GamerNode: Latest Wii News

Wii Fit flops in Japan. Gamers quit after buying

One of the reasons health clubs stay in business is by signing up people to yearly contracts.

What they know and the general public doesn't know is that a great majority of people who do sign up only attend about 57 days out of the full year while some drop out completely, thus affording more space in the gym for more people to sign up and fail to show.

It seems that Wii Fit, at least in Japan, is taking on similar characteristics in consumer behavior. According to ITMeida of Japan, a poll was taken by a group of 1000 gamers that showed a staggering amount of people not using the Wii Fit game shortly after purchase.

The question presented to the gamers was:

Do you use Wii Fit faithfully everyday?

- 22% - I record my progress faithfully everyday - 6% - Maybe once every two or three days...

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You want Goldeneye on the Wii? So did this guy

It's pretty clear that members of the gaming community need more Goldeneye in their lives. There has been significant demand for the game to be re-released, be it on Xbox Live, Wii Virtual Console, or even in a Source Engine mod.

Well, one determined Wii owner has managed to get the game running on the Virtual Console's Sin & Punishment emulator, and has posted his accomplishment for all to see. Here it is:

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Super Mario Sluggers batting video

Namco Bandai and Nintendo's Super Mario Stadium: Family Baseball (Super Mario Sluggers in the US) has been available in Japan for a couple of weeks now, and is scheduled to hit North American shores during the last week of August.

The game promises to bring typical Nintendo mascot action, a la Mario Tennis and Mario Superstar Baseball, to the Wii. It takes a simple, pick-up-and-play approach, and makes use of the console's motion controls for pitching and batting.

The video below shows off exactly how the Wiimote input translates into in-game action behind the plate. It's nothing mind-blowing, but it is the Mushroom Kingdom on a baseball field, and if your home team is anything like mine, you might actually prefer that.                                                                        ...

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Castlevania fighting game to hit Wii this fall

Attention Wii owners who love Castlevania-I've got some good news, and bad news. The good news is that Iga and Konami announced today that they're beginning work on a new Castlevania title for the Wii. The bad news is that it's a fighting game.

Titled Castlevania Judgment, the game pits several generations of the Belmont clan against characters from the franchise's entire run.

"We wanted to take this addition to the signature Konami franchise in a direction that really sets it apart from the previous Castlevania titles in the series," said Anthony Crouts, Vice President of Marketing for Konami Digital Entertainment. "The Wii Remote and Nunchuk capabilities, along with the iconic characters, make this game the ideal entry point into the fighting game genre. This combination is certain to thr...

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June 30th WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

Magnetica Twist (Nintendo, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone-Comic Mischief, 1,000 Wii Points): The classic puzzle game Magnetica is now available on WiiWare , putting its own unique "twist" on the puzzle-game experience. You're surrounded by marbles, marching slowly but surely down a track. Use a launcher (piloted by a Mii of your choice) to shoot marbles with matching colors and wipe them out before they reach...

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Update: Zelda not coming to an online game near yo...

Sorry, Zelda fanboys, but Zelda Universe isn't an upcoming Zelda online game, despite the great write-up and team effort by Eddie and Justin on the original article. Turns out it's a rating from 2000-2001 for a Zelda flash game on the official Zelda site which is now gone. You can tell it's an older rating based on the games surrounding it if you do a simple search for all online ratings at the ESRB's website, and then go through the pages until you get to Zelda Universe.

I'm not entirely sure why it stayed quiet for so long with all the Nintendo fanboys out there (you'd think eventually someone would notice a Zelda rating with an online note and start spreading the word), but alas, it is not to be. Of course, you could always LARP your favorite Zelda scenes and moments with friends... May...

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June 23rd WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

Gyrostarr (High Voltage Software, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone-Mild Fantasy Violence, 700 Wii Points): Gyrostarr challenges you and up to three additional players to pilot your ships through a series of twisting, turning technoplasma tracks while battling a variety of deadly alien foes at ever-increasing speeds. While fighting and maneuvering, you must collect enough energy to activate the ancient warpgate ...

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Super Mario RPG hits Wii VC in Japan next week

Earlier today, Wii owners were brought yet another reason to envy Japan because the acclaimed Super Mario RPG is heading to their Virtual Console next week--specifically, on Tuesday.

