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Nintendo Confirms Wii on GC Housing at E3

Posted by Zonk on Fri May 19, 2006 05:06 PM
from the still-some-wiggle-room dept.
E3 Businesses Nintendo
kukyfrope writes "Nintendo's PR Manager, Matt Atwood, has confirmed accusations that Wii demo stations at E3 were not running inside the Wii case and instead were running inside Gamecube housing using Wii-spec hardware. 'The Wii hardware we exhibited at E3 2006 was made specifically for the E3 show and is not the final mass-production version. Some of this hardware was cased in Nintendo GameCube housing.'" Update: 05/19 21:08 GMT by Z : Changed 'hardware' to 'housing' in title.
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Nintendo Confirms Wii on GC Housing at E3 25 Comments More /

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  • And this changes.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lokiman (972867) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:09PM (#15368816) Homepage
    And was the controller just a mars bar wrapped in tin foil?

  • uh, so? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bunions (970377) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:10PM (#15368830)
    Do I not get it? Why would anyone care what case they were in?

    • Re:uh, so? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cosmotron (900510) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:12PM (#15368845) Homepage Journal
      It's just something to try to stir up the water...

    • Re:uh, so? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AudioEfex (637163) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:54PM (#15369192)
      Why is this being talked about? Because someone at MS or Sony had their panties in a wad because a) virtually all the mainstream media is talking about from E3 is the Wii, b) the enormously positive reaction to the Wii by the gaming "press", and c) both MS and Sony spokespeople have been heavily quoted as saying that in addition to their respective console, consumers will likely want a Wii as well, so they thought this would cause some minor scandal.

      In this case, it's too little, and too late, for character assasination.

      This is why this will blow away into the nothingness; it's not a big deal to begin with, and it's even less of a deal because of the qualified success the Wii showing at E3 was. Just shows how scared they are because their "hardcore I want 32 buttons to mash in a game that takes 10 hours to learn" crowd is getting smaller by the generation, yet Wii is set to appeal to non-gamers, former-gamers, and existing-gamers is a virtually unlimited potential audience.

      AE

    • Re:uh, so? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mistshadow2k4 (748958) on Friday May 19 2006, @06:55PM (#15369520) Journal

      I don't get it either. How is this even a news story? (Note I'm not blaimg Zonk for posting it, rather whoever wrote it and thought this mattered even slightly.) Hell, I don't care if they use a GameCube housing for the final product, let alone the demo. I wouldn't even care if the Wii housing was as butt-ugly as my 9th grade English teacher, what I care about is how well the system works and what games will run on it.

      It makes me wonder if the author didn't write this up in the hope that it would be misinterpreted and make Nintendo look bad, while retaining some journalistic integrity. Hmmm, maybe I do get it after all.

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by revlayle (964221) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:10PM (#15368834) Homepage
    ...but not unexpected for a 5-to-6-months-before release demo.

    It showcased what they wanted it to do - they could have cased in hardened dog shit for all I personally would have cared :)

  • Misleading subject: Disagrees with summary, even. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dryth (544014) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:11PM (#15368839)

    They weren't running ON Gamecube hardware. They were running IN Gamecube shells. The summary is more true to fact than the subject.

    From TFA:

    Nintendo confirmed that they did indeed use GameCube housing, but that the "guts" or internal architecture was certainly from the Wii. "The Wii hardware we exhibited at E3 2006 was made specifically for the E3 show and is not the final mass-production version. Some of this hardware was cased in Nintendo GameCube housing," the company explained.

  • Accusations? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xxanmorph (654953) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:15PM (#15368872)
    That makes it sound like they were doing something wrong. Who cares what case it was in if the hardware was the real deal?

  • If the GBA SP and DS lite are any indication, I predict that 18 months after Wii hits the market, Nintendo will announce the WiiCube, a Wii console shaped like a GameCube with a larger disc well and more built-in memory for more Virtual Console products.

  • I mean, to think that they used plastic housing cases that weren't exactly the same as the final production models, even if all the important metal and fiber bits inside were!

    I am just appalled.

    Oh, wait. No, it's Friday.

    Never mind: I forgot I actually have a life.

    As you were.

    They can put them in brown paper sacks for all I care.
  • I'm not sure why this is a big deal, or even a surprise -- at last year's E3, the 360 was emulated on heavily modded PowerPCs. When I saw a stack of them at EA, I couldn't help but giggle at the huge Apple logos emblazoned on the side and the small, unassuming "Property of Microsoft" labels affixed to the top of each machine.
  • There seems to be accusations of "faking it" at every E3. I guess the industry has brought it on itself, showing stuff like the supposed Madden for Xbox 360 screen shots [joystiq.com] that were much better than the actual game when it shipped. This stuff has been going on for years and it's no wonder that audiences are wary of being duped by faked demos.

