50,000 Wiis sold in UK over 12 hours

Although us North Americans have been blessed with launch of the Nintendo Wii already, folks in the UK have just embraced the Wii-mote and nunchuck, and man have they embraced it well! In 12 hours 50,000 Nintendo Wii's have already been sold according to a UK press release. That's roughly one Wii console sold every second! Nintendo of UK plans to keep the supply coming as they do for North America so that we all have a Wii to play with this Christmas. We have a feeling that Christmas shopping will be more chaotic than the norm this year. The Nintendo Wii to some parents may become what "Turbo Man" was to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Jingle all the way.

HMV giving away chance to buy a Wii or PS3

It's as if god himself opened the stairway to heaven for us gamers. After the launch of the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii many poor souls were left unsatisfied and miserable, it was as if part of their soul was missing, something was definitely wrong. Well my sappy friends, cheer up because HMV is determined to rescue you from yourself and possibly satisfy all your gaming needs.

How you may ask? HMV is giving away a chance to purchase the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii at their Canadian stores. Avoid the line-ups and disappointments and call your aunt or uncle up north, be extra nice this time. There are 20 PS3s and 20 Wiis that the good folks at HMV are willing to let you buy off them, one per person.

One of twenty (20) Sony Playstation® 3 console (UPC # 0 00 71171 98001 0 / 20GB Hard Drive version console) or one of twenty (20) Nintendo® Wii console (UPC # 0 00 45496 88001 9 / Include Wii console, Wii Sports, a sensor bar, an AV cable, a Wii stand, a Wii Remote, and a Nunchuk controller)

Why are they doing this, because they want to ease your pain and also because they want you to know that they now carry games and consoles. Good Move!

My only hope is to win a Wii and that not many people read this post.

Canadian PlayStation 3 Launch Event

Higher uptown in Toronto yesterday, Sony held a press launch event for their PlayStation 3 console which was packed with media personnel. The event took place at the very classy looking Six Degrees night club. Security was tight and bouncers were guarding the gates heightening our anticipation of what awaited inside. Of course you had to be recognizable enough as media to receive this classy invite, the presence of bouncers proved just how serious Sony was. Luckily, we got in and saw the goods.

Sony’s Ian Jackson addressed the press with some good news regarding the PlayStation 3, Sony is promising a backup supply of units to arrive next week “in-case” gamers don't get their hands on a PS3 on launch day. Exact numbers were not provided and a date was not mentioned.

I have been to Xbox 360 events, the Wii Launch, and finally Sony's PlayStation 3. It was disappointing to see there were the same third party titles everywhere and very few exclusive titles dedicated to the PlayStation 3 alone. One reporter I bumped into had this to say, “These games are already out on the Xbox 360 why would I buy a PlayStation for them?” I'm sure the dedicated Sony fan-boy would immediately say, “Duh! Coz they're like 100x better looking...” Umm, yes they might look a bit better but nothing the Xbox 360 was not already close to displaying, at least the first set of titles didn’t seem graphically superior to the Xbox 360 versions, some were slightly sharper but that was essentially the only difference noted.

The only first party titles being released on launch day are Resistance: Fall of Man, NBA 07, and Genji: Days of the Blade. All three were on the event floor. For initial impressions: NBA 07 showed intense realism and texture detail through realistic reflections and refractions. Genji was a major disappointment in gameplay. Sure it looked beautiful as all games did but I found myself just running around in the game continuously hacking and slashing away, nothing next-gen about that. The characters also appeared as if they were sliding across the floor as they ran, it totally threw off any experience of realism. Resistance: Fall of Man was a well looking FPS game although some explosions sort of looked like poorly generated volume clouds. Once again, it looked great but nothing felt different about it from any other FPS game. Xbox 360’s Gears of War definitely takes precedence over Resistance: Fall of Man in challenging and enjoyable gameplay. Of course these were Sony’s first attempts for launch, I’m sure they will use more potential of the PS3 on upcoming titles.

Some of the third party titles that I saw at X’06 were here as well. Such as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Call of Duty 3. Overall I felt they looked sharper on the PS3 compared to their Xbox 360 versions but aside from that I saw no other difference. Some reporters on the event floor saw no difference between the titles on either console.

Sadly there was no demonstration of movie playback using the Blu-ray technology or any of the other features on the PS3. None of the games seemed to have been set-up using the wireless controller's motion sensitivity feature so it was impossible to experience the SIXAXIS controller completely.

Nonetheless, Sony has released a promising console but it has definitely been over hyped. It will stand in great competition with the Xbox 360 as long as Sony brings out some exclusive innovative games that make great use of the technology onboard the PS3.

