Nintendo Wii

[Romana]

I found out the Europe release date today for the Wii: December 8th. I'm very happy now. My birthday is just before, which means I can most likely buy it right away!  With Twilight Princess! *Dies of excitement*

By the way, in case no-one's mentioned this, it comes packaged with Wii Sports.

Wow. Again, Nintendo shows its love of Australia. Before it was DS Lite being released here before America and Europe. Now it's Wii being released before Europe (December 7th for Aus).

A day before me...I envy every second of it... 

[V_Translanka]

Is it really "love" or just the fact that Australia's closer to Japan? I mean, honestly, what's the market like in Australia comparitively?

[Lord J Esq]

Is it really "love" or just the fact that Australia's closer to Japan?

Dunno. But Wii is coming out in the U.S. a couple of weeks before its debut in Japan, and I happen to know for a fact that Japan is closer than the United States to Japan.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Is it really "love" or just the fact that Australia's closer to Japan?

Dunno. But Wii is coming out in the U.S. a couple of weeks before its debut in Japan, and I happen to know for a fact that Japan is closer than the United States to Japan.

Yeah, like I said, Nintendo know that Japan will eat up the Wii's like innovative hotcakes.

[Daid]

I will get the Nintendo Wii because it's affordable.
The Playstation 3 will cost aroun $900 in Australia and the X Box 360 is prety crap and over priced.
(About the Playstation 3 thing, I only read that online when my friend was ordering stuff for his computer buisiness, might not be true.)
But what I have heard about the Wii it should be alright. and $250 is a good deal.

[Magus22]

While we are indeed all entitled to our opinions, it tickles me pink that you feel that theWii won't live up to hype or that it'll drag behind the PS3. I haven't kept up with the times, but remind me: isn't the PS3 going to cost around $550? I don't think Final Fantasy 323421: Glacier of the Dead II would be worth that, sir.

On the other hand, Wii will have Pokemon Revolution, a new Smash Bros. title, and various other things that fail to come to mind at present. And one of the most unbelievably silly controllers ever made.

The Wii is definately going to do well, however, the overall graphics look like PS2/XBOX. The games on launch date of every console always suck. You might get away with a couple that are really good though. Down the road when things settles down, the Wii just might be dragging behind PS3 and/or the 360 or possibly right in the middle. With all its new features, this Wii-mote that works for that Red Steel game in which you control the sword and other things by your own motion, might not be as good as people think it will be. I could be dead wrong, but its just a feeling.

As for the PS3, people have the option of the 40GB being around $400 and the 60GB at $600 . . . only loyal hardcore Sony fans will get the system on launch date as it arrives in the USA and Japan. I honestly think it's a rip off. When Europe gets theres, I will get mine, and by the time that happens, many good games will be out and many more on the way!

[Lord J Esq]

While we are indeed all entitled to our opinions, it tickles me pink that you feel that theWii won't live up to hype or that it'll drag behind the PS3. I haven't kept up with the times, but remind me: isn't the PS3 going to cost around $550? I don't think Final Fantasy 323421: Glacier of the Dead II would be worth that, sir.

On the other hand, Wii will have Pokemon Revolution, a new Smash Bros. title, and various other things that fail to come to mind at present. And one of the most unbelievably silly controllers ever made.

The Wii is definately going to do well, however, the overall graphics look like PS2/XBOX. The games on launch date of every console always suck. You might get away with a couple that are really good though. Down the road when things settles down, the Wii just might be dragging behind PS3 and/or the 360 or possibly right in the middle. With all its new features, this Wii-mote that works for that Red Steel game in which you control the sword and other things by your own motion, might not be as good as people think it will be. I could be dead wrong, but its just a feeling.

As for the PS3, people have the option of the 40GB being around $400 and the 60GB at $600 . . . only loyal hardcore Sony fans will get the system on launch date as it arrives in the USA and Japan. I honestly think it's a rip off. When Europe gets theres, I will get mine, and by the time that happens, many good games will be out and many more on the way!

