There were plenty of announcements missing from the Nintendo 2008 E3 press conference this summer, but perhaps most surprising was the fact that the company did not address the ever-growing storage problem plaguing the Wii.
Since WiiWare hit the console earlier this year, the factory-installed 512MB of internal storage just isn't cutting it. Nintendo is essentially shooting itself in the foot: here we have all these new games to download and play, but only the capacity to store a limited number of them.
Kotaku is now reporting that the company does indeed have a storage solution on the way, but it won't come in the form a physical hard drive. Nintendo executive Reggie Fils-Aime tells Club Nintendo magazine that we'll see something even better than a hard drive for the Wii.
What's better than a hard drive? Some sort of online solution? While we'd love to see this, we all know Nintendo isn't much of an innovator when it comes to online functionality. Either way, we'll let you know when the company officially announces something. For now, what kind of storage solution do you think we'll see--or would like to see?
(Credit:
Nintendo of America)
The Nintendo Wii launched more than a year ago, and the system is still incredibly hard to find. This long after the system started shipping, people are still camping in front of stores as soon as they hear about new shipments.
Friday morning, Nintendo of America's president and CEO, Reggie Fils-Aime, held a telephone press conference to address the continuing shortage of the Wii.
Fils-Aime said Nintendo hadn't expected as much demand for the Wii as they're getting. Since the launch, he claimed, Nintendo has almost doubled its global production from 1 million to 1.8 million Wiis per month, and tripled its workforce at Nintendo of America's North Bend, Wash., distribution center. The Nintendo president wouldn't say whether Nintendo would further increase its Wii production, but he denied any claims that Nintendo is stockpiling Wiis.
"There was no ability for us to stockpile systems in the summer for the holiday rush," Fils-Aime said. "Enough systems would make everyone, including me, much happier."
According to Fils-Aime, Wiis will be available next week at all major retailers. If past patterns are any indication, however, that "availability" will be limited to shoppers willing to camp out before stores open on Sunday or Monday morning. Since Christmas is just two weeks away, you're probably still going to have some difficulty finding a Wii.
While that seems to be the biggest hope for Christmas Wiis, Reggie also announced a raincheck program in conjunction with GamesStop to get more Wiis out to shoppers in January. Even if Wiis are out of stock, on December 20 and 21, consumers will be able to purchase them for January.
On those two days, if you put down the full retail price of the Wii at a GameStop, you'll receive a raincheck guaranteeing you a Wii in January. The rainchecks will be available only as supplies last, but Fils-Aime said GameStop has "many tens of thousands" of rainchecks available across its 3,000+ stores. Perhaps the Wii-hungry will be camping out next week to get a raincheck for a Wii next month. We'll find out by next Friday.
"We went into the launch with very high expectations," Fils-Aime said. "What we didn't expect was to throw out the whole playbook and essentially create a whole new level of sell-through for this industry. You can't plan for that."
On Sale Now: $199.00 - $219.99
View the latest prices for Nintendo Wii
Microsoft's Jeff Bell and Reggie Bush at E3
(Credit: Dan Ackerman/CNET Networks)By now, the news has hit the wires (and the blogs) that Peter Moore, corporate vice president of interactive entertainment at Microsoft, is leaving Redmond to be president of the sports division at game publisher Electronic Arts (EA). An EA representative confirmed to CNET News.com that there is no press conference planned, but a release (now posted on Kotaku, which first reported the news) has been sent out.
It's by no means the only recent major executive shuffle in the game console world, as PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi famously stepped down in April. But Moore's timing is interesting--he's departing just as the releases for some big Xbox and Games for Windows titles have been finalized in the pipeline, such as Halo 3. In essence, he's in the clear.
What's even more interesting is that even though Halo 3 was undoubtedly the centerpiece of Microsoft's rather theatrical press event at the E3 Business and Media Summit last week, Moore made a pretty big deal out of the EA Sports title Madden NFL 2008, with New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush coming onstage to demo the game (though his appearance was with Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of Microsoft global marketing, not Moore). Yes, Microsoft and EA are partners in this sense, so it was also positive hype for the Xbox, but talk about making EA Sports stand out.
One CNET writer quipped that Moore must have "told reporters they would only get the first half of his acceptance speech...and the rest would be up on Xbox Live Marketplace for 400 Microsoft Points." Moore, it should also be noted, is seminotorious for having tattoos of the Grand Theft Auto 4 and Halo 2 logos. No word on whether he's made plans for some EA Sports-worthy additions.
- prev
- 1
- next