No word yet on a North American release, but considering Europe is getting the game even though they never received it when it was originally released, there's a good chance the USA will see the game as well.

Unfortunately, Nintendo of America's handling of the Virtual Console has been rather questionable lately so it may be some time before we get the game here.

I do hope I'm wrong though. Super Mario RPG is one of my favorite games and I would love to have it easily accessible on my Wii. Here's hoping we see the game in the next few weeks.

[via Nintendo of Japan]

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EA: Boom Blox sales have met our expectations

With the casual gaming genre now one of the biggest money makers for developers, figuring out the best marketing strategy for the titles can be tricky. The tried and true plan of showing off trailers, screenshots, and bits of information almost an entire year in advance really doesn't cut it where casual games are concerned.

One of the best examples of this is the highly acclaimed Boom Blox by EA and Steven Spielberg. While heralded by some reviews as one of the best Wii games made, it should surprise some readers to know Boom Blox has only sold sixty thousand copies in the US. This has met EA's internal expectations, but there is no doubt they were hoping for more. Interestingly enough, Boom Blox may still net the numbers to make it be considered a bigger success.

It all comes down to how...

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Nintendo apologizes for "geeks and otaku" remarks

The Wii accomplishes its game saves and storage of downloadable content on its internal 512MB memory and removable SD memory cards, which can be a chore, and has started discussions about an HDD among Wii owners.

About a week and a half ago, Laurent Fischer, marketing director for Nintendo Europe said that only "geeks and otaku" would want a hard disk drive add-on for the Wii game console.

The insult didn't go unnoticed by the Wii community and Fischer has apologized for his harsh remarks.

"I have huge respect for those who, like me, share a common passion for Nintendo and want to make it clear that I would never use and I didn't use this terminology in such a context or way to cause offense, he said. "I regret that this misunderstanding has created such offense and disappointment within the...

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June 16th WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

Block Breaker Deluxe (Gameloft, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone-Mild Suggestive Themes, 800 Wii Points): Prepare for the frenzy of the coolest block-breaker game ever. Block Breaker Deluxe is a reinvention of the classic arcade brick-breaker game with a trendy graphical style, fun atmosphere and an exclusive multiplayer mode. Lively characters and amazing graphics provide distinctive settings of the jet-set ni...

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Sid Meier isn't abandoning the Wii

With no announcement of a Wii version of Sid Meier's newest title, Civilization Revolution, some fans of both Sid and the Wii have become uneasy, thinking that Meier has perhaps abandoned the system.Well that isn't the case; last Monday, GameDaily conducted an interview with the established developer. Sid said he and Firaxis both think the Wii is "a fantastic platform, and have no intentions of turning our backs on it!"

Unfortunately, he didn't confirm any plans for a Wii edition of Civilization Revolution but at least there's the possibility considering his enthusiasm for the Wii.

When asked about the possibility of a Civilization MMO, he replied "I'm exploring lots of exciting ideas right now. A Civ MMO is a really intriguing idea and we're spending time thinking about how we could make it...

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The Conduit to have superior Wii visuals

The team who brough you Tom Clancy's GRAW 2 is out to make a statement about themselves and the power of the Wii. High Voltage Software, Inc., one of the world's largest independent developers, has officially announced The Conduit, a stunning first-person action shooter that promises to provide some of the best visuals seen to date on Nintendo's Wii gaming console, for Q1 2009 release.

Using their proprietary Quantum 3 Game Engine technology, the team at High Voltage Software is fusing fast and fluid gameplay with an advanced set of visuals intended to squarely establish the Wii as a true current-generation gaming platform. The first-person shooter boasts a competitive online multiplayer component and a thrilling single-player campaign. Advanced graphical features include dynamic environmen...

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Nintendo says only geeks would want an HDD for Wii...

As many hardcore Wii-ites can attest to, there are only so many virtual console games and game saves that you can squeeze onto a flash memory card.

This proves to be a big pain in the posterior for those Wii owners who keep running out of memory space. Wouldn't it be nice if the Wii had the capacity to allow an external HDD to be used?

