Digital Trends
Nintendo is looking to tap into the Facebook generation, announcing today that a new version of its Nintendo DSi Camera application will enable Facebook members to take photos with either of the DSi’s integrated cameras and upload them directly to Facebook using the DSi’s Wi-Fi wireless connectivity. Once users have taken a photo, they’ll be able to tap a Facebook icon on the DSi’s touch screen to have the images sent to the user’s Facebook profile.
Having consistently stomped the competing PlayStation 3 during 2008 and set sales records even during a recession, it should come as little surprise that the Nintendo’s Wii posted some pretty impressive numbers for the year – numbers that have never been touched by any other console. According to Nintendo, 10.17 million Wiis were sold in 2008 alone, a record-breaking figure for one-year console sales.
That number represents 55 percent of next-gen console sales, with both Microsoft and Sony getting packed into the remaining 45 percent share of the pie. Nintendo also dominated the sale of games, with the top four sellers for the year being Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, in order.
Drum roll, please! Nintendo has debuted Wii Music, a new game for its popular Wii gaming console that lets players mimic the motions of more than 60 real-life instruments using the motion-sensitive Wii Remote and Nunchuck controllers to learn to play along with more than 50 songs—and the game encouraged players to improvise, making their own music, mixes, and arrangements.
“Music is a universal language that inspires and moves people,” said Nintendo executive VP of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway, in a statement. “Wii Music provides a fun way for people to play together and be entertained while building a fundamental understanding of musical themes and rhythms. Wii Music can motivate people to learn real instruments or enhance their appreciation of musical performances.”
Feel like swinging your Wii remote madly around in the air while trying to defeat a yellow, spike-wearing snaggle-toothed monster? Then Nintendo really wants you to know that Mario Super Sluggers is now available for the Nintendo Wii. The game, rated E for “Everyone,” enables players to swing the Wii remote like a bat or use it to make pitches in a Mario baseball game that sees Mario, Luigi, Daisy, and other Mario characters take on Bowser for control of Baseball Island. The game offers single- and multi-player modes, and online baseball cards found on Internet Web sites unlocks features in the games like screensavers and special videos.
Nintendo has announced the official launch date for its much-anticipated Wii Fit home fitness title for its Wii game console—and it’s May 21, only two days from now. The game, already highly successful in Japan, is another in Nintendo’s efforts to create new markets for its gaming products. Instead of letting players blast aliens, solve puzzles, or engage in online play, Wii Fit is about getting players moving, stretching, and exercising, and tracking their progress as they improve over time. The game is built around a new innovative Balance Board which connects wirelessly to the Wii console and acts as a launching pad for more than 40 game activities in areas like aerobics, yoga, balance, and strength training.
It takes a lot of clanging cash registers to set sales records with the company that brought out legendary games like Super Marios Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, but Super Smash Bros. Brawl has apparently done it. Nintendo of America announced on Monday that the title had sold a whopping 1.4 million units in the week following its launch on March 9 – a rate of two copies every second.
“Super Smash Bros. Brawl has made the leap from video game to cultural phenomenon,” said NoA executive VP of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway, choosing the same hyperbolic words Bill Gates used to describe Halo 3. “Game reviewers and the public alike praise its fun game play and extensive, inventive content.”
Some folks like cerebral video games with stories, puzzles, cyphers, and complicated scenarios to decypher…and some prefer the “Itchy and Scratchy” school of video games: they fight and fight, fight fight fight!
The new Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Nintendo Wii definitely aims at the latter group, bringing together diverse characters from the Nintendo gaming universe into one giant, action-filled free-for-all. Ever wonder what would happen if Zelda took on Pokémon’s Pikachu? Or how ‘about Donkey Kong going head to head with Metal Gear Solid’s Solid Snake? Super Smash Bros. Brawl is your chance to find out.
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