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Wii Businesses Nintendo

The Wii Launches in Japan 80

Posted by Zonk from the wii.jp dept.
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.
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The Wii Launches in Japan More

The Wii Launches in Japan

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  • 1200 units at one location? Now that's a launch!

  • Jipped. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Trashhalo ( 985371 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:09PM (#17081194) Homepage
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by FreeRadicalX ( 899322 )
      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 successf
      • Think about it for a minute: Nintendo cannot put games they do not own the copyright to up, so they need to attract the third-party developers to agree to license their content to the system. In other words, they need to convince the third parties that there's money to be made from this Virtual Console scheme.

        Now, is Hudson going to want to license Bonk's Adventure to the system if, right out of the door, rather than being one of the better of 20 tittles available, it's buried in the entire back-catalog of

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 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?)

  • Have to respect Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Captain Kirk ( 148843 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:20PM (#17081268) Homepage Journal
    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: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rydia ( 556444 )
      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:Have to respect Nintendo (Score:5, Informative)

        by Akaihiryuu ( 786040 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:33PM (#17081378)
        Yes...they've only had one quarter EVER where they posted a loss, and that loss was due to some bad investments overseas when the value of the yen dropped, and they got screwed on the currency exchange.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by edwdig ( 47888 )
          Actually, the value of the yen went up. It was the US Dollar that dropped. They invest their profits in the country they are earned in, but report results in yen. Without the dollar bombing, they actually would've had a rather successful quarter.

    • Re:Have to respect Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killbill! ( 154539 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:44PM (#17081450) Homepage
      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by heli0 ( 659560 )
        "If you can't beat the game, change the rules of the game."
        -- James Tiberius Kirk re: Kobayashi Maru

        Paraphrased of course.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There's a lesson here kids: Play to your strengths.
    • "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."

      You do realize Nintendo gets 100% of its profits from selling video game stuff right?
      Sony and Microsoft have, you know, more than 1 entertainment sector to get profits from.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brkello ( 642429 )
      I always find it amusing when I read Nintendo fanboys bragging how their company always makes more profit. In other words, compared to their competitors they are over pricing their units. Somehow this should be celebrated?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by edwdig ( 47888 )
        Nintendo's profitability comes from two things:

        1) They don't sell anything at a loss.

        2) They rely primarily on first party games. The entire profit of a first party game goes to Nintendo. Sony and Microsoft rely mainly on 3rd party games, of which they get around $8 per sale (and less on budget games).

        Nintendo being massively profitable means they make really good games that sell a lot.
  • I hope Sega releases the Bleach game for the Wii in the US. It looks like a lot of fun. It makes excellent use of the Wiimote. And you get to look really stupid while playing it. Ban Kai!!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      I don't have high hopes for it. The DS game is awesome but the GC game is pretty weak and I don't think they put Treasure to work on the Wii one. IOW Bleach Wii will probably be as weak as Bleach GC.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cjp ( 624694 )
      Reviews of the Wii version of the latest DBZ game are promising, if looking really stupid while playing is a bonus :) "Ka me ha me HA! Oh crap, there goes the TV."

  • Wii already sold (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Saturday December 02, 2006 @01:53PM (#17081532)
    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!

    • Europe is not that Nintendo crazy

      Europe is the territory where Nintendogs sold the most period. The DS is extremely successful here in sonyland, and from what I've heard it looks like a fair lot of the launch units have been reserved already (the FNAC Montparnasse in Paris told a friend that they could pre-order a Wii, but would be put on the 20th shipment because the 8th was sold out already, and that was last weekend)

      Also you shouldn't rely on nextgenwars numbers, they're as innacurate as they may be

      • Actually you cannot judget Europe by Europe, where I live central europe, the day the ds lite was launched it was reported to be sold out all over europe, and yet I was walking in the afternoon three days later into the next electronics superstore and there it was sitting happily in one corner in about a dozend boxes waiting to be picked up next to a measly DS games shelve half filled with gba games, while the PSP had its own shelve five times as big... Anyway I had no troubles to get the DS lite. And yes t
  • 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: (Score:2)

      by 7Prime ( 871679 )
      Who would have guessed that Nintendo would have to dethrone itself...
      Ouch, that's gotta hurt. I feel really sorry for them :(
  • I can't help but wonder why stores in the US can't be more organized and responsible like they are in Japan. I really feel like people in the US lack any sort of pride in what they do, and it's especially bad in the retail space.

    The Wii launch was more civilized than the PS3 only because there were more units to be had; otherwise we would almost certainly have seen the same sort of nonsense.
  • Are there any titles that make use of the potential for using the DS as an input/controller for the Wii yet (or any planned)? I've seen Nintendo chat up the potential, but haven't seen any actual examples of titles that use the DS as a microphone/drawing tablet/distributed console accessory yet.

    PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii [roughlydrafted.com]

    5 Success Factors for Next Generation Game Consoles [roughlydrafted.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by masklinn ( 823351 )
      The first Wii game using the Wii-DS connectivity should be Pokemon Battle Revolution, with links to the DS' Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl games. I don't know how the DS' will be used though, probably just to get your pokemons into BR
      • The first Wii game using the Wii-DS connectivity should be Pokemon Battle Revolution, with links to the DS' Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl games. I don't know how the DS' will be used though, probably just to get your pokemons into BR

        Actually it was confirmed that Pokemon Battle Revolution will be the first Wii title to go online. I'm not sure for what specifically, but the DS versions are online enabled to trade, battle and includes voice chat.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by oniboy ( 786449 )
      I just woke up & put on the teli & the first thing I saw was an add for Pokemon Battle Revolution. It showed the DS being used to play the game with the Wii. Its due out here in Japan on the 14th. Heres a couple of links for you, sorry only in Japanese ( which I cant read well myself ). http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20061117/ poke.htm [impress.co.jp] (lost of screen shots) http://www.pokemon.co.jp/game/wii/pbr_sp/ [pokemon.co.jp]
  • So, Nintendo is making its way to the throne, and we can see by now. I really hope this continues this way, I think Nintendo deserves the first place once again, with such an innovative and small white VIDEOGAMES console.

  • Bullshit (Score:1, Interesting)

    by SinGunner ( 911891 )
    I was at Yodobashi Camera Friday night. First, they wouldn't allow us to line up prior to 8PM, which meant at 8PM, there were 200 people waiting to go down to the basement level 4 just milling around in front of the elevators. So at 8, they decide only one elevator will be allowed and everyone rushes it. Then, they say we can't use that because we're crushing eachother and knocking over displays to get at the elevator. I was at the front cause I had gotten there so early, and now I was at the back becau
    • I was at Yodobashi Akiba as well. But my experience was a little different from what you describe. [wheresdrew.com] Before we left Friday night, we made sure we could come back and join the line prior to 7AM. They said we could, so I came back around 6AM. I know somebody else who came back around 3. We both had pretty good positions and got our systems pretty quickly.

      Seriously though - 4 hour wait? The tickets were passed out before 11PM.

      BTW, bummer about your Wii not working properly.
  • I remember getting my wii... Walk into Walmart 7am in the morning and ask, so where's the line for the Wii? I'm escorted to a moderately warm room and told: "Take a seat in this chair, the chairs are numbered, each chair is 1 wii." With it being a comfy chair, I got to sit around all day playing video games, 10 man tetris, and generally having fun instead.

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