Nintendo Wii Fanboy

60,000 gamers crammed together in one sweaty convention center. Women in skimpy outfits, paraded like pieces of meat. A gigantic, deafening, cacophonous din.

Yep, the old-style E3 really was glorious. But in all seriousness, it seems as though most of the internet would kill for a return to the old format. Whether it's because of the muted reception to this year's horribly empty E3 Media and Business Summit, or simply a hangover from Nintendo's ill-received press conference, the majority of fans want E3 to return to being the spectacle it once was. Significant industry figures seem to agree.

And now, it might just happen. Kotaku claims that the idea of returning to the E3 of yesteryear and opening the doors to the public has been officially proposed, and is currently being discussed by the ESA board, the folks who organize the event. Maybe the "old E3" won't just be a story we tell our grandchildren, decades from now.

If you guessed "those vile, reprehensible videogames," then you're absolutely correct. The Daily Mail has published a report on Jake Roberts, a 13-year-old British youth who took his own life in February following an argument over a confiscated Wii game. A tragic tale, to be sure, but there's no doubt that the Mail's angle on the story leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

In truth, this is hardly surprising. The Daily Mail has always stooped low to make its point, and the newspaper can barely wait to get into the shameful, dirty business of pointing fingers and furthering its own anti-gaming agenda through the story of a teen ending his own life. Tasteful, right? Right from the first line and throughout most of the article, the Mail insists on linking Jake's death with the dispute over his Wii, wilfully ignoring the possibility that other factors may have influenced Jake's sad decision over a longer period of time.

Or, to put it another way, it's another proud day for the mainstream press.

[Via Destructoid]

It still puzzles us that the BBC was so keen to make its (admittedly excellent and very popular) iPlayer catch-up service compatible with the Wii. Are there really that many Wii owners out there with internet-ready PCs who would opt to use the service on the Wii's slightly clunky Opera browser? Why not just use your PC to watch the latest editions of Gavin & Stacey and The Apprentice? You know: the one you're using to read these words, right at this very second?

Not only that, but the iPlayer on the Wii is hardly user-friendly. Text is so small that it's almost unreadable, loading times are hardly ideal, and the low resolution of the Wii's browser makes navigation awkward. Cue the intervention of WiiPlayer, a hacked version of the iPlayer that has been optimized for Nintendo's console, and is now available for use at http://defaced.co.uk/wiiplayer.

It won't work on your PC, and it goes without saying you'll still have to reside in the UK to use this, but WiiPlayer does do a sterling job, replacing the iPlayer's teensy text and browser-taxing layout with pleasingly chunky, Wiimote-friendly icons and a cleaner, less cluttered appearance.


[Via Tech Digest]

After its laughable coverage of Brain Training's "discriminatory" stance on accents earlier this year, the BBC had some work to do to get back in our favor. The feature above, part of a recent edition of flagship news program Newsnight, does just that.

Rather than automatically accusing videogames of having a negative effect on children (a default position for countless media outlets), the piece suggests that games have helped to produce brighter kids now than at any stage in history. Leading the charge for this side of the debate is Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You. Johnson contends that because so much modern media (the internet, interactive television, games) is no longer consumed passively, many children grow up to be "more creative, more dynamic." Later in the piece, he also suggests that games help us to believe that "complex problem-solving is fun."

There's some solid evidence to support Johnson's claims, most notably in the IQ scores of children, which have climbed considerably over the last century. Could computer games truly be assisting in making today's kids the smartest yet? We're not certain there's a conclusive answer to that, but it delights us to see the BBC covering the debate in such a measured fashion.

[Update: Not actually shown in the UK on Friday, as original post stated.]

The Leipzig Game Convention? Nintendo is so over it. In an announcement to the press earlier today, the company ruled itself out of the forthcoming event, stating that it will be focusing instead on "smaller, local events and national promotional tours" -- a bit like this one, we suppose.

Ninty was keen to emphasize that this was nothing to do with the event itself (the kind of "it's not you, it's me" excuse we've heard a thousand times before!), but we're still surprised; didn't Leipzig have 185,000 visitors last year? Our guess is that Nintendo is trying to reach out to its new audience, which we understand consists primarily of people who don't attend game conventions.

