With the main event only a little over an hour away, it will surely be nice to finally see some tech demos of what Nintendo has put together in their system here. I will do my best to keep up with the coverage, but their could be breaks as I am at work and that sort of has to come first. I'll try to avoid it though. No one was reading last night during the Sony conference, so I am sort of expecting that today as well. Haha. It's not a big deal. I'm doing this now to get in the swing of things so that when I continue to do them in the future, I am more prepared and experienced. Anyway, I'll be back when the feeds start to come up and the news starts to roll in.
No important announcements from Nintendo. The Wii is confirmed for Q4 2006, but that was about it. A few game demos that were a bit of fun to watch, but I didn't feel the sense of awe I did watching the PS3 offerings. I guess I'm shallow in that graphics and feel BOTH matter to me instead of one first and the other second. Oh well. I'll still have a Wii on my shelf, so there you go. They avoided the virtual console which was sort of sad. Meh. Oh well. Everything is up after the jump. Now I have some work to do.
10:57AM - The feed is up now and they are playing some techno with vocals. People are beginning to file in and seating is getting underway.
11:07AM - The place is filling up now, so it should start on-time at 11:30AM CST (or CDT? I don't know. It's just 11:07 here right now.)
11:16AM - There was some announcement, but I couldn't hear it over the fucking techno since that's been playing for the past half hour. Should be getting started soon.
11:20AM - The announcement was to turn off wireless devices before the show starts. We can't have that, now can we?
11:25AM - Another announcement. That the show will start on time at 9:30AM (Pacific.)
11:30AM - Music is oh-so-slowly fading out.
11:33AM - I was fooled by the Techno. It didn't fade out. Maybe it is now. Nintendo is late now. Nope, music is coming back in. What the hell is this crap? I want to see some Japs waving some controllers around! And I want to see Nintendo continue to steal their marketing slant from Apple. And I want every Nintendo fan to ignore that fact and keep pledging undying support.
11:36AM - It's starting. Miyamoto did some orchestrial thing with the controller, now he is dancing poorly and they are showing demo clips. The graphics are underwhelming compared to the new gen, but of course. Here's Reggie!
11:40AM - Playing is believing. Graphics aren't everything. They're showing another commercial in the same iPod vein as the old ones. Hopefully they will show these games being used practically. New mario game makes an appearing in the trailer. They aren't really playing up the fact that you have to put sensors on your wall. Controller still looks uncomfortable to hold to me.
11:44AM - Warioware looks like it will be tons of fun. They keep showing people flinging around a lot with no real correlation to how it will actually react on screen. That's what I want to see. Lots of attractive Japanese people in this commercial. Fishing game now. Maybe I will break out the old Dreamcast fishing controller and shoe Nintendo how we used to do it.
11:46AM - Talking about how everyone doubted them and how they will be showing us today. Again with the answers to some questions, mysteries everywhere crap. They're going to jolt our right brains now. This is getting sinister. Now they;re pushing the mass ungamer appeal angle. Saying we have to get my mom playing games every day to grow as an idustry, which I hardly agree with. LIES!
11:49AM - He's saying that industries die without innovation all over, and now he's calling Mario 64 revolutionary and saying that obvious steps forward change everything. Of course he didn't call moving to 3D an obvious step though. They're not announcing the price. Announced a 4th quarter 2006 release date. No surprise there. Now he's explaining the name.
11:51AM - He asked if we thought Lexus, Ikea and Google sounded normal when we first heard them, AND YES THEY DID! To me anyway. Wii is fine though. They are showing another clip thing. First party games this time. Just a video. It's nothing too terribly awe inspiring. THe Mario game will be called Super Mario Galaxy. Sonic Wii is up now, and a horse jockey game. There's a One Piece Wii game. Drool, fangirls and boys! And now a clip of CG from FF:CC. And the Zelda game to end it out.
11:55AM - Name still sounds awkward out loud. Zelda will launch with the system, and they are doing a live on-stage demo. It requires the "nunchuck" attachment. A Fairy is onscreen to indicate where you are pointing. Seems a bit distracting, ut there you go. Swing sword with B button. Mostly being used as a pointer so far. not a lot of swinging and killing. Light gun style shooting. Weehaw. Speaker in the remote. Using some 3D sound. That will be a nice effect.
11:58AM - Some minor motion usage to hit people with the shield. They're calling it the Greatest Zelda game ever. The nunchuck jigger is also motion sensing, which will be helpful. Links boots stick to the magnet, but his sword doesn't?! Every battle is being called an "intense battle." It's just funny. Stab down with the nunchuck is a downthrust attack. THey need to do some control watching inlay. That would be fun. They're promising a fishing demo on the show floor tomorow.
