In recent months Sony has been experiencing declining sales in their PS3 systems and this brings into question what exactly is Sony doing that is killing their system? Now let me make something clear, I’m not saying that the PS3 is not selling, but compared to the Xbox 360 and even its older brother the PS2 it isn’t doing so well.

It is a known fact that a game franchise can make or break a gaming console; just ask Microsoft and their original Xbox and the Halo franchise. While the first generation Xbox had superior graphics to the PS2, one of the main reasons why it succeeded was both Halo and Halo 2. One of the PS2’s major successes was the GTA (Grand Theft Auto) franchise. Sadly (for Sony that is), GTA 4 ported to the Xbox 360 last year and thanks to Xbox Live carried a more powerful punch then the PS3 version. I could also use Final Fantasy as another example. For years Square Enix has made its bread and butter from the PlayStation and Nintendo systems (as well as PC). It sent shockwaves through the game world when they announced that the next installment of the game, Final Fantasy XIII, would not only be available on the PS3 but, for the first time in history, ported to the Xbox 360.

Even more shocking was the news by Hideo Kojima that the next installment of Metal Gear Solid would also be ported to the Xbox 360. By now you’re probably catching my drift; Sony is bleeding franchises. Who would have thought that the day would come when Snake (well he’s retired now but his franchise lives on), as well as the gang from Final Fantasy would live on Xbox. I’m not saying Sony doesn’t have some good franchises left in its hands, but if this continues they soon will be sitting on Resistance, Kill Zone and Socom as their main exclusives.

Another strike against Sony is online gaming. Microsoft and Sony have taken two very different approaches to online gaming. Sony has long stated that they believe a free option is the best way to satisfy their customers. Microsoft, from day one, has gone with the paid option. Although there is some debate as to the reason why PlayStation Network lags behind Xbox Live, one thing has been undisputed; Microsoft has proven that people will pay once the quality is there. One of the major reasons why developers flock Xbox Live is they are able to extract a few extra dollars from gamers after they have spent a few Jefferson’s on the disc. There is no real incentive for game developers to develop for PSN, and that is one of the major reasons why Xbox Live manages to offer superior content and user experience.

I’m sure many of you were expecting me to mention price as an issue why the PS3 is not living up to Sony’s expectations, but I will go as far to say that its not mainly price but marketing and timing. When the PS3 first came out, the average price of a Blu-ray player was 10 Franklins. The PS3 retailed between $500 and $600. Many consumers could have been swayed to buy the system based on the fact that it would be cheaper to buy a PS3 then to buy an Xbox 360 and a Blu-ray player. Unfortunately that has all changed, as it is now cheaper now to buy and Xbox 360 and a separate Blu-ray player then to buy a PS3.

The other issue involves maturity. When the Xbox 360 was released in 2005, it had a full year to gain its footing in the market. Microsoft has hinted more then once that it could have kept its second generation system in the works for a 2006 release and match the power of the PS3, but figured that it would be a better idea to release it early. They were right. By the time the PS3 came to the market, a year later, the 360 had all but took the wind out of its sales and due to the craze of the Wii things didn’t turn out as well as Sony planned.

Plainly speaking, Sony expected its loyal subjects to buy a $500 system because it was more powerful. That might be true if you’re a Mac, but in a world where a video game can make or break a console, that isn’t always true.

I’m not saying the PS3 has failed. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem that 2009 will be the year of the PS3 as we’re already half way through and Sony is reporting declining sales of said system. We’ll just have to wait and see if Sony’s new motion sensing controllers will do anything to help the troubled platform. In the meantime you’ll find me in the corner playing GTA 4 and cleaning out a space beside my HD screen for Project Natal.

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The results are pretty amazing. He used to measure his weight, BMI, body fat and heart rate and saw a drop in all of them. His weight went from 191 lbs to 176 lbs, BMI from overweight to normal (down 1.5 points), body fat from 20.8% to 18.4% and heart rate from 87 to 71.

This obviously are interesting results. The question that comes to my mind is however if those results would have been the same – or even better – if he decided to do something else instead. I’m not thinking about Eyetoys here although this would probably make up an interesting experiment as well.

What if he decided to run, swim or play football (that’s soccer for you Yanks) for 45-60 minutes a day instead ? I would think that it would have been reduced even further.

The benefit of Wii Fit however is that you can do it in your home, that most of the exercises are fun and not boring and that you can do it on your own.

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The only thing that is really a bit lacking is the supply of new good games. I’m personally a bit concerned about the amount of crappy conversions from other systems that make their appearance on the Wii. If I would have to name the games that are really fun at this point I would probably be able to name 4-5 the most.

