Cross-posted from Livejournal:
I watched the Nintendo press conference live this morning, and it had lots of interesting stuffs, which I'll just run through real quick.
GOOD THINGS:
- Twilight Princess launches the same day as Wii, and dual-launching on GCN as well. Coming out for both systems was a total shock. I'm curious to see the difference in the two.
- This may be old news to some folks, but I didn't realize the nunchuck component had motion sensing capability in it as well.
- Usage of the speaker in the Wiimote to give a spacial sound experience sounds neat, such as drawing back the controller as if using a bow in Twilight Princess, and then the sound of the arrow being shot moving away from the controller and on to the console sound to give the sensation of the arrow traveling through air. I want to check that out for myself.
- Nintendo focusing more on games for all people, including folks who have never played games before, is definately smart. The Wiimote is surely simplistic for this reason, and gives folks more realistic movement control instead of trying to remember which out of countless buttons to push on the other systems' controllers, which I know is a turn-off for older folk. The addition of the "brain games" for the DS is also a nice step to spreading into other audiences. Plus, they just look fun in general.
- Reduction of load times = super plus. I totally agree with the Nintendo guy, that as he's gotten older, that waiting the 30-60 seconds just to get a game going and past all those dumb initial screens and loading is just frustrating. Going back to near-instant loading will be a nice addition.
- The reduction of load-time is partially due to the fact that the console will always be running. Using just a small amount of power, it even stays connected to the internet, to get new content for your games pushed to it, as well as let people interact with multiplayer games while you're not on. They gave Animal Crossing as an example, where people could visit your town and leave you stuff, and you'd know the next time you played.
- Metroid Prime 3 looks hot for Wii. And then there's Star Fox, Yoshi's Island 2, and Diddy Kong Racing, all for DS.
- Super Mario Galaxy. Looks great. Nuff said.
BAD THINGS:
- They didn't tell us a price or launch date, other than Q4 2006, which we really already knew. $250 is the rumored price, which sounds about right, but we'll have to wait and see. They might blow us away with $200 or less, which would be really funny considering the monstrous price of the PS3.
- They haven't gone into detail about the Wiimote and nunchuck effective usage distance, which could be a problem for some folks. I couldn't really use the Super Scope, for example, because to get at the best distance, I was stuck at an angle because of how my room and tv were positioned, and it just never worked quite right and wasn't as fun so far away. Hopefully this uses a better technology to not have to be a particular distance, but you still kind of have to be able to sit away from things (as not to whack them over), and since I'm stuck so close to my tv, it might still be somewhat of a problem. Though I won't worry about it until I can actually mess with one.
- We have to still wait months to get it.
- NOTHING ELSE BAD, SORRY.
There might be other things I forgot to mention, but I'll update accordingly if any come to mind. I was more anxious to hear from Nintendo today than I expected to be, and they certainly provided, so it was worth the wait. Their future looks perdy good.
UPDATE: This wasn't at the press conference, but apparently the new
classic controller for Wii was unveiled.
And here's a larger pic.Oh and by the way,
Gamespot seems to have the on-demand stream of the conference up now, so you can check this stuff out for yourself.
Oh, I forgot to mention The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, for DS. It's supposedly the sequel to Wind Waker or something.
Opera web browser cartridge coming for the DS and
to be built into the Wii.
