Click

It's on!

I'll be live blogging.

12:14 Iwata came on.

Iwata: Paradigm shift in 2003. He knew that everyone had a pessimistic view on Nintendo's future. People were using a "common sense" view. Even Nintendo employees doubted that Nintendo could do it.

12:16: Talking about Nintendogs, New SMB, so on.

12:17: Talking about the Mario/Zelda teams brining new titles. Talking about new concepts like WiiSports, etc. Small games with small budgets can capture big audience with great idea. They are pursuing it.

The userbase has expanded.

12:19: 100k Wiis a week in Europe. Sales rates are like holidays all-around for Nintendo.

Last year, Iwata wanted to take down the barriers for games. WiiSports can't do it alone. More casual games needed.

Guitar Hero III outselling all other console versions.

12:21: People trying to copy Nintendo's new change, and they're saying how they're trying to keep ahead. They must find more ways to get players engaged with the Wii.

Conclusion: trying to change at Nitnendo to be pioneers. New changes today:

12:23:
Katsuya Iguchi is on. New Animal Crossing, it seems.

Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) announced!

The town is always moving 24 hours a day. It's a brand-new world. Big city, you can buy/trade items with other players. Fashion designer, stylist. new communication. Write letters to other players. Send to cellphones, PCs, and other places. Wii Message Board, too.

WiiSpeak microphone with Animal Crossing!

You can go to other people's towns and everything.

12:28:
Reggie came out.

Pleased, not satisfied.

May 2008 NPD
Wii sales: 10 million LTD.
DS 20 million LTD.

Aiming for more of the people.

Gonna start talking about new games soon. But first, global sales:

Expect by next fiscal year:
100 million DS systems LTD. DS = 2 out of 3 handhelds sold in US.

Pokemon sales: 180 million LTD

Wii sales are rapidly increasing.

Wii software sales: most sold in year 1 of all time.

19 3rd parties software have exceeded 400k units.

Wii has most games of all next-gen consoles. 249

3 New games:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Wii) shown off.
Rayman: Raving Rabbids TV Party (Wii) shown.
Call of Duty: World at War (Wii) shown.

12:39: Some woman is on.

She's gonna start talking about DS games now.

Acticision Guitar Hero DS sold 300k in its first week.

Spore will be on DS this year, too.

Videos of Guitar Hero: On Tour: Decades and Spore DS are being shown.

Spore: Creatures focuses on the creature interactions. You can share them with your friends.

*polite applause*

Pokemon Ranger DS 2 announced.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown (DS) announced!!!

New game, new characters, and everything.

DS and airplanes merging into some type of device to help find your way around cities. Apparently, you can do a lot of stuff with your DS.

Cooking Navi (DS) coming to the US for November 2008!

12:47: Reggie's back with the new MotionPlus.

1:1 controls of the game.

About to announce games:

Wii Sports Resort announced!

The new Wii Motion Plus will be included in every copy of Wii Sports Resort.

It responds greatly. Showing off a dog frisbee thing.

WSR has a slight WaveRace game in it.

Sword-cutting game in it, as well.

Fencing game in it. Really responsive.

12:54: Reggies back and talking about WiiMotionPlus:

One last thing....

Someone's playing on a Wii drum set apparently. Wii Rock?

Wii Music shown!

Holy crap. Miyamoto is playing a sax on Wii Music. What the hell? How bizarrely cool.

Apparently, you can make damn-near any type of music you want to with this. It's like the musical equivalent of Mario Paint. No rhythm guides or stuff. All you have to do it move the remote like you would a real instrument and it'll make a note for you.

50 different instruments by just moving your body.

Drum set works also with the Wii Balance Board to make a real drum set.

Also a lesson mode, to help you with that.

It will record music videos of your performance.

Wow, they're able to play the SMB theme using the people on the instruments. This is fun to see.

The conference is over.

Ix Notes:

I guess it's official that the media announcements are no longer for the hardcore fans. They'll leak our games out with time.

NO! Bring on the real games!

Any news of actually being able to play as an animal in the new Animal Crossing?

I'm pretty sure a console from the other consoles is sold on a daily basis... so if the userbase WASN'T expanding, there would be need to worry.



People still by that game anymore?



Copied... like what? If this is about the motion control of the wii and the 6-axis controller for the PS3, they need to get over it. That was an argument that died down soon after launch.



Lmao, I think I may know close to 300k people who were mildly dissapointed too. *points at Duel's thread about said game*



This is by far the most interesting bit of info. Though, I wonder how that's going to work. If it's suppose to work like a GPS, then there's going to have to be a new way for it to connect. Right now you have to be within range of a wirless nextwork to get any external data to your DS... and I really doubt that they'll be able to get a single network to cover world wide. Ah well, we'll see.



Unless this motion plus thing is required for future games, I won't be bying it... and trying to butter me up a game with it isn't going to help. Also, if it IS required for some games, then I'll be very dissapointed in nintendo as they continue thier money hungry mongering.



Actually, Rock Band IS getting ported over to the wii. I know that's not what the conference was talking about, but I hear that you can only buy extra rock band songs on the wii by buying disc expansions that can't be permanently copied to the console.