Instead of loosing faith I thought it would be nice to share a video of the upcoming smash hits for the Nintendo Wii with all of your. You will see the normal bunch of Mario games but also some interesting ones that you probably have not heard about. Definitely worth watching.

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Try out the following to see if this fixes the issue. Start the game normally until you see the black screen. Connect the Nunchuck to the Wiimote and press Home to see the menu options. Now press A + 2 + Z together which should result in a short “ping-like” sound.

This should have activated the interlaced mode. Leave the menu and you should see the normal game screen and not the black screen anymore. To change the mode again press A + 1 + Z using the same method as above.

This was tested on various Wii systems with component cables and was found on the Wii Errors website.

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I think that I have a good overview of what is currently going on in the Nintendo Wii “world” and would like to describe how I feel about the Nintendo Wii and what I expect of it in the future. I know that some of my friends already sold the Wii again because of the lack of good games following the launch – I personally think that this decision is understandable, the lack of games is obvious at this point.

I do not want to write about the hardware. That has been done before by many sites including respected Nintendo fanboy sites such as GoNintendo or the site Nintendo Wii Fanboy. I would like to concentrate on the games instead. The hardware is excellent and if the games are good the Wii is lots of fun – especially if you play it with at least one friend.

Wii Sports:

This game is the appetizer. It was included in my Wii system and contains five basic sports games that include Tennis, Baseball and Golf. It is a great way of introducing non-gamers to the Nintendo Wii because the games are absolutely easy to learn and easy to master. At least to the point that everyone is able to have success in those games even though he never played games before.

Motivation however does not last that long after the first initial hours of playing Wii Sports. If you are for yourself it becomes boring pretty fast but it is still great if you have a bunch of friends at your house. I personally like Golf the most and hate Boxing.

Wii Play:

Wii Play is a similar collection of mini games for the Nintendo Wii. It provides gamers with games like Table Tennis, basic Fishing and a Tank game. All of those games last only about one minute and are kinda fun if you play them with a friend. I like the Tank game most and hate it that you have only one life in that game.

I bought it mainly because I got the package with a second Wiimote. Great for a few minutes of fun, not more.

Rayman Raving Rabbits: (Recommended)

I was a little bit concerned about this game. Read some mixed reviews about it but as usual I wanted to see and test it for myself. Rayman Raving Rabbits is a fun game that works in my opinion best if you are with at least one other person. It quickly becomes boring playing it alone.

I could not care less about the story of the game. It is basically a collection of mini games that make great use of the Wii’s controllers. You have to throw cows around or shoot your way through a level. Most games do not last longer than a few seconds which is great if you play it with friends. We play in turn which is fun. However it is really a shame that you have to complete the single player levels to be able to play them in multiplayer.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz: (Recommended)

If I had to choose one game from all of the games that came out for the Nintendo Wii it would definitely be Super Money Ball from Sega. It makes great use of the controller and is lots of fun to play. It is great in single player and multi player, easy to learn, hard to master.

It sure sounds like a game for children. Apes in a bubble have to roll from one end of the level to another to exit in time. They collect bananas on the way to get an extra life and other goodies. It is trickier than you thought. You do not move the ape directly but change the angles of the level itself with your Wiimote.

This is one of the Wii games that got a good score on many review sites including IGN and Gamespot.

Red Steel:

One would think that the controller of the Nintendo Wii would be excellent for ego shooters. I still think it is but the three shooters that came out until now do not proof it at all. The best of the three is Red Steel in my opinion. If you can live with mediocre graphics and a linear gameplay you might actually enjoy this one.

I’m not saying that Red Steel is a great game. It needed at least a few months of tweaking before Ubi Soft should have released it but it is to late to complain about that. The game had potential to make a great impact and failed miserably. It feels like a b-movie that you paid for and want to see until the end even though you know that it will not get better.

If you can pick this one up for a few bucks do so. It is not that bad but it is not good either. Forget about the other two shooters Far Cry and Call of Duty, they are worse.

Fruity Loops:

Nice game for a few levels. You have to clear levels by combining fruits. The level can be rotated so that the fruit falls down when you do so. It is rather entertaining. Not a great game but good enough for a small break.

Gottlieb Pinball Classics:

A pinball game that does not use the innovative Wii controller ? Why do I have to press a button to control the flippers ? If you want a pinball game go buy it. If you have to make a decision between this game and another go buy the other.

So much for the games for the Nintendo Wii. I would like to point out that I really enjoy that the Wii is playing Gamecube games. I did not own a Cube and it is a great opportunity to play excellent games such as Resident Evil 4 on the Wii. This is also a great opportunity to play something while you are waiting for new original games for the Wii. Just buy a few Gamecube games that got a good rating and enjoy them. I think I bought about five or six Gamecube games and want to add at least all those party games like Donkey Konga to my collection.