    But 6 months before the console hits the shelves, the only hardware that exists is in prototype versions. It is not suprising that the floor models were put together with duct tape, GameCube cases and whatever else they had on-hand. I would be suprised if the actual Wii games don't look better than what Nintendo had on display at this years E3, as developers have more time to work on games and get them polished.

  • odd.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by moosesocks (264553) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:56PM (#15369204) Homepage
    That's a really odd choice for nintendo, given the fact that the gamecube is a fairly 'customized' piece of hardware (3 boards, funky controller ports, etc) crammed into a REALLY tight space.

    I would have found it much more likely for them to have been put in some generic grey box or something like that for E3........

  • In other online news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Guppy06 (410832) on Friday May 19 2006, @08:29PM (#15369937) Journal
    Sony BluRay laptop demo was using a DVD-ROM!

    Karl Rove has been indicted!

    Everything you read on the intrawebs is the absolute truth!

  • The Wii Controller was meant for the Gamecube (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cdneng2 (695646) on Saturday May 20 2006, @08:03AM (#15371617)

    Back in 2004, there were many rumours [gamesindustry.biz] that Nintendo was going to announce a new peripheral add-on [ign.com] for the Gamecube that would add new functionality and possibly extend the life of the Gamecube [ign.com]. Let's assume that this peripheral was the "Wii-mote".

    So let's put all this logic together about 6 months after this announcement:

    1) The Gamecube never really got it's established fanbase.

    2) Around the same time, Nintendo launches the DS. The "Wii-mote" would have distracted Nintendo from the DS launch.

    3) Let's say that had trouble making the "Wii-mote" work... say... the Gamecube lacked the CPU horsepower, or they needed to "refine" the controller more.

    4) Sony and MSFT both announces their next-gen consoles at this same time.

    So, you have this potentially revolutionary controller. Why try and compete against Sony and MSFT with the dying Gamecube? Add some horsepower to the Gamecube. Add a new GPU, and voila... you have a new console.

    Therefore, it doesn't surpise me that they COULD have a "pushed" Gamecube at E3 to demonstrate Wii's capabilities.

    1) It explains the un-exceptional graphics... or at least graphics the Gamecube could do.

    2) It explains the huge amount of games demoed at E3.

    3) It explains the "Gamecube" housings.

    4) It explains how "polished" the demos were, and how refined the Wii-mote works.

    5) It explains why the Wii development kits are so cheap... they are probably very much similar to the Gamecube.

    So it doesn't surprise me that the Wii was disguised in the Gamecube housing. In the end, does it really matter? I'm still buying one at launch.

    • Re:Oh well, I guess that changes everything (Score:5, Insightful)

      by exley (221867) on Friday May 19 2006, @05:50PM (#15369153) Homepage
      While I agree with the parent's sentiment and those in other posts about this story being irrelevant, is there any evidence that Sony was behind this? If not, then the Sony bashing has officially gotten out of hand, and the parent has no business being modded 'Insightful'. You can count me in with the crowd that's not happy with Sony these days, but c'mon. There are plenty of solid things that we can shit all over Sony for, but the knee-jerk accusations aren't gonna cut it. Or at least, they shouldn't. I must be new here.

      • Re:Oh well, I guess that changes everything (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Reapman (740286) on Friday May 19 2006, @06:05PM (#15369254)
        No doubt... not only that, but wasn't there a fair amount of PS3 bashing because the PS3 final design wasn't completed? Regardless what the Wii looks like i'll be buying it.

          • Sony was using actual PS3 hardware... (Score:5, Informative)

            by YesIAmAScript (886271) on Friday May 19 2006, @09:20PM (#15370136)
            They were the devices in racks between the monitors.

            They're not PCs in there. They're not "representative hardware". They're PS3s, devkits.

            No, they weren't in final plastics yet either.

            • Re:Sony was using actual PS3 hardware... (Score:5, Interesting)

              by PhoenixOne (674466) on Friday May 19 2006, @11:22PM (#15370495)
              Why do I never have mod points when they are needed?

              Parent is correct. I think the real issue is Nintendo made it look like they had production Wii hardware on the floor while Sony actually went out of their way to have big glass cases showing that they were not using retail hardware (which didn't make much sense to me, but bravo Sony for showing just how far of your Spring 2006 release date was).

              Personally I don't think it's a big deal. Almost everything you see at E3 is 90% hype, or just plain lies (I'm looking at you Phantom). You should trust anything you see at E3 about as much as you would trust anything said by a used car salesman.

    • I seem to remember making this kind of comment before, but....

      The Gamecube is sixth-generation. The prior generations are:

      1. Up to and including Atari 2600.
      2. Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 5200.
      3. NES, Sega Master System, Atari 7800.
      4. Genesis, SNES, Turbografx 16.
      5. Saturn, Playstation, N64
      6. Dreamcast, PS2, X-box, Gamecube.
      -- and next --
      7. X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Wii.

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