The Nyko Wing, other than looking a bit more comfortable than the Wii’s Classic Controller, brings a few other conveniences to Wii vintage gaming. First, it’s wireless. So while it still requires an active Wiimote to communicate with the system (and it uses a Wiimote dongle to do so), you won’t need to worry about wire tethering. The extra shoulder buttons may or may not come in handy (since Nintendo doesn’t allow controller remapping in most Virtual Console titles), but very thoughtfully, you can load the Wing with AAA rechargeable batteries that can be refreshed via built-in USB. Looks good, but no word on pricing or availability yet. [IGN]
Surely, at least a few of you are sad that Nintendo never released the Wii in multiple colors—despite their announcement promises. Well good news! No, the Wii isn’t coming in any new colors, but Nintendo has launched the Wiimote strap in almost any flavor you’d like—blue, green, pink and, uhh, white again. Available in Japan only for the time being, the safety harnesses will go for $2.75 apiece or in a variety pack of four for about $9. In other news, Nintendo makes a bajillion more dollars without even really trying. [Kotaku]
Wii Sqweeze Gives You the Upper Body Strength Of An Olympic Cyclist. This Wii Sqweeze demo by InterAction Labs supposedly does for your upper body what Wii Fit does for the lower body of the 10 people who actually managed to find one. The thing is essentially two squeezable grips (exactly like the kind you can get at sports stores now) that correspond to claws and bows and other activities on screen. It’s not a real Wii game now, but just a PC demo running off a Wiimote tied via USB to a Wii. Could it be a real Wii game? Sure, but unless it’s got Nintendo’s name and advertising attached to it, we don’t think it’s going to do that well. [Exergamelab]
Yes, my friends, someone has made a bikini that vaguely resembles a classic NES controller. And suddenly that topless beach sounds a whole lot less appealing. Of course, one day women will go nude except for a pair of gloves. And in that era, we’ll be obsessed with thumb to index cleavage (making the Power Glove the de facto sexy accessory). Bonus pic:
Make sure to hit the comments for all of the inevitable Konami code jokes. [Complex via Kotaku]
Now that Nintendo’s solving their Wiimote control issues, we can finally focus our intentions on superficial improvements. It’s required some major soldering, but one modder has added all sorts of LED-based tweaks to his Wiimote. The first, seen here, Skittles-izes the player indicators by swapping out the now-drab blue LEDs for those of multiple colors. Our cup of tea? Not really. But the kids will love it. The second notable mod utilizes the Wiimote’s rumble signal and maps an LED pulse to the shaking:
For those interested in actually doing this stuff to your Wiimotes, head over to Wiimotemods for their complete guide of step-by-step projects. [Wiimotemods via MAKE]
When the Wii console first came out, everyone and their mother commented on how stupid the name was. It still is to be perfectly honest, but after a couple of years we have grown more accustomed to hearing it. But imagine what it would be like if your legal name was Wii? Believe it or not, a guy named Wii Yatani has had the now famous moniker since birth, and he claims that Nintendo’s console has changed his life for the better.
“When I was growing up, I had a pretty difficult time,” he said. “I just found when I was introducing myself to people, it was a little awkward.”
No kidding.
He isn’t the first guy with the name though. An MTV Multiplayer article points out that there were several uses of the name in the past. However, as far as anyone can tell, he is the only person mentioned in the English-language media with the name. Not surprisingly, when the console first came out, all of his friends got back in touch with their inner Jr. High School student and began opening up old scars with “wee-wee” jokes and the classic “Oh, Wii, are you going to go home to play with yourself?” Hahaha…ahem. It’s a serious problem.
Despite these setbacks, Wii Yatani has grown comfortable with his unique name and its association with the popular Nintendo console. He claims that it has helped people say and spell his name correctly for the first time, not to mention the fact that it has resulted in a fair amount of notoriety. Wii’s friends have even suggested that he try and score some deal with Nintendo as a spokesman. While I doubt that Nintendo is looking for some sort of video game version of Jared to hock their products, he is still getting his 15 minutes for doing nothing—which is admirable. But here is the really amusing part—he didn’t buy a Wii until 2 months ago and he still hasn’t played it yet. Two months? What the hell, man? [MTV]
While Nintendo has dominated both the handheld market with DS and the next-gen console race with Wii, it’s never too early to think about the future.
And according to company President Satoru Iwata, the process of working on Wii successor started the second that they were done putting the finishing touches on the console.
“The hardware team started work on the next thing as soon as they were done with their previous project, but what they think up doesn’t necessarily become a product,” Iwata told the Wall Street Journal.
“We only turn something into a product after it’s been thoroughly vetted inside the company. We’re not at a point where we can give specifics, but of course we’re working on it.”
As for the latest accessory unveiled, the Wii Motion Plus, Iwata insists that it will be wallet-friendly.
“We haven’t announced the price yet, but the cost of making the Wii Motion Plus is not that much, so I think we can make it very affordable,” he explained.
Last Monday was supposed to be the glorious debut of Bplus’ Plättchen - twist ‘n’ paint, but when the day rolled around, the WiiWare title was nowhere to be found.
Turns out that the devs had more to add and delayed the title until the third week of July. But it looks like the wait may be worth it — there’s now a shooting element involved with the puzzler, and it’s going to feature use of the Wii Zapper.
“The real innovation is that the Wii Zapper is detected automatically. You can activate the special pump action shot by holding the Zapper upright for a second and quickly moving it down to load your gun,” dev Bernd Geiblinger told WiiWare World.
“When you fire this shot it has a much greater spread and does not twist Plättchen. Additionally, you can direct your FantasyME using the Analog Stick which is great if you are a real hardcore gamer. This gives you the ability to avoid crashing into obstacles with ease.”
Originally, Plättchen was going to take advantage of the DK Bongo peripheral, but Nintendo nixed that prospect. So at least we’ve the prospect of zapping on the horizon to keep us warm and cozy.
Invensense, one of the two companies that sold their technology to Nintendo for their Wii MotionPlus Wiimote add-on, has just announced that they’re NOT exclusive to Nintendo and are fielding offers from other companies. One person with the company says, “I can’t get into details about other folks that are interested in this technology, but as you might imagine of course there is more interest out there.” The other company is AiLive, which hasn’t said anything about licensing their tech to anyone else.
What’s the upshot to this? One, the non-exclusivity leaves room for Microsoft or Sony to license the same technology and come out with something as good as the MotionPlus accessory. However since Nintendo had two companies collaborate on this, knockoffs might not be exactly the same. [Eurogamer via Reg Hardware]
Every hardware needs some revolutionary features. This time around, it happened to be we had a revolutionary user interface. Will it be the same for the next generation? I really can’t tell. It’s natural for the current customer to expect Nintendo is going to once again do something different. If the people are expecting so many different things from Nintendo, it’s going to be difficult for us to go beyond that expectation again.
So there you have it: no brain interfaces, no holodecks, no Matrix. But as Microsoft and Sony’s game divisions keep bleeding money, I’m sure Iwata is not giving a damn about the future, four or six years from now, when new generation consoles are expected to hit the market. [Kotaku and Forbes]