Webcomic commentary:
So did any doper pick up a PS3?
It seems like Nintendo Wiis won’t be too hard to find come launch day.
Here is a handy tool that lets you enter your area code, and it returns a list of Target stores in the area code and their allotment. From what I’ve heard, it’s pretty accurate.
(I’m not getting one at launch, but I’ll be happy if I get one by Christmas)
In other news:
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Swung by a local Target the other night and they already had 30-50 people lined up for the PS3 midnight launch. I did a quick yell-poll to see how many people were buying the PS3s to play vs. buying them for scalping. The scalpers weren’t too thrilled to speak up for some reason…
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Question of the Week: Are Games Industry Professionals Buying PlayStation 3 or Wii?
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Pre-order crime: Gunmen Rob PS3 Queue, Shoot Buyer and Gunmen Steal PS3s, XBoxes from Store
I have to say that while I don’t have a major beef with the folks lining up, and I’m only slightly irked by the scalpers, I get really pissed off at the idea of folks getting shot over the darn things. They’re just games…
Saw a mention on G4 that somewhere are other there are Xbox 360 core systems available for $100 after rebate. Not sure where, but if people are only considering the Wii because the others cost too much, it’s worth a look.
You know what would help me decide if I want to get a Wii or not? If I could actually try one out. The Target by me has one set up, but you can’t play it! I don’t understand why not. It just has a loop of game videos. Who cares? What’s the point? I want to see how well that controller works damn it!
I’ve heard that you can get two Wiis hooked up together, with the same game, and thus potentially have eight people playing, say, Super Smash Brothers Brawl together at the same time. Does anyone know anything about that? 'Cuase that would be truly awesome.
Of course, you’d also have to play on a small stage to avoid the ‘zooming out’ problem. (When you have characters that are far apart in both dimensions, the game can’t zoom in, and that can make it hard to tell where your character is and what he’s doing.)
I can’t say anything official but since the wiii supports 4 controllers with nunchucks, it essentially supports 8 controllers, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see games that support 8 players…
Do you mean with just one game disc? That would be good. The other consoles let you hook several together but you need a separate game disc for each console.
Funny, I, also will be playing it this weekend because a group of guys at work have some games going on. I’ll also be playing Call of Duty 3 as well. Email me for my Gamertag.
When my buddy and I play these games, he’s the guy with the machine gun walking down the middle of the well-lit street. I’m the guy with the sniper rifle sneaking around the corners, checking things out and ensuring his safety. Of course, putting a big “shoot me!” on himself like that sometimes puts a burden on me. It’s a good burden, though.
I remember thinking this article was somewhat insightful with respect to the Wii launch. To summarize it briefly, the author runs through the N64 and Gamecube launches and draws a lot of parallels with the run up to the Wii launch, culminating with the suggestion that Nintendo, despite its proven ability to innovate, can’t seem to parlay that into console sales. I am more optimistic about the Wii for some reason, but we’ll just have to see.
Indeed. Again, I hope they’re successful in opening up the game market a little more. More non-traditional gamers means more diversity in games.
Same here. I was discussing this with a friend just a little while ago, and I think the problem is primarily that Nintendo’s innovations scare off third-party developers, no matter how easy they make it to develop on their consoles. There’s inherent risk in committing time and money to an unknown, whereas with standard consoles the marketers can draw on historical data to know how successful a title is likely to be. I’m quite convinced the PS2 succeeded primarily because it has a fantastic library of games and not due to anything Sony did.
Given that the PS3 looks to be shaping up to be a massive failure, though, perhaps third parties won’t see it as too risky to try developing for the Wii. It’ll probably depend on how strong the sales are, and from what I’m seeing it seems like the Wii will have a pretty good launch.
Anyone else think it’s a bit strange to be calling the N64 and the GCN “failures”? Sure, the Playstation dominated the market, but Nintendo still produced a solid profit on both consoles.
Yeah, I’m wondering what metric is being used. To be honest, I didn’t really like the N64, but the Gamecube sure doesn’t seem like a failure. It probably has the least marketshare of its generation, but that’s not enough by itself.
