Unfortunately, none of the Wii Fanboy staff reside in or speak the language of Japan. As such, we've committed ourselves to hitting the refresh key a whole crapload of times and scouring numerous chatrooms until we find out what the hell is going on over there. Check back constantly for any new developments!For the full story of the Seattle-PI/New York Times article, see here.
Check after the break for the latest!
1:16 AM EDT: Japanese gaming mag Famitsu is posting some live coverage of the event. Thanks to Joystiq's efforts to procure a translator, we should have some news for you soon. Word!
1:26 AM EDT: Iwata-san is on-stage, talking about how the DS has shifted the market in Japan. Well, duh.
1:36 AM EDT: Virtual Console pricing revealed! 500 yen for NES games (around 4 USD), 800 yen for SNES (around 7 USD) and 1000 yen for N64 (around 8.5 USD). You can pay via credit card or a "Wii points card". Stay tuned!
1:42 AM EDT: Nintendo plans to have 30 Nintendo games and 30 Sega/TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console by year's end. Ten new VC games will be released each month!
1:54 AM EDT: It's here! Famitsu is reporting that the Wii will debut in Japan on December 2nd, 2006 for 25,000 yen (212.51 USD). Late much?
1:59 AM EDT: Nintendo will be posting a Japanese press release momentarily and will have full text of Iwata's speech in about an hour. Also, wii.com will go live in Japan in about an hour.
2:03 AM EDT: According the press release, the Wii will not come with Wii Sports. The full contents of the package are as follows: Wii console, Wii remote (w/ strap) Nunchuck attachment, Wii AC adaptor, Wii A/V cable, Wii console stand, sensor bar, sensor bar stand and two AA batteries.
2:11 AM EDT: The Wiimote will apparently sell for 3,800 yen (32.30 USD), not including the nunchuck attachment. The classic controller and the nunchuck will each retail for 1,800 yen (15.30 USD).
2:14 AM EDT: Iwata is reporting that there will be 16 games from 10 different publishers at launch. Game prices will range from 4,800 yen (40.80 USD) to 6,800 yen (57.80 USD), with Twilight Princess being at the upper-end 6,800 mark.
2:17 AM EDT: Wii Sports will be a stand-alone title, retailing at the aforementioned 4,800 yen price point. It will contain five games. Apparently, Shigeru Miyamoto just beat Japanese tennis star Sugiyama at Wii Tennis.
2:34 AM EDT: Well, that's pretty much it, folks. Wii.com is up and running, so expect a post on that soon...the contents of the site seem to verify the NYT Article posted earlier today. If so, we can expect the American launch to be quite different (and earlier) than Japan's. Stay tuned, and have a good night!
For fun: We here at the Fanboy have made this YTMND, to commemorate the occasion.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
9-13-2006 @ 8:37PM
Nmaster said...
Maybe you should tell Joystiq that then?
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/13/psa-nintendos-international-press-event-schedules/
But wait, we're EDT, not EST...
And shouldn't the WiiFanboy team be handling the updates...well, unless there are DS updates too...
This conference thing has become really confusing!
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9-13-2006 @ 8:42PM
Nmaster said...
lol, well I see the post has moved to it's proper place now...
Keep us up-to-date guys! This conference thing is driving me nuts trying to find info for...
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9-13-2006 @ 8:44PM
ThebigL said...
Thank god, I almost had a panic attack looking for some info.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:13PM
moofree said...
I expect much from tonight's and tomorrow's conferences.
Please don't disappoint me, Nintendo.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:13PM
Ben said...
soooo close....yet soooo far....
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9-13-2006 @ 9:17PM
Josh said...
Nothing yet...Iwata we want info now plx...
Really, though, as long as I get the info in the next 24 hours, I'll be fine...^^
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9-13-2006 @ 9:18PM
Mayur said...
Everywhere is going mad for this info! These guys are usually fast with info and are a quiet New Zealand site too http://forums.nzgamer.com/index.php?showtopic=5272&st=0&gopid=78315&#entry78315
Still nothing on maojor sites, looks like only the cool sites are doing stuff ;P
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9-13-2006 @ 9:19PM
Covarr said...
