Latest Nintendo Wii News

If you're a Wii owner, perhaps you awoke to an eerie blue glow emanating from your system this morning. If so, that would be because Nintendo has just released a brand new firmware update for the system.

So what does the free update provide? Well, according to Nintendo it includes:

Wii Menu
The weather forecast will now be displayed on the Forecast Channel icon in the Wii Menu.
Headline news will now be displayed on the News Channel icon in the Wii Menu.
The current time will now be displayed in the Wii Menu.
The area around the Wii Message Board button will now flash when a message arrives..

Wii Message Board
You're now able to rearrange the order of your Wii Friends in the address book.
You're now able to go into the Wii Friends registration screen by pressing the A Button on a blank spot in the address book.
Envelope message icons will now appear on the calendar only on the dates when a message is received.
Your message sending history will now be displayed in Today's Accomplishments.
You can now scroll the message text by pressing the B button on the message screen.

Wii Shop Channel
The search function on Virtual Console has been enhanced.

All together, it's a nice set of additions to the Wii's functionality. Both the weather and news icon improvements are something I've wanted personally for a while now, and the digital clock is a nice touch. The biggest change though is the overhaul of the Wii Shop Channel, which desperately needed a makeover as the VC catalog continued to grow.

Today Opera and Nintendo announced are releasing the full version of the Internet Channel that is powered by the Opera browser. You can download the Internet channel now from the Wii Shop for free. Nintendo says that they have used feedback from the original version of the Internet channel to make a better experience for the entire family.

With all the flack Nintendo took from parents when they found out that kids could get to porn sites on the Wii, it is safe to assume the new release has more parental controls. The new Internet Channel also has a new living room activity for families to use for doing things like researching for school projects and allows the use of multiple remotes to point out items on a page.

EA officially announces MySims - The Sims for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS consoles.

MySims introduces awfully cute characters (photo) that live in a town that you can build and populate during gameplay. Of course you can customize your MySims characters pig-tails and baseball caps to dreadlocks and Mohawks to make them even cuter thant they already are.

If you care to open up your Nintendo Wii, there are now several mod chips available giving you several new capabilities on your Wii.

Metku reviews the Wiinja Wii mod chip which adds the following features to your Wii: Non Swap / Direct Boot, Boots Own Region WII Backups Directly, Boots Own Region Gamecube Backups Directly, Boots Imports Gamecube Backups by SWAP, D2B Drive Support and Improved Read Method, Includes AudioFix, MultiDisc/MultiGames, Support DVD-R and DVD+R (Burn +R on DVDROM Booktype), Universal EUROPE/USA/JAPAN Wii Console Supported and Stealth Mode.

Here's a company where you can start your own online store and sell products including the Nintendo Wii without actually carrying any inventory. You set the price of your sales and pay only for the wholesale cost of the product once you have sold it. They also take care of all the shipping for you and have a full service customer support team who you can talk to directly. Choose from over 700,000 products to sell in your own store. Check them out at www.shopster.com for more information.

This week Sony announced that the Sony PS3 in Europe has less support for PS2 games. This is the complete oposite direction Nintendo is marching on with their apparently successful retro games running on the Wii virtual console.

Almost every week new retro game appear on the Wii virtual console bringing back titles from console classics like the Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, NES, SNES and N64. I could not find hard numbers on how well the classic games sell, but the community and blogs are gobbling up every virtual console release.
This week the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time raised lots of attention and also Sega made some waves releasing new Genesis titles like Vectorman and Sonic Spinball.

Still I do not understand why Sony is not even supporting PS2 games on the Sony PS3, so people can at least get rid of one box in the living room.

I heard several stories that small kids tend to hit each other while playing the Wii with the wiimote. It is a genius idea to offer a foam Sports Pack for the Nintendo Wii to avoid injuries.

Performance Designed Products (Pelican) introduced the Nerf Sports Pack at the Toy Fair in NY. It consists of a bat, tennis racket and golf club, similar to the plastic sports pack we reported a while ago.

Here are 10 titles that everyone should be anticipating in 2007.

