Lego Rock Band is a music video game that is being put together through a partnership between Harmonix Music Systems, MTV Games, EA, and Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment. This game will be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Wii on November 3.
Atari is designing a new game based on the TV show Project Runway for the Nintendo Wii. The game is expected to be released next year. Players will design fashion, outfit models, and use the Wii Balance Board controller for doing the catwalk. Project Runway is currently in its 6th season on the Lifetime channel. The show is hosted by Heidi Klum (pictured below).
Over the weekend, Nintendo launched Wii Fit Plus. This video game will most likely become one of the best selling games during the holiday season as its predecessor was at the top of the gaming charts for a long period. The game will be available for purchase in 2 ways:
1. Game + balance board
2. Just the game for users who bought the original game plus the board
The Wii Fit Plus has 20 new games which includes Segway and skateboarding. Workouts can be made from between 5 minutes and 1 hour. The game+balance board combo sells for $99.99 and the game itself costs $19.99. The Wii Fit Plus can also read data from the original game on the Wii. The original Wii Fit sold well over 8 million copies since the game launched in May 2008.
Lakeland, Florida, a city with one of the coolest driveways, has something to be embarrassed about today. During a drug raid, the Lakeland police decided to play the Wii for 9 hours at the dealer’s house.
A video of the cops playing the Nintendo Wii was taken by a surveillance camera that was not noticed during the raid. The policemen were addicted to the Bowling game on Wii Sports. About 16 policemen were on the scene when the incident took place.
After playing that long, the police actually started getting to be really good. Work hard, play hard.
Earlier this week it was rumored that Nintendo was slashing the price of the Wii. It turns out the rumor is true. Over the last 3 years the console was selling for $249.99 and now it will be selling for $199.99. The $199.99 price includes a controller, Wii Sports game, a Nunchuk controller, and wireless sensor bar.
“Since the launch of Wii our goal has been to expand the gaming population and get more consumers into this industry that we love. While we have sold more Wiis (21 million-plus in the U.S.; and more than 50 million worldwide) than any home console after 34 months — and over 100 million DS (systems) — we think there is still significant opportunity to get more consumers into gaming. Just here in the U.S. we think that opportunity is minimally 50 million consumers in U.S., by continuing to offer more and more value,” stated Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime in an interview with USATODAY.com.
For those of you that spent $250 recently on the console, some retailers are willing to accommodate the difference.
In Japan, Nintendo has released a black Wii but Americans were not given the same option. However Nintendo is willing to meet us halfway by allowing us to have white Wiis have black Wiimotes. The black Wiimotes and nunchucks will be available this holiday season. Nintendo will also have a pink and white DSi added to the line-up on September 13.
Nintendo is seeing tremendous success with the sales of Wii Sports Resort. The game has sold about 1 million copies in the first month of release. Wii Sports Resort is the sequel to the game that comes with the Nintendo Wii. The game started selling on July 26th.
The game comes with a Wii MotionPlus controller and has games such as Frisbee, kayaking, ping-pong, waverunning, sword-fighting, etc. Nintendo has also sold about 2 million Wii MotionPlus controllers which comes bundled with EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf game.
Considering that the game is selling for about $46 in retail stores and on Amazon.com, that gives Nintendo close to about $46 million in revenue just for one game in a month minus all of the overhead costs.
Nintendo has patented an inflatable soft pillow controller. The controller is supposed to let gamers ride on horses and other potential sitting games. When riding on a horse in a game, the controllers would be held like nunchucks that would simulate the act of holding reins.
The Wii Ultimate Power Station is an accessory add-on made for the Nintendo Wii. The Ultimate Power Station cools down the Wii, offers extra output ports, charges two Wiimotes, holds the nunchucks, and even tells you the time. This makes it easier to manage all the Wii’s peripherals. No word on price or availability yet.
Back in April, I wrote about how Nintendo will be releasing Wii Sports Resort this month. Earlier this week Nintendo launched a TV commercial for the game and it makes me even more anxious to get my hands on it. The commercial shows players competing at jousting, kayaking, and ping pong. Wii Sports Resort utilizes Wii MotionPlus which tracks a player’s movements accurately. But at the same time watching this commercial makes me want to go a resort in real life and not in a virtual world.
Thrustmaster has announced a couple of new accessories for the Nintendo Wii in the form of tennis rackets called the Tennis Duo Pack NW. The Duo Pack NW is design to work with the Wii MotionPlus controllers. The Duo Pack NW makes using the controller feel like you’re playing real tennis. The grip of the tennis rackets are rubber coated. The total cost of the Duo Pack is $24.99.
Electronic Arts Sports is now shipping Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 with the Wii MotionPlus. That makes Nintendo the first to ship an advanced motion controller over the other two big console companies. Nintendo comes out as being first to market in the War Of The Motion Controllers as expected. In terms of who will sell the most motion controllers, we won’t find out until Sony’s PlayStation Motion and Microsoft’s Project Natal is released and sits on shelves for a while.
The Tiger Woods game and the Wii MotionPlus is selling as a bundle for $59. The game alone costs $49.99 and the MotionPlus alone costs $19.99.
If you’re bored of the generic colors that the Wii and the DSi comes in, Nintendo is getting ready to provide additional options. More specifically, there will be a black-colored Wii and a red-colored DSi shipping from Japan soon.
The black Wii is code-named KURO Wii and it has been a rumor for about two years. The black Wii will cost about ¥25,000 ($255) and the red DSi will cost ¥18,900 ($192). The two new colors for the consoles will be available in Japan on August 1st.
The black Wii will have similar colored Wiimotes, nunchucks, and classic controllers. Availability in the U.S. is still yet to be determined.
This coming holiday season, Ubisoft will be releasing a game called Your Shape Wii. This game has a video camera that scans your body structure and literally watches you work out. As you work out, the video game tells you how many calories you have burned and how much time is left for your work out. There are many other features that are discussed in the trailer above. For those of you fitness nuts out there that are debating what console to buy between the Big 3 (Xbox/PS3/Wii), this gives you more of a reason to invest in a Nintendo.
Nintendo announced the New Super Mario Brothers game at the E3 conference earlier this week. One of the features that Super Mario Brothers does not have is online game play. The New Super Mario Brothers game is four players though. The four players include Mario, Luigi, and two Toad characters.
The New Super Mario Brothers game has coins and pipes. The new game can be single player or up to four players. Players can carry each other and bonus points can be earned. The reason why the New Super Mario game does not support online game play because it uses too much processing power.
Personally I don’t have a Nintendo Wii so I could really care less whether Mario has this feature, but there are about 50 million others that do have Wiis so I’m sure they are not happy. “I graduated college. I don’t live in a dorm anymore. It’s a lot more difficult to get my buddies together to game now that we all live scattered off in different directions. This is why we need online play with voice chat,” wrote Digg user foofightrs777.