I think Nintendo has a point with its "graphics isn't the final word" strategy. 3D visual art has yet to come near the comparable level of beauty that came out of the 2D art in the mid-1990s. Ever since the transition from 2D to 3D, we have yet to experience 3D visual art as beautiful as the 2D stuff at its pinnacle. I have no doubt that that will someday change, but in the meantime it has been a good lesson in the fact that snappy pictures do not a masterpiece make. I think Nintendo would do well to divert some of its creative talent (and that of its licensees) from graphics to the enrichment of other aspects of gameplay, some completely novel like the Wiimote itself, and others tried and true.

In my opinion, the Wii represents Nintendo's best chance to regain market share since the company's halcyon days of the SNES.

[Radical_Dreamer]

While we are indeed all entitled to our opinions, it tickles me pink that you feel that theWii won't live up to hype or that it'll drag behind the PS3. I haven't kept up with the times, but remind me: isn't the PS3 going to cost around $550? I don't think Final Fantasy 323421: Glacier of the Dead II would be worth that, sir.

On the other hand, Wii will have Pokemon Revolution, a new Smash Bros. title, and various other things that fail to come to mind at present. And one of the most unbelievably silly controllers ever made.

The Wii is definately going to do well, however, the overall graphics look like PS2/XBOX. The games on launch date of every console always suck. You might get away with a couple that are really good though. Down the road when things settles down, the Wii just might be dragging behind PS3 and/or the 360 or possibly right in the middle. With all its new features, this Wii-mote that works for that Red Steel game in which you control the sword and other things by your own motion, might not be as good as people think it will be. I could be dead wrong, but its just a feeling.

As for the PS3, people have the option of the 40GB being around $400 and the 60GB at $600 . . . only loyal hardcore Sony fans will get the system on launch date as it arrives in the USA and Japan. I honestly think it's a rip off. When Europe gets theres, I will get mine, and by the time that happens, many good games will be out and many more on the way!

The 40 gig PS3, which cannot be upgraded to the 60gig model, because it lacks and HDMI port, will retail for $500, not $400.

[saridon]

[I think Nintendo has a point with its "graphics isn't the final word" strategy.

except it isnt really a statagy its simply ignoring the false standard so many shitty game companys think they have to abide by to sell theirgames.

id rather play a 2D 8-bit game that was fun over a boring as shit HD 3D one, the reason im going to get a PS3 and Wii is because the games for it tend not to abide by this dumbass rule well the good games for it at least.
good old japanese market still remembering all the oldschool games where graphics was the least worrysome aspect of developing a game.
gameplay is always more importent than graphics (with the excpetion of a few genres where it matters slightly more but still not as much) it would be nice if more developers woke up and godamn understood that.

and for the people who were confused about PS3 pricing its going for about 1k Australian for better model and Wii ive heard is about $250 US, the advantage of the PS3 is though that unlike the 360 we dont have to change drives after 360 switches to using HD-DVDs most of the time which adds on to its overall price.

[Radical_Dreamer]

[I think Nintendo has a point with its "graphics isn't the final word" strategy.

except it isnt really a statagy its simply ignoring the false standard so many shitty game companys think they have to abide by to sell theirgames.

id rather play a 2D 8-bit game that was fun over a boring as shit HD 3D one, the reason im going to get a PS3 and Wii is because the games for it tend not to abide by this dumbass rule well the good games for it at least.
good old japanese market still remembering all the oldschool games where graphics was the least worrysome aspect of developing a game.
gameplay is always more importent than graphics (with the excpetion of a few genres where it matters slightly more but still not as much) it would be nice if more developers woke up and godamn understood that.

and for the people who were confused about PS3 pricing its going for about 1k Australian for better model and Wii ive heard is about $250 US, the advantage of the PS3 is though that unlike the 360 we dont have to change drives after 360 switches to using HD-DVDs most of the time which adds on to its overall price.

