Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Now that the dust has settled and you UK gamers are in a desert without any body of water in visible sight, we can carefully analyze the numbers from the Wii launch, numbers so huge that they have crushed all other UK numbers into a fine dust, and inform you that the Wii beat all other previous launches in UK history.

If this were a bar fight, the Wii would be holding a flaming chair, while the GameCube would likely hold a broken bottle and the Xbox 360 would be lying on the ground, bleeding and crying its precious little high-def eyes out. See, the Wii sold a total of 105,000 over its launch weekend, beating out the previous holders of the crown in the Xbox 360 and GameCube, which sold 72.000 and 52,000 respectively at launch. Wii FTW!

Kotaku has received a couple of emails from Wii owners reporting of already receiving DRE (disc-read error) messages. Some have even reported that their Wii has become bricked and won't even power on! What horror! Have any of you out there in Wii Fanboy land been the unfortunate recipient of a painful message declaring that your Wii will not read your discs or even turn on anymore?

[Thanks Naruhodou!]

One individual who was able to escape the long lines of fast-food-filled launch campers with his Wii, arrived home and found a short while later that the slot-loading mechanism inside of his unit had ceased to work. Does this mean that he can't play anything on his Wii? Yes, if it is a disc demanding physical loading into the console. Word on the street is Nintendo is replacing his unit, free of charge.

As always, video is embedded into the post after the break.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Joystiq has managed to confirm with Wal-Mart corporate that a midnight Wii launch is definitely happening and much of what Joystiq previously reported was true. Corporate says they are not currently accepting online pre-orders due to the demand for the console. So, we suggest you show up as early as you can to your Wal-Mart and get a ticket Saturday night at 10pm.

Joystiq was in New York City recently to check out Nintendo's famous World Store, when they encountered the manager of said store, Paul Gonzalez, and grilled him about launch figures and sell-outs. In placing his face under the white-hot light of interrogation, he replied, much to the surprise of Joystiq and ourselves, that the Nintendo World Store would have enough consoles at launch for walk-in customers looking for the console.

"I'm not expecting to sell out on Sunday. Monday -- no promises."

So does that mean that other retail outlets could very well have plenty of consoles for launch day and beyond?

Though we wouldn't normally pay much attention to something called a "Corporate Management Policy Briefing," we'll make an exception when it comes to Nintendo and their beloved Wii. Fielding some questions regarding the system's impending launch, Satoru Iwata attempted to assuage some concern over Nintendo's previous cubic console and its muted commercial success. He noted that Nintendo's inability to consistently and timeously release new games after launch stuttered the system's momentum, a problem which, if all goes to plan, won't rear its snarling head in the next round.

"To avoid repeating this with Wii, we have been intensifying the software development, both internally at Nintendo and at developers outside the company, in order to prepare aggressive software lineup for Wii at and after the launch." However, Shigeru Miyamoto (who admits to being occupied by a super secret project) added that Nintendo hasn't greatly increased the number of people working on projects, with over 1,500 people already banging keyboards and waving wiimotes in the hopes of generating more Nintendo classics.

In that case, how exactly does Nintendo plan to intensify software development? If they have stricter management and curtailed development times in mind, how will that affect their forthcoming titles? Careful Nintendo -- striking the perfect balance between quantity and quality isn't going to be easy.

[Update: See comments.]