Laurent Fischer, Nintendo's marketing manager for Europe, made a statement about the odious situation regarding the Wii's lack of a hard drive and said that only people that were "geeks and otaku" would ever want one.

Well, how's that for real slick marketing technique? Obviously, Fischer comes from a different school of how to sell and make your products more appealing to the consumer--you insult them?

Regardless of Fischer's smooth, polished sytle, it is obvi...

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June 2nd WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

Protöthea (Ubisoft, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, Fantasy Violence, 1000 Wii Points): Protöthea is a top-down scrolling shooter game with free movement that puts players in complete control of a last-generation spaceship. The mission is to destroy the asteroid called Maqno 01 and finish with the plans of The Core. UbiSoft's Protöthea introduces new concepts to a beloved, classic game style while mixing genres ...

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Surfing the Earth with the Wii Balance Board

If you're anything like me, when you first caught wind of Nintendo's newest Wii-controlling contraption, the Balance Board, you quickly conjured up images of videogames involving leg-powered exploration -- running, climbing, jumping, and the like -- thinking to yourself that we are inching ever closer to full immersion in the virtual realm. Or maybe you thought that it was just a silly novelty item. That's a perfectly valid position as well.

Regardless of anyone's initial expectations, the fact remains that all we've been able to do with the peripheral thus far is exercise, ski, or, *ahem*, cheer, and that's not enough. Thanks to the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, however, we can add one more application to that list -- air surfing (dramatic pause) the WORLD.

The foll...

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Wii-exclusive Fatal Frame IV gets a release date

The next installment in the relatively creepy Fatal Frame series has finally been given a concrete release date -- in Japan, at least.

Nintendo of Japan has updated its release schedule, listing Fatal Frame IV, a Wii exclusive, with a July 31st street date.

The game will be published by Nintendo, and will be a collaborative effort between Fatal Frame director Shibata Makoto and Grasshopper Manufacture's charismatic and creative Goichi Suda (Killer7, No More Heroes). Judging by the track record of these two individuals and the teams they've worked with, I would be willing to wager that this could turn out to be one very interesting Wii title.

[via CVG]

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Wario Land Shake shakes it on Wii

Yesterday, Nintendo announced several new entries in some of their established franchises including a new Rythm Tengoku game (an awesome music game released only in Japan).

Probably the best piece of news, however, was the announcement of a new Wario Land game for the Wii titled "Wario Land Shake" which is obviously a reference to the Wii's motion-sensing capabilities. No initial details were revealed, but a Babelfish translation of the text on Nintendo's website yielded some interesting results.

"As for the head title 7/24Wii "[wariorandoshieiku]"After a long time, seeing, touching, it was the pleasant [do] lively action game.It shakes remote control and/or it can tilt something occurs it is.And method of entering to the movement and the earth tube which [wario] seem made [niyari] unintent...

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May 26th WiiWare/Virtual Console releases

Another Monday, another round of WiiWare and Virtual Console updates.

Whether Nintendo adds one game, ten games, or none at all, GamerNode will be here every Monday with the official details - titles, platforms, ratings, pricing, and even a taste of some corny marketing copy - keeping you up to date with everything from the online Wii scene.

Without further ado, the games:

WiiWare

Dr. Mario Online Rx (Nintendo, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points): The doctor is in! Mario takes a break from his adventuring ways and once again dons his stethoscope for a new generation of germ-battling mayhem. In addition to the classic mode of using vitamins to exterminate viruses, you'll find two battle modes and an online multiplayer mode where you can hone your skills against players fro...

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May 19th Virtual Console/WiiWare releases

The Big N has settled into a new routine now, updating both the Wii Virtual Console and WiiWare catalogs every Monday. Today we have a pair of new WiiWare games and one NES title hitting the little white box, down from the six new releases we saw last week.

Critter Round-Up is a puzzle game where players must fix fences in order to keep animals from escaping a virtual barnyard. Star Soldier R is a timed space shooter, featuring ship upgrades and power-ups, as well as an online leaderboard updated via the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection. The lone Virtual Console game, Sky Kid, sees players assuming the role of the Red Baron, shooting down enemy planes and pulling off loop-de-loops in grand, 1986-meets-1917 style.

Here are the official details from the press release:

WiiWareCritter Round-Up (Kona...

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