Friday, August 11, 2006

Wii not playable at GC



You may be wondering what to expect at Germany´s Games Convention - and what not. It is now official: Wii will not be playable on the showfloor, which the general public has access to. Only developers, media and trade reps will be able to preview the console in the Business Center.

Here´s a crude translation of the press release on Nintendo of Europe press server.

Nintendo is keeping up the suspense

Wii and new Nintendo Wii games will be exclusively presented to media and retail representatives.

Nintendo´s new console Wii is currently the most debated topic of the videogame world. Full of suspense, gamers are anticipating the Wii´s launch, announced for the end of the year, which is set to revolutionize videogames with its new control mechanism.

Nintendo is showing Wii playable in the Games Convention´s Business Center - for the very first time in Germany.

The presentation is intended for trade representatives and journalists exclusively - just as it was at E3 in Los Angeles.

"At this time, we want to show Wii especially to journalists and trade representatives, who did not have the opportunity to go to E3," Bernd Fakesch, General Manager of Nintendo Germany, explains.

Nintendo fans and those aspiring to become one can look forward to plenty of highlights for the Nintendo DS Lite. Alongside current hits like New Super Mario Bros. or the Touch!-Generations title Dr. Kawashima´s Brain Training, visitors of the Nintendo booth can play The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, English Training, 42 Classic games, Star Fox DS or Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Blue.

However, Nintendo promises a tour, probably like the Nintendo Fusion Tour, that will bring the console "effectively to everyone´s doorstep."


I myself think this is a mistake. Why not give well over 100.000 gamers a chance to sample Wii? Surely, that would have generated a lot of positive word of mouth. Or is Nintendo worried about not being able to replicate the E3 hype? That way, the decision would make more sense.

At any rate, there is no public showing for Wii. Don´t expect to get a Wii launch date and price tag, either.

EDIT As the German news site GameFront reports, PlayStation3 won´t be playable either. There are no details whether this extends to the Business Center as well. Since the site harldy ever cites sources, I treat their postings with caution. They claim to have had information directly from Sony Computer Entertainment Germany (SCED), though.

I myself have received no confirmation of this. Only yesterday, Sony´s PR agency told me that nothing had been confirmed and that we would have to wait until next week for final confirmation. Sony reps were not immediately available for comment. I will keep you posted.


Source: Nintendo of Europe press server
Thanks to: Shoxware Games

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, that is extremely hype crushing. Lame!

Oh well, as long as we get SOME news and new screens out of it, then I'll be ok with it.

Anonymous said...

ok, bye bye games convention. i wanted to go there to play wii. the main reason to visit gc for me is gone, so i´ll stay at home (and so do alot of other people who wanted to play wii as far as i already read on other sites)

wii launches in 2 month, and they won´t let the public try it out... nintendo did a lot of things right with wii so far, but no playable wii for "normal" visitors is a very wrong decision!

Anonymous said...

Big mistake Nintendo!

Makes me wonder what they're afraid of?? Hmm....

Anonymous said...

Maybe they're afraid of 3 hour lines potentially ruining yet another convention a la E3.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for linking to us!
- WiiBlog.net Administrator

Anonymous said...

falafelkid:

remember Toshio Iwai? of Electroplankton fame?

do you think his latest invention might have some link to Nintendo and 3D?

I'm talking about Morphovision. It displays 3D images that can be manipulated in real-time. It sounds exciting..in conjunction w/ the wiimote? Revolutionary.

http://360vr.com/Morphovision

Anonymous said...

uuuhhh, big mistake! i dont know if this is bad for nintendo, but i know this will be bad for GC.
i'm sure there will be a lack of 20-30% of visitors, who mainly wanted to come because of Wii, but now will stay home, including me.

Anonymous said...

Slightly of topic but I work for a large video gaming retailer and my manager has just received an invitation to go to a special gaming conference next month to play the Wii. How jealous am I? Very.

:(

Anonymous said...

@falafelkid:

maybe you could tell someone from nintendo that a lot of nintendo fans that wanted to go to games convention to play wii are VERY disappointed. especially after sentenced like: "you HAVE to play wii to understand how good the controller works" etc... and that most people belive that this "promotion tour" won´t get as much attention that playable wii consoles at games convention. oh and those "tours" are really a joke. just like the ds one was. they go to a few big cities and let a few people play with the console and thats it. so no "test play" for everyone at games convention and those who wanted to go there because of wii.

ich muss also die katze im sack kaufen :-(

(engl: i have to buy the cat in the bag. i have no idea if this adage exists in english, lol)

Shoxware Games said...