The Virtual Console is a disappointment in my opinion. Sure it has some of the greatest games of all time listed such as Mario Kart or Super Mario World but I have played those games so often that I long for something new. I had hopes that Nintendo would release games that never made it to the US or Europe on the Virtual Console but they apparently have no plans to do so.

I would like to see Shining Force 1 and 2 on the Virtual Console and hope that Nintendo will announce support for Sega Saturn games in the future. Until then I’m disappointed. Might be nice for someone who has not played those classic games excessively.

Conclusion:

I do enjoy the Nintendo Wii. I see it more as a system that you play with friends than one that you would play alone. It has that party factor that makes it great and I hope that Nintendo – and the Third Party Developers – create original games for the Wii. That is in my opinion the only way Nintendo will be able to compete with the powerhouses X360 and PS3.

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Many sites that report these numbers point out that the amount of sales in dollars comes close to each other but fail to mention that is is not enough to compare game system sales but also consequences for game and accessory sales. With almost 700000 more systems in Japan in this year Nintendo is going to sell more games, more gamepads and other accessories increasing the revenue in that field as well.

It is also an important sign to game creators that the Wii is selling well and that it is currently the gaming system that producers will most likely sell the most games for. At least in Japan. The situation is different in North America and Europe where Microsoft is leading the field with their Xbox 360 thanks to the one year head start.

Which gaming system will be the dominant system in this generation ? Or, will there be a dominant system at all ? What do you think ?

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Wiikey is working. I thought I just share that information before I begin explaining what I tested so far. I have a friend who is one of those geeks who likes to import his gaming systems to play the original version of the game instead of a localized version. Forgot to mention, I do own a Wiikey modded PAL Wii gaming system, my friend owns a US Wii system with some US games. I was not able to test Japanese games at all but I doubt that this is interesting for most users anyway. He owns a US Gamecube as well and brought over some Gamecube games that I could check if they would run on the Wiikey modded Wii system.

The first thing everyone using a Wiikey should do is to burn a Wiikey Setup ISO to DVd and load it into the Wii system. This lets us test if the modchip is working correctly. You have to set region override to ok to be able to play games from a different region. You can also increase drive speed here.

It works great with backups from the same reason but many games, like SSX Blur US do not work on my Pal Wii system. I was able to play some US Gamecube games though, namely Outlaw Golf and Tales of Symphonia.

The conclusion is simple. If you only want to play PAL / NTSC games with the Wiikey you should go and buy it immediately. If you would like to play different region games with the Wiikey you should try and find someone who tested those games before you buy a Wiikey or wait for a new version of Wiikey or a new modchip that supports region free games.

One way to get at least a partial compatibility would be to use so called region free patcher that patch backups of games from other regions to look like the correct region for your Wii system. I found a Wii region patcher compatibility list, take a look at it here.

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Wiinja, Cyclowiz and Wiikey are able to play Wii and Gamecube backups from the same region and the Wiikey seems to have a good success rate to play games from other NTSC regions. This means that it could be possible to play Japanese games on a US Wii system. It is however not likely that you can play NTSC games on a PAL system with those modchips.

While the wiinja modchip is not upgradeable the other two modchips Cyclowiz and Wiikey are. This is a big advantage for them and with the availability of the Cyclowiz chip I can’t see why someone would still buy a Wiinja. Sure, the Wiinja is not that expensive but it should be noted that you would have to replace the Wiinja chip if Nintendo would decided to upgrade the firmware of the Nintendo Wii to defeat current modchips.

The Wiikey chip seems to be the best solution for those gamers who like to play original games from other regions. No one has seen the chip in action yet and everything announced at the official Wiikey site should be taken with caution until some reviews are out.

Other more advanced modchips have been announced that have the features the gamers are waiting for. The modchip Wizard for Nintendo Wii for instance is able to defeat regional encoding and is supposed to be able to play games from any region. This would be a major factor for gamers who like to import games due to several reasons.

All chips are running in stealth mode which should make it impossible to detect them and use countermeasures.

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He decided to add a daily 30 minutes session of Wii Sports to his normal activities and keep track of several elements such as bmi, body fat and weight. He would not change his other habits like eating. The results that he posted on his website are incredible and could help Nintendo enter the fitness market as well.

He reduces his weight from 182 to 171 in six weeks losing a considerable amount in the belly area. The BMI (Body Mass Index) fell by 1.2 points from 25.2 to 24 which is a change from overweight to normal. His body fat went down by 1.8% from 19% to 17.2%.

