10 Media Create Hardware Sales Numbers Released
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360,
Media Create’s hardware sales numbers for the week ending December 10th have been released, and the Xbox 360 received a considerable bump due to the release of Blue Dragon for the console, moving 35,343 units during the week. This number is the highest the console has seen since launch, and the numbers are respectable but not spectacular. The top selling console this week was the DS Lite, selling 309,630 units. The Wii followed behind with 85,439, and the Playstation 3 came in third with 50,171. One assumes that the Wii and PS3 numbers are heavily constrained by supply. Coming up after the Xbox 360 are the Playstation 2 at 30,460 consoles and the PSP at 28,930 units.
The DS Lite just continues to absolutely dominate console sales in Japan. Microsoft has to be somewhat happy with the bump in sales in Japan. Considering that the Blue Dragon bundle is an insanely great deal on the hardware and software included, the company may be paying a heavy price for this improvement in sales. If Microsoft can ride the wave to further success the cost might be worth it for the company, but if this is a temporary blip, one has to wonder if anything can turn around the console in Japan.
Read More | Media Create
In Two Days, Wii Sells 350K In Europe
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,
Nintendo of Europe has released their sales numbers for the launch weekend of the Wii in Europe, and to no surprise, the sales trends mirror the US numbers. Nintendo of Europe managed to move 350,000 consoles in the first two days of sale. Along with those consoles, Nintendo sold 240,000 copies of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess; ¾ of the people buying the Wii also purchased Zelda. Again, like in other territories, the success of the Wii does not seem to be leeching sales from the DS; Nintendo sold 515,000 handhelds in the same week as the Wii launch.
Read More | Nintendo Europe
Unofficial USB Network Dongle For Wii Found
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, Nintendo, Wii,
Wii owners with wireless networks have support out of the box, but those still operating with wired networks have had only a couple options: either purchase the USB WiFi dongle for one of their PCs, or wait for Nintendo’s official USB wired network adapter. Now, there is a third option. Some forum members from Nintendo’s official forums have found a USB network adapter that will work with the Wii. According to posts on the forum, the KINAMAX USB 2.0 to RJ45 Fast Ethernet 10/100 Base-T Network Adapter will work correctly when connected to the USB port of the Wii. The adapter runs about $20, and should be a good option for those too impatient to wait for an official solution from Nintendo. One of the forum members has uploaded a video showing the adapter in action to YouTube, linked above. Of course, as a non-official solution, users with this adapter should not expect to get any support from Nintendo should any issues arise.
Read More | Nintendo Forums via Game|Life
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