The game that comes with the Wii is quite fun, but moreso with more people. Buy some extra controllers and play Tennis, but make sure you have lots of room so you’re not smacking each other.
Sales data for the last two generations, for what it’s worth:
According to wikipedia, the sales for the fifth generation were:
PSX: 102.49 million
N64: 32.93 million
Saturn: 15.26 million
And for the sixth generation:
PS2: 106.23 million
XBox: 24 million
GCN: 21 million
DC: 10.6 million
Sony’s numbers tend to be ‘units shipped’ rather than ‘units sold’, for some reason. But yeah, make of these figures what you will.
Anyway, I think objectively it’s hard to consider the N64 and GameCube failures on their own. The N64 was such a fall, though (58% marketshare with the SNES to 22% with the N64), that it is considered a failure on Nintendo’s part to hang onto the market. Similarly, a lot of people talk of the PS3 being a potential failure - I understand this to mean that they’ll go from a dominant lead to a second or third place, not necessarily that they’ll drop out of hardware completely, lose a ton of money, etc.
As for similarities between the GameCube and the Wii - there are also a lot of parallels to be drawn between the Wii and the PSX, and between the Wii and the DS/DS Lite. Personally I’m hoping it has a bit more in common with them in terms of market success, but it’s a bit hard to make predictions with the Wii.
DISCLAIMER: I am not in any way affiliated with Nintendo; what I’ve said is based on a conversation in Senior Lounge on Friday.
I dunno, but I doubt it. I also haven’t heard anything about any other consoles working that way at all…
Two things: 1) does that include Super Smash Bros. Brawl or SSBM? That’s really what I’m after, and 2) by ‘anything official’ you mean that you have inside information?
The old Xbox will let you connect up to four consoles together so you can play with 16 players (system link is the microsoft term for it.) If that’s what the Wii does then it is nothing new.
Just got back a couple of hours ago from the midnight Wii launch at Wal-Mart. While I usually don’t shop there, a Wii tonight was worth it.
Cold out, but not horrible. 40 degrees or so. I arrived around 3, and a friend and I found the guy with the list. Put our names on it, and Max Carnage who was on his way. Our Wal-mart had 20 of them. I was 15. By 4 pm slots 19 and 20 had filled up. At that point, a Wal-Mart manager and security guy came out and made a more official list with all of us on it. Didn’t have anyone else show up until around 6, most people just asked us what we were waiting for. People that showed up a 6 wouldn’t listen when we, the manager, and the security guy all explained that there were 20 people in line, and 20 consoles. Expected magic, I guess.
Came inside at 10, waited in the layaway area. We had been going in and out of the store all day, so never got too frozen. They were saying there weren’t that many extra controls, but it turned out fine. Security guy followed the list exactly, and the last person that arriveed at 4 got the last console.
Went ahead and got Zelda, Excitetruck, Call of Duty, and Red Steel. Got another controller and a classic controller. Big haul, but I got all that I went for.
First impressions: Sports is a lot of fun. Red Steel is a touch sensitive, but not bad. Solves my biggest complaint with FPS on consoles, no mouse. Excitetruck is a blast. I’ll play Zelda and Call of Duty in the morning.
Well, count me amongst the crazy folks. I was at Walmart yesterday at 10am. Saw the line had about 25 people with 30 slots…by the time I was done with my shopping at 11, all the slots were full.
I know full well these things will be pretty easy to find. Heck, the’re not going for much more than $300 on ebay right now.
So I surfed around and had a general gameplan for the stores that opened in the morning. Figured I’d wake up around 6am and head out for the shops that open at 8. Went to bed at 10:30.
And my eyeballs slammed open 3 hours later at 1:30. 
Mind spinning a mile a minute. Laid there til’ 2:30 and decided: If I’m gonna be up, I might as well wait in line.
The local supertarget is supposed to get 50 of them. There’s 12 people camped out in the 30 degree weather, and I’m sitting in the car with the laptop and the phone writing this.
I must be nuckin futz.
Is anyone else preordering a console from Amazon (the Wii release date is the 8th of December here)? I’m thinking of ponying up for one when they start taking orders on the 21st; anyone had good/bad experiences ordering consoles or large items from them?