Hooray for "F5", refresher of browsers!
I think a good commercial for the Wii would end with "PS3. Hells no." It'd be kind of like the "Genesis do what NintenDon't" commercials of back in the day.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:22PM
OldKnuckles said...
Seems like there are more games up at eb and gamestop, but that may be just me.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:23PM
Albert said...
I know Japanese. Where's the info coming from?
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9-13-2006 @ 9:25PM
jerryd said...
the nintendo hype machine has tortured us for too long...
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9-13-2006 @ 9:26PM
Spuky said...
well, so now we wait, so why not we make some speculation and see if some of us are right?
i think that the 3 conferences are going to reveal launch dates of every region, and prices too, so my guesses are:
Japan:
- Launch: November 5
- Price: i dont know about japanese prices, around $200 us dollars i think
- big announcement: the SD card reader under the flap is actually where you put the DS cartidges so you can play DS games in your Wii. Fire Emblem coming at end of year
America:
- Launch: October 27
- Price: Two versions: a $200 with WiiSports bundled, and a $250 with WiiSports, a classic controller, and 3 virtual console games
- big announcement: They have a team working in the translation of games for the virtual console, so in the next year we are going to be playing Mother in our Wiis, and Sin&Punishment(a N64 game, that looks very cool), and Nintendo makes another alliance, and can play neo-geo games(ok, thats my wishiful thinking, but damn i want to play KOF 98 using that classic controller!)
Europe:
-Launch: December 12
- Price: 200 Euros, or 175 in england moolah(sorry, i know that those price are very high, but you know the funky conversion sistem that all the big gaming companies use)
- Big announcement: PAL-ized versions of old games, thanks to the VC, also...err...i dont know, free slurpees or something
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9-13-2006 @ 9:27PM
RevJOnathan said...
I guess $229 on nov. 6
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9-13-2006 @ 9:28PM
Duo said...
Why would they release it in North America before Japan? Traditionally, all their consoles have been released there first. The DS broke the mould, but Nintendo didn't even know if it was going to be a success, so it was okay.
I doubt a Japanese company would do something like that with a known-to-be successful product.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:28PM
dsr7997 said...
For the love of Pete! Somebody get some information!!!!!!!!!!!!
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9-13-2006 @ 9:31PM
donutBringer said...
Seriously... Some of us know Japanese... Give up the links, people!
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9-13-2006 @ 9:31PM
Dominus said...
Anyone who does speak Japanese can go translate it for us real-time! Follow the link:
http://www.irwebcasting.com/060607/03/74d18b0400/main/index_hi.htm
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9-13-2006 @ 9:32PM
Spuky said...
i know Duo, but i want a Wii, FAST, and i live in America :P
also because i think they will sell first in america because they have bigger competition here(unlike Japan, where they compete against PS3 only), so maybe they want an "early" foothold in America
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9-13-2006 @ 9:33PM
Jason Wishnov said...
Note: that "streaming" video feed is fake. Reload it; it starts in the same place.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:34PM
ThebigL said...
Where are you guys gettting this info!!!! Crap theres a storm in the area and my internet keeps tweaking out. WHy now of all times.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:34PM
donutBringer said...
http://www.wiiplus.net/fullNews.php?newsId=55
Seems to be English coverage.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:34PM
Josh said...
Dominus, that is some management meeting or something from June, I believe.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:34PM
jeremiah Monk said...
awesome, they're totally using a mac to present ;-)
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9-13-2006 @ 9:35PM
Iron Chef said...
For you Japanese translators...
http://news19.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/gamenews/1157115629/
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9-13-2006 @ 9:35PM
MegaMatt said...
i'm afraid of major let-down
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9-13-2006 @ 9:36PM
Ben said...
me too man...but nintendo cant afford to fail.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:37PM
Tom said...
I just heard that http://www.little-dudes.co.nz might be running an english voice-over soon. Some web-comic site.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:38PM
Duo said...