Those are indeed great results and the best thing I personally think is that you can do all of this at home and have fun doing it all the time. Please note that you do have to emulate the real game if you want to see this results. It is not enough to sit on the coach and wave the wiimote a little bit.

I’m thinking of buying one for my mother to help her in her workout. We are most likely seeing a release of a Wii Fitness game sooner. Wanna bet ?

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Wikipedia lists 26 games that will be available on launch day in Northern America, some are the usual multi-platform titles but many make good use of the new controlling scheme. Still, only a few rely on the scheme exclusively. A big advantage of Nintendo’s Wii is the price – the basic system including the Wii Sports game costs only $249.99, this is less than half the price of a premium playstation 3 system which does not ship with a game.

Games for the Wii seem to have a lower price as well, most stay close to $50 while PS3 titles are closer to mid-end $50. The Wii still features all those popular games, like Mario, Zelda and Metroid that made Nintendo the biggest player in the video game market which is great for Nintendo fans. It also offers the unique opportunity for different kind of games that have not been possible with normal controllers.

Let us start with the games, I included at least one link to reviews or previews to give you the ability to read more about a specific title that could be of interest to you.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (ign preview)
Barnyard (ign preview)
Call of Duty 3 (ign review: 7.7)
Cars (gamespot review)
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (ign preview)
Excite Truck (ign preview)
GT Pro Series (ign preview)
Happy Feet (gamespot review)
Madden NFL 07 (ign preview)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (ign preview)
Metal Slug Anthology (gamespot preview)
Monster 4×4 World Circuit (gamespot review)
Need for Speed: Carbon (ign preview)
Open Season (gamespot preview)
Rapala Tournament Fishing (gamespot preview)
Rayman Raving Rabbids (ign preview)
Red Steel (ign preview)
SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab (ign preview)
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (ign review: 8.4)
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (gamespot preview)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (lawrence: 9.9)
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent (gamespot preview)
Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam (ign preview)
Trauma Center: Second Opinion (ign review: 8.0)
Wii Sports (ign review: 7.5, lawrence: 8.9)
World Series of Poker (gamespot preview)

Everyone has of course his own game types that he likes to play, some like Sport games, some racing, some roleplaying games. It is a matter of taste and the Wii should deliver something for everyone. Let us take a look at the most interesting games of some of the most popular categories:

Wii Party Games: Wii Sports included, Rayman Raving Rabbids, probably Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Watch out for Wii Play which is a launch title in Europe.
Wii Games you can’t do anything wrong with: Zelda
Unique to the Wii and worth a look: Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Red Steel

Everything else is up to you. If you have not played all those typical games that come out for all systems (Splinter Cell, all EA games, Call of Duty 3 aso you might want to check them out as well.)

I will buy a Wii and use it for games that you can play with friends plus games that use the unique controller for the Wii in a great way. I will not buy conversions, I will not buy all those games that you can buy for every system that comes out. Wii is unique and that is what I want as well, unique games.

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The launch lineup consists of 17 titles including the blockbusters Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent. First party games will retail for 49,99$ while third party companies may choose a different price range. Additional controllers look expensive at first glance: Another wireless Wiimote costs 40$ and a Nunchuck 20$. Considering that you need at least two controllers for multiplayer experience this is quite expensive.

A normal setup would include the Wii system, a second set of controllers and one or two additional games which leads to a price around 400$ for that bundle. This is still not expensive for a new console system and nothing compared to the expensive Playstation 3.

Virtual Console games will be available at launch, Nintendo is expecting to offer around 30 games until the end of 2006. You can purchase Wii cards with 2000 points (20$) and use those points to buy NES (500 points), SNES (800 points) or N64 (1000 points) games. A total of 24 companies including SEGA and Square Enix are supporting the Virtual Console and we can expect more games coming our way from those companies. Those 30 games are Nintendo first party games, it will be most likely a lot more considering the huge amount of supporting companies.

First party Wii games will not have a country code, means you can play Japanese and European games on a US Wii and vise versa. Again, third party companies may include a country code in their games.

The Wii will have messaging and photo capabilities. Web browsing will be included as well, totally free unlike Xbox Live. You just have to purchase the Opera browser for it. No Wii point price know for that.

I think the Wii will be highly successful. First, it starts with Zelda which alone is a system seller. It has big third party support with incredible games coming out like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy. It has a unique way of playing the games which appeals to long time gamers and probably to never before gamers as well. Remember those Eyetoy parties ? Even non gamers had lots of fun and were able to grasp the concept quickly.

Now, I only need to see an announcement from SEGA that they publish all Shining Force games for the Virtual Console. Oh, and Panzer Dragoon Saga please.

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