10. Project H.A.M.M.E.R. - You will use the Wiimote to smash things in a completely destructible environment.

9. Sonic and the Secret Rings - SEGA could really add some value back into a dying Sonic franchise with a good showing in this game.

8. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers - This game definitely carries a lot of potential, especially if SquareEnix creates a multi-player mode

7. Wii Play - This game could turn into Wii Sports x 2. Imagine the same great game play of Wii Sports along with more games and depth. This might be the multi-player game of the year.

6. SSX Blur - This game's biggest feature might be the unique controls. The nunchuck controls the racer on the ground and the Wiimote controls the racer in air.

5. Animal Crossing Wii - The game is heavily rumored to redefine the series by using Miis instead of the trademark animals.

4. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - This game might deliver the first great FPS experience on the Wii

3. WarioWare: Smooth Moves - Tons of crazy mini-games use the unique controller better than any other game on the system so far.

2. Super Mario Galaxy - This game might just redefine Mario as we know him.

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - If Nintendo can get some on-line play in the game, we might see the best console fighter of all time.

Nintendo sold 1.1 million Wii from launch through till the end of the year. Sony came in a distant second selling 687,300 Playstation 3s. Comparably, Microsoft sold 607, 343 from their launch date in Nov. 2005 through the end of that year. (Microsoft has sold a total of 4.5 million Xbox 360's since their launch in 2005) So, apples-to-apples, Nintendo came in first, Sony second and Microsoft third, with Nintendo nearly tying the second and third place combined.

Nintendo recorded the most successful across-the-board holiday performance in U.S. video game history.

The Nintendo Wii sold more than a million in just the 44 days between U.S. launch and year end. Every Wii available at retail was gone.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was purchased by an 86% of Wii buyers, or more than 900,000 games for that system alone. That is quite a sick success. Wii owners purchased an average of three additional games. Nintendo also sold 1.5 million extra Wii controllers. I guess that number counts Wiimotes and nunchuks extra.

The Wii is still a hard find.

If your imagination is not good enough to imagine the Wiimote being a Tennis racket while playing Wii tennis you might want to get these plastic extensions for the Wii remote control.

Brando sells a package consisting of a Tennis Racket, Golf Grip and Baseball Bat that attaches safely and quickly to your Wiimote.

The make-it-realistic Wii Sports pack sells for $22 on Brando.

Fancy accessing the bulging iTunes library on your PC or Mac from your Wii? Well, you can, thanks to an application called Dot.Tunes.

You install it on your computer, and then use the Wii's Opera browser to navigate to your collection and play songs. It's unclear whether this includes protected songs bought from the iTunes Store, but it's still a pretty cool feature.

That said, it'd be nice for Wii to have its own slick music-playing software, a bit like iTunes. Hopefully that's something that Nintendo's got up its sleeve for the future.

Looking for something interesting to do with that sweet new Internet Channel on your Nintendo Wii? Point your web browser to www.finetune.com/wii and you'll find an internet radio site optimized for your Wii. The site is currently in its beta stage. Functionality as a whole is somewhat limited but the auto playlist feature still worked great on my Wii. This is even more fun when you create an account with them at finetune.com because you can create your own playlist from your PC or Mac and stream it to your Wii.

Nintendo and Opera Software are teaming up to bring the Internet to the living room! A free beta version of the Opera Web browser will come in handy as Wii owners who are connected can activate the Wii Shop Channel and can download a free beta version of the Opera browser to activate the Internet Channel of the Wii Menu and begin surfing the Web.
So now the Wii just got handier for non-gamers.

Nationwide suit seeking class action status filed against Nintendo for defective Wii remote straps.

Days after Nintendo announced a voluntary replacement program for 3.2 million faulty Wii remote straps, a lawsuit filed against the company has come to light. Green Welling LLP has filed a nationwide class action lawsuit on behalf of owners of the Nintendo Wii against Nintendo of America, Inc., in a U.S. District Court of Washington.

The suit, according to Green Welling, seeks to "%u2026 enjoin Nintendo from continuing its unfair or deceptive business practices as it relates to the Nintendo Wii. [Also] to correct the defect in the Wii remote and to provide a refund to the purchaser or to replace the defective Wii remote with a Wii remote that functions as it is warranted and intended."