12:02PM - Twilight Princess will be on both Wii and GameCube. That is a bit troubling. I guess you don't move a new idea with a peripheral for an old console. Short clips of Metroid and Mario. They are workingo n new franchises. Three previews. Excite Truck, announced. Project Hammer is a big controller swinging game. And a Disaster survival game called… Disaster. LAWL. Now they're going to do the 3rd Party buzz. They won't spend a lot of time on 3rd party, but they are featuring Sonic and some others. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is also features. And some American games are being features like Madden. I wonder if they will demo it. Wii Tony Hawk Downhill Jam got a mention. So does Rayman.
12:07PM - 27 titles on the floor, but they aren't going to announce a launch number yet. Virtual Console got am ention, and now they're going to play some Red Steel with some lovely French accent packing Ubisoft people. Got to love the French accent, man.
12:09PM - The demo looks pretty nice. The arms get at some odd angles, but they are touting the fact that you do most everything with your hands all the way up to opening doors. It's a pretty violent game to lack blood, but that's how Nintendo rolls, I spose. You can see how the Wii improves on the GCN in some places, but in others they are extremely comparable. There is a freeze time feature that allows you to tag multiple enemies and then come out and shoot all the places you tag.
12:14PM - They ended with a sword demo. You use normal slashing motions. The animations were a little blh. Hopefully they will make them a lot smoother before launch time. Now they are moving on to the DS. I think he just said that you're not a true gamer if you didn't buy a DS. And they keep pointing out how they don't want to drill into hard numbers. 16 million units sold. 6 million copies of nintendogs. They're talking about the Nintendo Wifi thing. Nothing innovative about a Wifi plug compared to built in. they're talking about Brain Age being another innovative thing, ignoring the PSP version that was out before this even in Japan. And then he said "Suduko." Talking up the DS Lite and New Mario now. New Mario will be a pimp piece of software. Pokemon are going to show up soon. Two different versions you can buy. You're playing as a Pokemon.
12:20PM - They announced Starfox DS, Diddy King Racing, and Yoshi;s Island 2. A new Zelda game for DS too! Yippee! That'll be good stuff. Shame they're only bringing over the white version. Mario Hoops in a video montage. 3-on-3 game. A DDR style game called Elite Beat Angels. Looked sort of gay. Zelda is looking the best of the montage games. Mari ovs. DK: March of the Minis. Not a lot of info on that because it's a montage. Montage over.
12:24PM - Iwata Satoru is out restating the mission statement of the Wii. He is saying that core gamers are the most important market. Talking about Nintendogs and the DS in general. Sorry, I'm not a fan of Nintendogs. It has limited appeal unless you're pretty simple minded. He's talking about the Wii control being comfortable, and virtual console bringing back games people used to like and getting back the lapsed gamers. He's talking about how it's taking longer and longer to get from system on to game play. WHich is a damn good point. Needs more game-insta-start. The PSP has the power button. He's talking about being able to stop and start by opening and closing the lid. Talking just a few seconds on load times and stuff. Wii provides services while seeming to be off. Sounds dangerous. WiiConnect24 is the name of the service. Nothing specific said right now. They're keeping it constantly connected to the net to move new levels or weapons. He's using Animal Crossing as an example. Such as having a friend visit while your system is off. The networking software is on the system so developers can add online play whenever they want, he seemded to say.
12:31PM - WiiSports is a game they're pushing that has Tennis Golf and Baseball in one game. It's a launch title. Presumably, it will be a pretty shallow rendition of those games. Seems like a tech demo that they're refining a bit and releasing. Which is fine if it's fun. They're focusing more on briding the gap between gamers and non-gamers. The name still sounds sort of awkward when spoken. Iwata is done, saying Wii is their answer to bridging the gap.
12:34PM - They're addressing the contest winner who gets to play the Wii first in front of everyone. I wonder if there will be an assassination attempt.
12:35PM - Miyamoto did a nice looking Tennis tech demo. The winner is Scott Dyer. He has hands in pocket. Seems nervous. Haha. Still, that's a pretty big honor there. He's dying a little there. Haha. Reggie is going to come out. Now it will be Miyamoto, and the winner versus Iwata and Reggie. They're starting. You can tell they're much more used to it than the winner by the way they moved. It didn't seem terribly comfortable with it right away but he is doing well right out of the gate. It's a really good natured feel on the stage though. Like everyone is having fun playing the game. That bodes will for their console I think.
12:40PM - Reggie is spouting pro-Nintendo PR stuff now. I'm sure he has everyone hooked on his every word. And that ends their press conference. No early peeks for press on that one. They will all have to wait until tomorrow. Oh well. Serves them right!