[Thanks, Andreas!]

Fresh from the Nintendo Media Summit, we've quite a few impressions of games coming out in the immediate future. Among them:

• Mario Party 8
• Super Mario Strikers: Charged
• Big Brain Academy
• Pokemon Battle Revolution
• The Bigs
• Boogie
• My Word Coach
• Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2

We're most jazzed for Strikers, especially after reading such effulgent impressions from Penny Arcade. But which game shown at NMS excited you the most? If you were stuck on an island and could only have one game ... you know, assuming you had a Wii and a couple Wiimotes, and a nice TV ... maybe some nunchuks, oh, and the sensor bar, and I guess you'd need a standard 120 W outlet somewhere in the sand ... and a decent supply of food and water, or you wouldn't spend your time playing the Wii ... you know what, never mind.

Free stuff is one of the many reasons we wish we had gotten to go to the Nintendo Media Summit. Like most industry events, those in the press who were lucky enough to attend also walked out with swag.

Game|Life's Chris Kohler took this picture of his bounty: not an epic E3-sized haul by any means, but it includes some exclusive items, like the giant Wii bottle (he already covered the joke) and the light-up Wiimote keychain. Attendees also got a free Wii Points card and a Wendy's giftcard, so they can download Blazing Lazers and live Burgertime. By which we mean "eat burgers," not "assemble giant burgers by walking on them while avoiding animated food."

You wake up disoriented, in a dark room. You have no idea where you are.

>look

It's a dark room. You can't see anything. We know you're disoriented, but do try to keep up.

>look exits

Fine. Okay. You stumble around the room until you find a wall. Keeping one hand on the wall, you walk the perimeter of the room, looking for doors. You find a door on the east side of the room. You also find a key hanging from a hook on the wall. And by "find" we mean "get poked by." We hope you find some Neosporin on this adventure.

>advise readers to click post break

Red Kawa has come up with a pretty sweet idea. They decided to turn the Wii into a media center, allowing those with the guts and gumption to attempt installing Wii Media Center X the satisfaction of streaming music, videos and images to their Wii. They offer a tutorial section for some of you that need your hand held, as well.

We haven't given the program a spin, but by the looks of it, it's all a fairly simple process. Has anyone out there taken a stab at using Wii Media Center X? Happy with it, or do you find yourself disappointed?

[Via Codename Revolution]

What's next, holiday merchandise? Oh, wait, that stuff's already up in many stores. Guess we shouldn't be too surprised then that some Target stores are setting aside space for the Wii despite the long (and sadly empty) weeks remaining until release day. Have you seen something similar at Target -- or any other store? Let us know! Take some pictures, tell a story, grab a video -- whatever works for you. Just be careful about taking pictures when and where it's not welcome. We wouldn't want you to have to throw down just for us.

Regardless of what we've heard about third-party titles not being online until 2007, Konami is saying that Elebits could very well ship with online capabilities. During Konami's recent Summer BBQ 2006 event in San Francisco last week, Denis Lee, who is the Group Marketing Manager at Konami, revealed that "the team is looking into online and trying to find out what the best kind of gameplay they can get into the game is and still make launch window. We're working on a few ideas, but we're not talking about online specifically."

So Konami is looking at online gameplay for Elebits, but can't really comment on how it will be implemented. Co-op is a given, but what other kind of cool online gametypes would support the overall focus of the title? How about some time-based challenges?

Following the recent impressive-yet-slightly-silly trailer for Red Steel, IGN has obtained a large quantity of artwork for the game. While the character models and environments have been criticized for being bland and graphically unimpressive, the art style of the game is undeniably beautiful. Well, I guess you could deny it. If you do so, however, please click here.

Please do your best to ignore the ugly watermark.

We've seen nothing but positive coverage of the Wii from media, and for good reason. As evidenced above, a local NBC news affiliate had a short feature on the console, showing gamers enjoying the Wii Sports' Tennis title. Another video report on the Wii may be found here courtesy of Reuters. While a bit longer than the local news feature, the Reuters video intersperses sections of the video that was presented at E3 2005.

[Thanks Nushio!]