Canadian Nintendo Wii Launch Event

As promised I did attend the Canadian launch event for the Nintendo Wii console yesterday with my fellow blogger eMadman. It was held at Ontario Place, in downtown Toronto secretly tucked away at the end of a long tunnel. We managed to arrive thirty minutes before the official launch time and were forced to stand outside with a massive statue of Link. We even took a few photos with our buddy Link; he didn’t seem to mind.

As we entered the event floor at 10:00 am we saw around twenty-eight Nintendo Wii consoles just sitting there crying out to be played, “Play Wiiiiii…” is all I could hear. Of course we were held back till a speech was given about how great the Wii was and will be blah blah blah…as if the hype wasn’t killing us already. The best news for fans we could gather was Nintendo's dedication to release ten Wii titles each month starting in 2007.

I ran across the event floor as soon as the TVs were turned on, stumbling and bumping into other media personnel, I was venturing towards the crowd lining up to play Call of Duty 3, and yes Zelda was there too. First off, don't expect mind blowing graphics the Wii isn't a super hyper-realism graphics machine like its competitors; it’s a “fun” machine for a larger audience. I stood at a bit over a meter's distance from the Sharp LCD TV and grabbed the Wii nunchuck in my left hand and the Wii remote in my right. I was immediately thrown into a battle against the Germans. The Wii remote was configured to such great sensitivity that whenever I moved it I did a 360 degree dance in the game. I quickly got the hang of it as the Wii representative there told me to only twitch the remote a little to look to the left or right. All forward and backward movements were controlled from the Wii nunchuck, moving the Wii nunchuck to the left let me swap through my weapon inventory and that was a very cool experience.

Although I only got 4 minutes of playing time with the game since other media hogs wanted to get in on it, I discovered that it was going to take great skill and practice to use the Wii remote for an fps game. When I first started playing I assumed an extended arm position as if I was holding a gun, after a while that started to hurt my shoulder and I had to experiment to find a comfortable position.

I searched for eMadman and found him boxing with the Wii, literally! eMadman and I decided to go for a round in the virtual ring in Wii Sports’ Boxing game. I was really impressed at how easy it was to discover the basic moves; my mom could have easily done this! I grabbed the Wii nunchuck and Wii remote and brought it up to my face, to assume a defensive position against my opponent. I even tried shifting my feet to the left and right and my character moved along with me, it was incredible even with a lacking photorealistic character on screen. I swung my left then my right then my left again, and let eMadman have a piece of my Wii powered fury. Once again I only had 4 minutes and discovered that the character could not swing past a certain speed, if I tried to punch really fast or hard he would still move slower, so I was forced to match his average speed.

Next I decided to move onto Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the Wii. Playing MAU wasn't as rewarding of an experience with the Wii remote. I almost felt as if the use of the remote technology was forced onto the game. I still wanted to see what the wireless gestures would make me do in-game. Unfortunately I was not so impressed: tilting the Wii remote up, down, left and right made me produce different moves, I came to a point where just twirling the remote clockwise easily cycled through the 4 basic moves, it felt sort of cheap.

As the crowd died down we jumped over to the Wii Sports’ Tennis game. This game, even though simple in function still proved to be fun, more enjoyable than MAU. I was forced to actually serve a ball and do a backhand on a return shot. I’ve played “real tennis” regularly, playing it on the Wii made me forget it was virtual as I tried to dive to the right to return a serve. Suddenly it dawned on me that my character automatically moved regardless of where I positioned myself and I had made a fool of myself. This was a great disappointment as the experience could have been taken so much farther if the character on screen moved relatively to my real-world position.

I moved onto Rayman Raving Rabbids, a game that made great use of the Wii remote. I had the chance to sample two short mini games within this game. One forced me to rapidly move my arms and shoulders holding the Wii nunchuck and Wii remote to simulate running action. My objective was to deliver a present from point A to B as fast as I could, and how fast I “pretended” to run reflected my speed in the game. The second mini game I tried involved throwing a cow. The cow was lassoed and I had to use the Wii remote and twirl it as if I was going to twirl a real cow around my body. Believe me this was difficult; I couldn't twirl it fast enough to gain enough virtual momentum. My timing was also off; I now know I suck at throwing cows.

My concluding thoughts…
I couldn’t sample everything and 4 minutes per game is hardly enough time to enjoy a game fully especially with so many people walking the event floor. From the games I tested, I did not like using the Wii remote for cross platform games that were not designed specifically for the Wii such as CoD3 and MUA. I felt that those games would stay best played with a controller. The Wii really showed its full potential with the Rayman and Wii Sports games, I can see where Nintendo is headed with the remote technology in those titles and I hope to see even more innovative titles designed specifically for the Wii. Cross-platform games I don’t see doing so well from what I sampled.

Stay tuned for my Canadian PlayStation 3 launch event coverage this Friday. Until then I leave you with our buddy Link.