Archive for the 'Noteworthy' Category
Page 4 of 19
Today’s shorts for 21 September 2006.
- USBCell provides a rechargeable NiMH battery in the shape of an AA battery to use in normal devices (above) [link]
- Office 2007 details revealed for Mac, including new UI, with the ‘ribbon’ from Office 2007 for Window [link]
- Microsoft steals Zune P2P idea from WeedShare? [link]
- Apple sells 125,000 movies on the iTunes store within the first week of its launch [link]
- iTV has Hard-Drive, well according to Disney’s Iger, the answer is yes! [link]
It turns out that the both the Wii itself, and first party games will be region locked. This comes as a blow to many who felt that Nintendo made a good decision in keeping the Wii region-free. Nintendo of America’s Vice-President of Marketing & Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan stated that “Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction.” However, a US spokesperson told Joystiq that the Wii will be region locked;
“We’ve heard conflicting reports from lots of folks out there, but can tell you that Wii will be region encoded, as will first-party software.“
Similarly, a UK spokesperson told Gameindustry.biz that “We are region-locked”, and that the US part of Nintendo had made a mistake saying otherwise. So it seems that editors at Wired’s Game|Life miss-interpreted Kaplan’s comments, and thought that by saying that software may be region-free, she meant that the console was region-free as well. But this still contradicts what the US spokesperson told Joystiq, that first-party games will be region locked. Either way, the console itself will be region locked, and most likely the games will be too. So no importing of games from Japan!
[via IGN]
And it’s green! Leave it upto Nintendo to do such a radical and cool thing to the dev kits. I think it looks very retro. An anonymous tip was sent to Engadget with this, and another 4 photos of the Wii, including multiple angle shots. There is a photo of it next to a keyboard, which just puts into perspective how small the thing actually is. Click on for all the photos at Engadget.
We have a European launch date and price! Though it is much later than the US and a few days later than the launch in Japan, at least it will be here before Christmas. The 360 launch was similar last year. The Wii will be on sale on December 8th throughout Europe for £179 / €249 EUR. The Wii will also include the Wii sports package, like in the US. Games will cost between £34-£39 / €49-€59 EUR. Launch games include the Legend of Zelda and WarioWare: Smooth Moves.
You can read the full UK press event details at Eurogamer.net
Before I get to my other posts, there has been a lot of Wii information released today, and I don’t have the time to post about them all, so I’ll give you the lowdown:
- USA TODAY have posted an article detailed the release information of the Wii, as well as the box that will be used (above). [link]
- Games downloaded to the virtual console, will be tied to a user’s Wii account, so that in the event of something happening and all the games are lost, then they can all be re-downloaded for free. [link]
- USB storage is initially limited to flash drives, and USB hard-drive support is not yet included, however they have not yet planned any USB hard drive compatibility yet. [link]
- First-party Wii titles (ie, produced by Nintendo) will be region-free, however whether 3rd party games will be locked, is upto the manufacturer. It is not yet known though whether GameCube titles, which are region locked, will play in all Wiis, though they are supposedly fully compatible. [link]
- The Wii will not be supporting DVD playback of films. Kerrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America’s vice president of marketing and corporate affairs confirmed with IGN today. The decision was made because it made the Wii cheaper, and that most people already have DVD players, so there is no need for the function. [link]
- Wii Sports, which is bundled with the Wii, will include Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling and Boxing. [link]
That about covers it! I told you there was a lot, I’ll bring you more news as it comes as European pricing has not yet been disclosed.
It looks like Northa America will be getting the Wii earlier than Japan which is quite strange. The details were also spilled early in by Seattle PI, then removed and re-instated. But at Nintendo’s NYC press conference the details were official revealed. The Americas will receive the Wii at a MSRP of $249 USD (or $280 CDN in Canada), in only white (therefore one configuration). Wii Sports, a game that has bowling, tennis and other sports games will be bundled with the console. Signiture game titles are Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Excitetruck both of which are available at launch. These first-party games will cost $49.99 US, and there are a lot of third-party games as well.
“These titles represent fantastic trio of first-party titles. There’s nothing like Legend of Zelda, first time we’ve had a Zelda title on launch. Gives us a huge boost and momentum right out of the box. We will continue to make those big masterpiece titles for the core gamer. Because of Wii remote and nunchuk, this Zelda game plays like no other. If you played all day, you’d only scratch the surface. This is the best gotta-have-it title since Mario 64.” – Reggie
A new section has been created in the Wii menu. Called Wii channels these offer different areas, ie) games, news, shop, weather, etc. A downloaded classic game will have its own channel. Starting on launch day, until the end of year, Nintendo offer 30 legacy titles. Next year, ten new titles will be released a month. 500 Wii Points for NES Games, 800 Wii points for SNES, 1000 for N64 Games. 2000 Wii Points for $20 USD. Wii points are used to buy things, like MS points for the 360. 2000 Wii points will go for $24CDN in Canada.
You can read Engadget’s full article, giving you a blow by blow of the event with photos.
Today at Nintendo’s Japanese Wii Conference, they revealed the pricing and more details of the Japanese launch for the Nintendo Wii. Japan receive their Wii on December 2nd, which is less than a month after the US get it (November 19th). The price will be 25 000 yen, which includes tax. That is roughly £113 or $213 USD. Nintendo’s Japanese press release states that the following will be included with the Wii:
- Wii Console
- Wii Remote with strap
- Nunchuck attachment
- Wii AC adapter
- Wii A/V cable
- Wii Console Stand
- Sensor bar
- Sensor bar stand
- 2 AA batteries
Joystiq has some sources, and used Engadget’s Japanese translator to get most of the information. Photos are from Japanese blog Famitsu. European and US details have been revealed at separate conferences, I’ll post more details on that later.
When Microsoft announced that they are releasing Windows Vista RC1 I immediately went to download it. I didn’t in the previous BETA because I didn’t want to destroy my dad’s Windows PC. But now he wants to try it out so we downloaded it. However I realised that I needed to become a part of the Customer Preview Program to do this, which I didn’t sign up to back in June. However I found a good trick to get a key (this is legit and actually works!). The original site crashed but I managed to get the form (below). There is also another link you can follow, but I’m not sure whether that works for all countries, or just the US. Either way you can try them both 
So select your country and press go.
Note: You will need a Windows Live account (Passport.net account) to sign in.
The shorts for today (and some from the past) are:
- Rotating Lego Chaingun that shoots elastic bands at 11 rounds per second – with video [link]
- Why Linux doesn’t need defragging (good article) [link]
- World’s worst hacker – IRC transcript (absolutely hilarious) [link]
- iTunes 7 for Windows includes a Software Update like app to update Quicktime and iTunes [link]
- Joystiq’s Wii rumour roundup [link]
Although this is a couple of days old, I thought I should blog about it because it is really unique. You may have seen somewhere on the internet, devices that are portable versions of old consoles — ie, the N64, NES, etc — well this is like that, except it is unbelievably small. Folded up it seems smaller than the 360 itself, with a full keyboard and 17″ High-Def monitor. Now that is true portable gaming! Ben Heckendorn has created this masterpiece which is 2.8″ thick and weighs14 pounds. It also has a built-in WiFi adapter as well as a water cooling system, for noiseless gaming. And he all did this in 3 months!
On Ben’s site you can go to the final page and view the finished pictures, or browse through the four pages which detail his steps with plenty of pictures. This is one article which is definitely worth reading.