So i'll stay at home! Nintendo = Dumbasses! This shows, that Games Convention is FAR OFF from being "the next E3". PlayStation 3 won't be playable either! BTW, Falafelkid, why do you claim, that this is your exclusive story? I already read that hours ago...

Anonymous said...

Games Convention is getting more visitors than E3. The waiting lines would take in the whole building and would be unbearable.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Wii Blog.

No probs, thanks for linking back.

Hi Anonymous.

uuuhhh, big mistake! i dont know if this is bad for nintendo, but i know this will be bad for GC.

Very good point. This will hurt the fair more than Nintendo, for sure.

Hi Anonymous.

remember Toshio Iwai? of Electroplankton fame?

do you think his latest invention might have some link to Nintendo and 3D?


Well, an interesting technology, similar to that used in many Myst games. I don´t quite see how this could be used in games (other than in games like Myst), but it´s certainly possible that this technology has something to do with Wii. Iwai probably has good relations to Nintendo by now.

Hi Coldblooder.

maybe you could tell someone from nintendo that a lot of nintendo fans that wanted to go to games convention to play wii are VERY disappointed.

Don´t worry, I will. ;)

Hi Shoxware.

Games Convention is FAR OFF from being "the next E3". PlayStation 3 won't be playable either!

Has that been confirmed? Do you have a source? I was speaking to Sony´s PR company only yesterday and they told me that nothing had been announced yet and they would probably share that piece of information next week.

BTW, Falafelkid, why do you claim, that this is your exclusive story? I already read that hours ago...

Really? Where? I read the press release (which was only issued in German) and browsed around to see if anyone had posted it already. Maybe you read it over on the NSider forums, where I posted the news simultaneously.

Hi Stabby.

Games Convention is getting more visitors than E3. The waiting lines would take in the whole building and would be unbearable.

A very good point. Maybe they don´t shy away because they´re afraid they won´t have as successful a showing as they had at E3... maybe they are afraid of being more successful. Compared to E3 2006, we expect twice as many visitors at GC this year. Having waiting lines that are twice as long would be murder. Obviously, that would be a huge burden and disrupt proceedings greatly.

Anonymous said...

Um guys, E3 was retailers and press only already. The whole thing. GC is not more restrictive in any way. Yeah, the lines would've been horrible. There's no easy solution for this problem.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Cosmozone.

Um guys, E3 was retailers and press only already. The whole thing. GC is not more restrictive in any way. Yeah, the lines would've been horrible. There's no easy solution for this problem.

Your point is similar to Stabby´s - and I think you are quite right. You cannot easily compare E3 and GC. While E3 (at least theoretically) was still strictly industry insiders, media and trade only, the Games Convention is open to anyone. Even little children can attend. Nintendo has never shown the console publically yet, so not showing it at GC can be interpreted as a continuation of that policy. Good point. Nevertheless, I definitely expected Nintendo to have the console on the showfloor.

Anonymous said...

yeah they have the console on the show floor... behind glass so you can take a photo and buy a tshirt wich says: "I saw Wii @ G|C"...

oh, do i still sound disappointed?

Shoxware Games said...

@ Falafelkid: On the german news sites gamefront and consolewars.de!

And that PS3 thing was already confirmed yesterday - check out consolewars.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Shoxware.

@ Falafelkid: On the german news sites gamefront and consolewars.de!

And that PS3 thing was already confirmed yesterday - check out consolewars.


Thanks for the heads-up on the PS3 thing. ;) I am very sceptical about this, though. My information was that nothing will be made public until next week. I did only speak to Sony´s PR company, but I will be hesitant about this until SCED confirms this to me.

As to exclusivity, it looks like Consolewars (and only them) posted the story a bit earlier. But this is an English blog and the translation is my translation, so I still do consider it exclusive in some way. I didn´t see it posted on those sites beforehand, anyway. I simply posted the press release when I read it. I don´t want to make too big a thing about who was first, though. Credit to Consolewars.

Anonymous said...

I think not showing Wii to the public is a big mistake. What are they gonna show? Only DS games? This would be lame! On the Cube they can't show anything expect Zelda... Even if the PS3 is also not playable the PS2 has at least good games left. I'm still going to GC because i already booked everything. Otherwise I would not go anymore! I will not be at Nintendos booth... maybe i'll be playing at Microsofts booth!! yeah Nintendo... playing is believing!!