The Wii Launches in Japan

The Wii has launched in Japan, successfully and without many of the incidents associated with the PlayStation 3 launch. Joystiq's coverage of the Wii's painless Nippon birth has nothing but praise for the crowd control efforts of electronics outlets. The talk is entirely of sellouts and happy gamers. From the article: "Numerous methods of retail were used to launch the Wii, and these varied from store to store. Yodobashi kept its customers camped overnight in a parking lot, distributing numbered tickets to determine the order of entrance, before opening its doors at 7am. Bic Camera also opened at 7am, although most of the 650 people in line there didn't arrive until the first trains of the morning began to run at around 5am. Famitsu reports that the Tokyo Ikebukuro branch of Bic Camera sold out if its allocation of 1,200 units, while the Tokyo Yuuraku-cho arm of Bic Camera declared the console "sold out" at 5.41am when the 1,500th person arrived in the queue there." Kotaku has even more extensive coverage, with plenty of photos of the waiting lines.

Jipped.

[Trashhalo]

If only I lived in japan -_-. Anyone else see their VC launch list and feel jealous? They get: Zelda 3, Super Mario Bros and World and we get: Baseball for NES. WOooooooooooOOooOOo Those games arent even coming to the US 2007.

Have to respect Nintendo

[Captain Kirk]

They said they could not keep up with Sony and Microsoft for technology a few years ago. There was even talk of them becoming software only. Yet here they are, focussed on gameplay and fun, and doing brilliantly. And of the big 3 they are the only ones makign a profit.

You have to admire that.

Re:Have to respect Nintendo

[Rydia]

To be fair, the "software-only" talk was all rumor, and bad rumor at that. Nintendo has always been a (usually very) profitable company.

Re:Jipped.

[FreeRadicalX]

This bugs me too. I can understand how many games are released in one region and not another for fear or not selling successfully (which I think is silly in most cases anyway, it's what's kept most Americans from playing the other games in the Earthbound series and from enjoying a lot of the the Final Fantasy games upon their initial releases), but how does this apply to software? How much profit could the possibly be losing by just hosting the game files on a server? They already knew what sold successfully the first time, why increment virtual console releases? Wouldn't a full store of VC games upon the Wii's release be more impressive to the potential Wii purchaser?

Re:Have to respect Nintendo

[killbill!]

If you can't beat the game, change the rules of the game.

Nintendo was unwilling to follow Sony's and Microsoft's path where "innovation" just means "more raw power" - and higher costs. The decision to change the input method was a masterstroke.

Even though the Wii is the least powerful of this generation, its novel input method makes its more powerful rivals look obsolete, shortly after their launch. The PS3 or the 360 are merely the same old, now in HD. The Wii is truly next-generation.

Wii already sold

[MemoryDragon]

over 1 million units, they currently are at 1.1 mio units sold according to http://www.nexgenwars.com/ [nexgenwars.com] and by the end of next week they will hit the 2 mio marks, because the rollouts in europe and Australia are still to be done.

And Europe alone will count for 600.000 while Europe is not that Nintendo crazy, I do not expect lines as long as in Japan or the USA, it still will sellout within the first day, I assume.

The reason why Europe is not as Nintendo crazy as the rest is easily explained, they usually charge the highest prices while often if not always are the last to get the releases. Big vendors do not push Nintendo too much over here due to many reasons (the average ds corner in the big stores over here in central europe is more like ok we have it too, but we want to sell PSPs). Or to some it up in other words, Nintendo Europe is a bunch of morons who really should get their act together, the same goes for Apple Europe!

Re:Jipped.

[Trashhalo]

But if you are trying to drum up interest in the wii which is more likely to win over a friend

1.) There is this great feature called the VC where you can download all your favorite classic games.
2.) There is this great feature called the VC that lets you download older games, not necessarily classics but older games. Dont worry though eventually nintendo may let you download a game you like!

This gen I have basically turned into a nintendo fanboy. Pre launch and post launch I am always trying to hype the console. When I was telling people about the information coming out of the media about the VC all my classic gamer friends who had gotten out of gaming were very excited about the wii. But when I tell people now that they wont see any classic nintendo games till some unannounced time in 2007 it just doesnt drum up much interest. So while I understand the logic of spacing out the A games and I think that will boost VC sales numbers it will hurt console sales numbers.

Re:Jipped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, now! It's spelled "gypped." Either learn to spell it correctly, or just say you got "jewed" instead of blaming the Gypsies-whose-name-you-can't-spell for ripping you off. After all, they're pretty much the same, amirite? *drum-roll*

  This has been a message from the bad people at Bigots Anonymous.
"Have you stereotyped someone today?" (tm)

(whoa. my captcha is "idiotic." how's that for instant karma?)

Ending a 39 week run?

[RandomBabblings]

Assuming all of the allocated units were sold, the Wii will probably sell more units than the DS Lite this week. That would end the 39 week string of the DS Lite at the top of the Japanese weekly hardware sales charts, which it has held since its launch in March.

Who would have guessed that Nintendo would have to dethrone itself...

Re:Have to respect Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lesson here kids: Play to your strengths.

Re:Jipped.

[hardran3]

Since they are selling every Wii they make right now, I don't think they are too worried. By the time that is a problem, there will be lots of games on the VC. Give Big N 3 months to work out the kinks in their brand new online infrastructure. By march of 2007 I am sure the VC will be great.

Re:Have to respect Nintendo

[heli0]

"If you can't beat the game, change the rules of the game."
-- James Tiberius Kirk re: Kobayashi Maru

Paraphrased of course.

Fully half the line I was in

[patio11]

I got my Wii pre-ordered but went to the store (in a decent sized city in rural Japan -- allocation was 40 consoles + pre-orders, everyone in line got one). Fully half of the people lined up were of the fairer sex. Some were there with their boyfriends, there were a lot of families with the kids in toe, and at least two groups of high school girls were getting Wiis for themselves.

The launch was, incidentally, as smooth as silk. 45 minutes before the door opened they gave everyone in line a "you are guaranteed to get a Wii when we open, no need to rush" ticket. There were only about 20 people in the store when I picked mine up, most browsing the Nintendo sections while two queues proceeded in a very orderly manner.