E308 • Nintendo Press Conference “Live” Blogging

by: ~samuel w.

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We’re here “Live” Blogging the Nintendo Press Conference which will soon be followed by the Sony Press Conference. But right now it’s all about Nintendo. So without any long introductions, coverage follows as presented, most updated at the top.

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~most recent.

• That’s a wrap folks. Once again, this seemed to be completely underwhelming, no Kid Icarus, no big games announced, no Metroid, no Mario, no Zelda, nothing. WiiMusic looks cool and Animal Crossing looks totally like Animal Crossing. WiiSports Resort is a natural progression of the original game but nothing too surprising.

Sorry folks but every press conference can’t be as big as past years.

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• This appears to be the end of Press Conference, ultimately it was quite underwhelming. Nintendo knows they need to appeal to it’s hardcore audience and nothing present seemed to do that. Quite possibly they could pull a “one more thing” but the Conference sure seems to over.

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• That wraps up the presentation for the game. WiiMusic will arrive this holiday.

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• They’re now demonstrating a 6 player band playing the Mario Theme with a host of instruments. Each instrument individually didn’t seem too impressive but this is pretty awesome I have to admit.

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• The orchestra game we saw demonstrated 2 years ago by Miyamoto himself will make an appearance in the game. You will be able to record videos of your performances and mix and match them to make up a music video.

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• The drum set will include an entire separate mode for learning the drums if that’s your thing, seeing as the entire drumset is rendered on-screen, it seems this could make you a more proficient player than say Rock Band.

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• They also demoed Violin, Guitar and now Miyamoto is beating on Taiko Drums. Nothing seems too precise or high quality sounding but the typical Nintendo philosophy seems to be applied here as it has with WiiSports.

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• 50 different instruments will be included with WiiMusic, including a piano, it seems odd that something that precise would be included in a Wii game.

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• There appears to be no onscreen menus to match like in Guitar Hero or Rock Band, everything that is done is done up to the player simply by holding the Wiimote in the way you would hold that specific instrument.

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• WiiMusic officially announced. When you look back at the previous titles, it makes sense this game is coming out alongside WiiSports, WiiPlay and WiiFit.

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• Miyamoto comes on stage playing a saxaphone by holding the Wiimote up and pressing buttons. We now see a band in the background complete with drums, Xylophone and Cello.

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• After a mysterious announcement of a new game, we seen a drum set on screen and real time motion controls being implemented to play, complete with balance board support for kickpedals. Whoever is playing this game can’t play drums worth crap but that isn’t the point.

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• WiiSports Resort will launch Spring 09.

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• Reggie has once again referred to himself as the Regginator, welcome back Reggie, we missed you.

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• They’re now talking about a sword game, again the motions of the player are precisely rendered onto the character. They’re demonstrating chopping a practice log. Now Reggie and Cammie are going at it, it looks pretty awesome, the idea of precise sword controls questions what will be implemented in the upcoming Star Wars title.

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• Reggie just one-upped Cammie about her love for the frisby game with a game that’s “more his speed”, a jet skiing game and it totally looks like jet skiing, but very accurate.

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• They’re now demonstrating how the Wii MotionPlus tracks every movement and maps it to the character model, in the example they’re showing a frisby throwing game involving a dog, the character’s motions are all being precisely rendered. Very cool, implimentation for shooters could be awesome.

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• WiiSports Resort announced, will launch along side the Wii MotionPlus and will take full advantage of the new attachment. The games will focus on more beach, summer style games rather than pure sports.

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• Reggie is back up and talking about the Wii MotionPlus, the little attachment that increases accuracy for the Wii and adds new motion possibilities to the console.

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• Talk about the DS as an electric cookbook via an English version of Cooking Navi, sounds pretty cool actually.

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• Cammie talking about possible implementations of the DS in airports. Examples are where to claim your luggage after landing or looking for the closest Mexican restaurant. The DS becoming more of an iPhone type device fits the userbase and makes sense.

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• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars announced for… DS? The game will take place in Liberty City, Chinatown of course with new characters and obviously a new game engine. No footage is shown.

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• A new Poke’mon Rangers game is coming to DS, surprise, yay?

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• Talking about Spore: Creatures. It looks just like the Spore Creature Creator but a little more cartoony which fits the DS hardware. The game will feature some proximity friend play where they can drop in their Spore creatures into your game.

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• Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades announced. It still uses the On Tour peripheral, which could be a real bad thing as most if not all reviews on the game complained about just that. It will bring song sharing between proximity with friends and of course new songs, possibly some new implementation for the DS’ interesting features.

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• Cammie is back up talking about market saturation between males and females for the DS and unsurprisingly it’s pretty even.

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• Rounding out the video is Call of Duty: World at War which utilizes the Wii Zapper attachment and surprisingly it looks good, like visually. I can’t notice any major differences between it and the 360/PS3 versions that were shown before and with the Wii Zapper support, it could actually be a pretty sweet shooter.

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• The second game is Rayman: Raving Rabids TV Party. It totally looks like Raving Rabids but with Wii Balance Board support.

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• Reggie is talking about  3 different games that present 3 different interface options. Star Wars: Clone Wars is looking pretty good and seems to be mimicking precise Wiimote movements onto the screen. It looks pretty hot, with most of your movements being all based on movements and gestures.

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• Apparently 3rd party Wii titles are doing better than we thought with 13 games selling over 400K units.

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• We’re now talking about software sales and there’s nothing too surprising here.

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• You know those celebrity DS ads? Apparently they worked.

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• Talking about Poke’mon’s now, 280 million games have circulated in the history of Nintendo apparently, that’s a lot of Poke’manz!

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• Numbers, numbers, numbers. Talking about Wii and DS sales, nothing too surprising, it is Nintendo after all. Nintendo is selling 200K Wii’s a week, 700K a month.

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• Reggie is talking about typical stuff Press Conference stuff, how Nintendo is pleased with their progress but “hardly satisfied”.

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• The interview video is over, Animal Crossing Wii is looking good. Game is coming out late 2008. Reggie is now up, hurray, brace yourself folks.

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• WiiSpeak announced as not a singular headset but rather a “community communication device” that sits atop your television. Definitely a cool idea for large parties, but will we really invite friends over to play Animal Crossing?

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• Animal Crossing: City Folk confirmed, the first Wii Animal Crossing title. It’s totally Animal Crossing, but they’re still innovating with things like certain online advances.

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• Mr. Iwata has wrapped up his speech. A video now plays of Katsuya Eguchi being interviewed talking about his thoughts on Animal Crossing.

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• Iwata-san is still talking and saying nothing too surprising. This is a Press Conference afterall, not everything can be glitz and glamor.

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• Iwata-san is now up talking about the effect of Nintendo on the global market. A small mention about a demand for new graphics and better graphics was made, possibly a hint at something in the future?

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• After a short story about a family skiing trip, Shaun White was introduced playing his upcoming snowboarding game on a now confirmed Wii Balance Board. Game looks totally like a snowboarding game, nothing much else to say other than that it uses the Wiimote at the same time as the balance board.

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• Press Conference is off to a start, introduced by Cammie Dunaway.

~ by progn0sticator on July 15, 2008.