The HD-DVD drive for the 360 will be an optional, external drive. It is rumored that they will be making a version of the 360 with an internal HD-DVD drive. This is presently just a rumor, and in either case, the HD-DVD drive will only be used for movies, not games.

[saridon]

they've said before that they were most likly going to eventually use HD-DVDS for games, as HD quality games requrie much more space than a DVD allows.

and using a HD-DVD for a movie is kinda stupid since  the HD codecs that ive found tend to compress movies into a size that a single layer or double layer at a strech could hold.
games would need the space because of high polycount models, large worlds, etc movies wouldn't need to use them as few of our TVS can play real HD now anyway and we can increase  the video dimensions that much more to fill up a HD dvd.
having multiple movies sold on a single HD  DVD would be nice though and would make more sense.

[Radical_Dreamer]

They aren't going to sell multiple movies on an HD-DVD, anymore than they have on a DVD. They'll just fill it up with higher res. And mind you, the resolutions offered by HD-DVD and "HD games" are the same. If your tv won't benefit from one, it won't benefit from the other. And everything I've heard from MS has been saying a firm "NO" to HD-DVDs for games.

[Burning Zeppelin]

HD-DVD is more important for games than movies. However, HD-DVD means more FMV's from Squeenix, and less real-time.

[saridon]

They aren't going to sell multiple movies on an HD-DVD, anymore than they have on a DVD. They'll just fill it up with higher res. And mind you, the resolutions offered by HD-DVD and "HD games" are the same. If your tv won't benefit from one, it won't benefit from the other. And everything I've heard from MS has been saying a firm "NO" to HD-DVDs for games.

yeah higher resolution that 50+% of screens wont support its only been fairly recently that most TVs can even display HD videos upping the resolution so it needs a HD-DVD isnt exactly possiple since a movie in HD would be roughly 4-6g with a decent resolution upping the resolution so it needs 40G for a HD-DVD or 52G for a blu-ray would be kinda hard as im not sure the original film could be converted to a resoluton that  big.

as for multiple movies i suppose they might not do that but with series on TV or movies with sequals it makes alot m ore sense.

the next-gen disk are more importan for games as zeppelin said because of HD quality FMVs racking up in size (though since more things are being renderd real time this may not be the case) and 3D models and high res textures taking up more and more space as the hardwares processing power increases

[Radical_Dreamer]

They aren't going to sell multiple movies on an HD-DVD, anymore than they have on a DVD. They'll just fill it up with higher res. And mind you, the resolutions offered by HD-DVD and "HD games" are the same. If your tv won't benefit from one, it won't benefit from the other. And everything I've heard from MS has been saying a firm "NO" to HD-DVDs for games.

yeah higher resolution that 50+% of screens wont support its only been fairly recently that most TVs can even display HD videos upping the resolution so it needs a HD-DVD isnt exactly possiple since a movie in HD would be roughly 4-6g with a decent resolution upping the resolution so it needs 40G for a HD-DVD or 52G for a blu-ray would be kinda hard as im not sure the original film could be converted to a resoluton that  big.

as for multiple movies i suppose they might not do that but with series on TV or movies with sequals it makes alot m ore sense.

the next-gen disk are more importan for games as zeppelin said because of HD quality FMVs racking up in size (though since more things are being renderd real time this may not be the case) and 3D models and high res textures taking up more and more space as the hardwares processing power increases

It's more than 50% of TVs that won't support HD at this point. A standard DVD holds 4.7 gigs per layer. You can rest assured that movies in HD formats, with their higher resolution and increased sound channels, will take up far more than that. HD-DVD holds 15 gigs per layer. So even if the movies were only standard definition, only two movies per single-layer HD-DVD. And they aren't going to do that, more for marketing reasons than technical. If they sell multiple movies on one disk, that dilutes profits, and if they put SD movies on an HD DVD, that dilutes the brand.

And while certainly larger disks would allow more content for games as well as movies, that is not Microsofts intent:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141930.html