Nintendo said Friday it will replace 3.2 million straps for its popular Wii computer game controllers after receiving numerous reports that the device flew out of the hands of players.

Nintendo will allow customers to exchange the old straps, which have a 0.024-inch (0.06-centimetre) diameter, for a beefed up strap that has a diameter of 0.04 of an inch (0.1 cm), company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said. The worldwide exchange is expected to cost the company several million dollars.

This is possibly the cheapest recall in history for such a mass market product. It is just a strap. AP reports that the Wii strap recall will cost Nintendo only $1 million.

Wii Remote Wrist Strap Replacement Request Form

Original thinking said that PS3 would be the hardest thing to find this year, but it turns out that the title belongs to the elusive Wii. While PS3s are not even close to readily available, it seems that finding a PS3 for sale is an easier task than locating a Wii - something that is completely contrary to what most gamers were figuring before either console's launch. Read the full article here: Daily Tech

Nintendo says that they sold 50,000 Wii consoles within the first 12 hours of the launch in the UK. That means that one Wii sold every second.

The Wii is sold out in the UK and I guess also anywhere else in Europe.

There is some confusion about how many Wii consoles will Nintendo ship until the end of 2006.

The original sales goal for the Nintendo Wii was 1 million. In a media alert the company removed a passage in a press-release stating this sales goal again, according to GameDaily Biz.
On Friday Reuters reported that Nintendo already sold 476,000 consoles in November. A couple days ago we cited a Bloomberg article that said 600,000 Wii consoles have been already sold.

So the question is if Nintendo still wants to or can ship 1 million Wii consoles or not.

It seems that stories circulating around the web about hapless gamers flogging their Wii's during heated action and having the wrist strap break, leading to busted TVs have prompted Nintendo to change the design of the Wii strap.

It seems that the Wii wrist strap has gained significant girth over the original to combat the Wii strap breakage. Word has it that currently only the Australian Wii consoles have the thicker straps.

The Nintendo Wii web browser from Opera is possibly still coming before Christmas. The Swedish Nintendo site had briefly information up that pointed to a December 23rd release date. You can watch a video of the Wii browser in action here: Wii Channel

Nintendo was able to sell 600,000 of their new Wii consoles in the first 8 days in the United States.

Sales of consoles, games and accessories totaled about $190 million says a report on Bloomberg.

Premier tech reviewer Walter Mossberg tested the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3 side-by-side. His verdict: "Our Test of New Game Systems Finds Cheaper, Simpler Wii To Be More Exciting and Fun".

Quote from the review:
"But the Wii won our hearts for one reason: It uses a wireless controller that can detect your arm and hand motions and transfer them to the screen, so that you can physically control the action. This opens up huge possibilities. In sports games, you can actually swing a baseball bat or tennis racket or golf club." Read the full review.

In a new Reuters report about web sales of Black Friday some interesting numbers from eBay are mentioned regarding Wii and PS3 auctions.

For starters eBay had the most traffic last Friday of all online retailers (7.5 million unique visitors).
From November 17th to November 24th 14,675 Sony PS3 consoles have changed hands for an average price of $1,186.63.
In comparison the Nintendo Wii sold 26,708 times from 19th-24th of November on eBay. The average price for the Wii was $412.

eBay is clearly benefiting big time from the limited supply of the new video game consoles.

The November sales number have been released and the Nintendo Wii is outselling the Sony PS3 by a 2-1 ratio. Below is a list of the number of units sold in November 20006:

Playstation 3: 195,000
Wii: 476,000
Xbox 360: 511,000
Playstation 2: 663,000
PSP: 413,000
And surprisingly...
Nintendo DS: 920,000
Game Boy Advance: 639,000

Wasn't the Game Boy Advanced released like 5-10 years ago? Click here to read the full article: CNNMoney.com

The Nintendo Wii console launched at midnight in the United States in special launch events in New York and Los Angeles.

Gizmodo reports that the Toys"R"Us store in New York had 5,000 Nintendo Wii consoles in stock.

It should be much easier to get a Wii then it is to still be able to get a Sony PS3. We will see how Sunday plays out and if there are enough Wii in stock in the malls and online.