I watched Nintendo’s conference off of IGN earlier this morning, and I’ve got to say that it was kind of lack lustre. I’ve never seen Reggie doing a public speaking session before, but he did not live up to the hype at the Nintendo conference. He seemed a little groggy or distanced. Out of his element, perhaps. Nevertheless, some interesting things were displayed at the conference.
Many of them were the new games, which I will discuss in seperate posts.
However, there is some cool information to be salvaged from the conference:
The ControllerÂ
The rumours about the nunchuk having an accelerometer built in have turned out to be true, adding just a bit more functionality to the Nintendo control system. This is definitely a plus, and I look forward to someday playing this system.
Moreover, the Nintendo Wiimote will have a built-in speaker. This feature was substantially less impressive. It seemed as if Nintendo was going for a portable, surround-sound feel with the Wiimote speaker, so that you could “hear the arrow go from your controller to the stomach of your enemy.” I can appreciate the attempt, but the fact that the speaker appears to be covered partly or entirely by your hand depending on how you hold the remote makes the feature seem moot.
The SystemÂ
It will apparently be connected to the Nintendo online service 24 hours a day in what is called WiiConnect24. An interesting feature for games like Animal Crossing and any MMOG that Nintendo decides to release, however, I can only imagine the toll this takes on server resources.
Otherwise, it seems most of the capabilities the system has to offer have been revealed previously.
The Launch
Reggie neglected to mention this part - despite promising to. The most likely reason for this is that after Sony’s announcement of a mind-boggling price tag, Nintendo decided that they had a lot of freedom to move around with the price. It is likely the price tag they had placed was extremely low compared to the Xbox 360 Core Pack. As a result, they are likely changing the MSRP to something slightly more profitable, although not entirely devestating.
As for the date, we’re all still assuming Nov 11ish to hit Thanksgiving in the States.
Now onto something more interesting.