MacNN | Print: Nintendo's US press conference

View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/09/14/nintendos.us.press.event/
Thursday, September 14,2006 @ 9:45am

Nintendo's US press conference

It seems that the Times didn't have the scoop on everything, because more information is coming out of the ongoing conference in New York City. We'll keep you informed. UPDATE: That's it for now. In case you missed it, the core details can be found here. UPDATE 2: The official US Website is live, highlighting a number of new videos. Much of the software depicted is in Japanese, strangely enough.

In the words of Reggie Fils-Aime: "One price, one configuration, one colour." Every Wii will be white.
The system will come to 25,000 retail locations (in the US, presumably).
Launch games: Excite Truck, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Need for Speed Carbon, Madden 07, Elebits, Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, and Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
Reggie says there should be closer to 30 games by the end of the year, not 25. First-party prices will be $50 or less.
Virtual Console games will be bought through the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo figures an average of 10 new VC games per month.
Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 will be two of the first VC games.
NES games will cost 500 "Wii points," whereas SNES games will be 800 and N64 games 1,000. This is in line with the New York Times article, since you'll be able to buy a 2,000-point card at retail for $20 US.
Yes, sending your Mii character to the Wiimote is for playing on a friend's Wii.
You can view videos through the photo channel, adding mosaic effects or turning it into a slide puzzle.
Messages can also be sent to cellphones.
The Opera browser will actually cost you Wii points to purchase. No Web browsing out-of-the-box.
The Wii Channels menu should come up instantly, with no load times whatsoever.
There will be some internal memory, but you'll need SD cards if you plan to store anything substantial.
The only first-party Wii games that will be ready before 2007 are Excite Truck, Twilight Princess, and Wii Sports. Speaking of which, the GameCube version of Princess is being pushed to December.
Most Wii content, including all first-party games, will be available in 16:9 widescreen. It will not, however, be in HD.
Nintendo will talk about Wii-DS connectivity at a later time.
Metroid Prime 3 is now aimed for 2007.
The first Wii game with online play will be Pokemon Battle Revolution.