Apparently, Satoru Iwata is talking about how awesome the Nintendo DS is.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:43PM
Ben said...
annnnnnd we wait.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:44PM
Paul said...
Tick...tick...tick...
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9-13-2006 @ 9:44PM
Tequila Mockingbird said...
@24, that site is nothing but a bulletin board. nothing really interesting. At least when you translate it via Google(I know it isn't perfect, but still, it's all japanese fans' speculations on things)
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9-13-2006 @ 9:45PM
Dominus said...
Yeah sorry for the bad link guys, got way too excited and since I don't speak the language, had no idea if it was right or not :(
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9-13-2006 @ 9:46PM
a1j2h5 said...
wish i was there….. and japaneese speaking…
SSBB Screen Mock Ups:
http://www.sheezyart.com/view/912310/
http://www.sheezyart.com/view/912826/
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9-13-2006 @ 9:47PM
Tom said...
Sorry this is the URL: http://www.nzgamer.com/news-all-1342
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9-13-2006 @ 9:47PM
Tom said...
Just got another cool place that's doing some cool coverage...
http://www.nzgamer.com/news-all-1342
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9-13-2006 @ 9:47PM
Archaic said...
Translating this on the fly is difficult, but looking at the slides available thusfar, while waiting for the video to catchup, it looks like Iwata-sama is talking about the Japanese video game market, and how that while sales of Hardware have gone up over the past year (thanks to DS), sales of Software have remained static.
More news as it comes.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:51PM
Shawn said...
Wiiplus site has just been shut down. Looks like they may have exceeded their bandwidth.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:52PM
Archaic said...
After going on and comparing the figures he'd just gone over for the Japanese market to the figures for the American and European markets, he goes on to mention a few new games. I don't know if these have been mentioned elsewhere before, but I don't recall hearing about a Super Robot Taisen or Dynasty Warriors for DS before. The video hasn't caught up to that yet, so I don't know what's said, but the slides after it imply that they may be using the DS Wi-Fo connection.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:53PM
Kyle Fisher said...
PLEASE PLEASE get rid of that ad in the top right corner! its driving me nuts! its all on the main and sister sites to engadget!
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9-13-2006 @ 9:55PM
Twigge said...
Yeah, seriously.
Looks like a lot of site are being taken down by the hordes of fanboys.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:55PM
Tequila Mockingbird said...
Hey guys, if you have AIM join the chatroom "Wii" there is some goodness in there.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:55PM
Archaic said...
Following that, he goes on to talk about the Wii and it's concept. After a few things about Wii to DS connection, and a preview of the DS stations (which I assume we'll be using to download game previews and so forth), that's the end of the slides. Doesn't look like Iwata-sama's giving us any real news. This is more information for shareholders.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:57PM
Shawn said...
yeah.... nzgamer.com just went down too... Man, this is so intense it's killing me.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:57PM
Paul P said...
The place you are getting info from is wrong. They are watching the June conference(where Pokemon was unveiled) under the impression it is a live feed. The idiots.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:57PM
Foppe said...
I bet you get your info from the sites that reports on the old june conference, the one that already have a link in these messages.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:57PM
lostinthe4th said...
seems like everyone is getting thier bandwith eaten...
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9-13-2006 @ 9:58PM
Tequila Mockingbird said...
IF YOU JOIN THAT AIM CHATROOM, PLEASE DO NOT FLOOD!!!
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9-13-2006 @ 9:58PM
Josh said...
Guess what? EVERYTHING GWN JUST POSTED IS FROM JUNE!
I'M NOT KIDDING!
LOOK HERE!
http://gonintendojustincase.blogspot.com/
That's it...We have no source any more...
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9-13-2006 @ 9:59PM
person said...
-
@38
I thought both super robot taisen and dynasty warriors were both mentioned last month.
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9-13-2006 @ 9:59PM
Duscrom said...
ALl i hear so far is *fap fap fapfap*
When does Pie Chart training, come out?
And lastly.. other then that, i love this web coverage.. and how they are updating all the charts on the website in real time to the video stream..
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