Cambridge, Mass. – February 3, 2009 – Harmonix and MTV Games announced today the addition of six new tracks to the Rock Band® Music Store catalog of downloadable content for Wii™ home videogame console from Nintendo. The line up features four tracks from classic rock band Boston including “Hitch a Ride,” “Peace of Mind,” “Smokin’” and “Something About You.”
In addition to the Boston tracks Rock Band 2 Wii fans will also gain access to“Hanging on the Telephone” by Blondie and “Dirty Little Secret” from All-American Rejects.
The NEW PLAY CONTROL! series from Nintendo features Nintendo GameCube classics updated for Wii! New features, new experiences and, most importantly, new ways to control the games are waiting for you, whether you’re new to the titles or have played the originals on GameCube.
For NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin for Wii, the biggest control change concerns targeting. In the GameCube original, Olimar’s target moved where he moved, which made for some difficult aiming when precious seconds mattered. But with NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin for Wii, targeting is as easy as pointing at the screen with the Wii Remote. Read on to find out some specifics about how NEW PLAY CONTROL! Pikmin makes the experience of leading Olimar’s armies more intuitive than ever, and remember you can get the full run-down on what’s new when the game’s official microsite launches at nintendo.co.uk later this week!
All of this information comes from EA’s conference call…
“It is absolutely going to be the quality of fear factor of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.” – CEO John Riccitiello
EA CEO John Riccitiello “excited” about new tennis game for Wii from EA’s Sports Active line.
Three buckets: Xbox 360/PS3; Wii; online. Wii is a “major initiative.”
“We’re launching Tennis initially Wii-only,” says Riccitiello.
“We’re bringing core intellectual property to the Wii.” First example? Dead Space, coming to Wii this year. No-brainer after how Res Evil 4.
EA CEO on Wii market share: five percent revenue growth, no market share growth. Hoping to add a percentage point, though.
Strong emphasis on Wii quality intended to deliver games that “will rival Nintendo in terms of quality.”
“Wii is the market leader–they’re getting half of our emphasis in terms of title count.”
“We’re bringing core intellectual property to the Wii.”
In a recent PR sent out to media outlets, EA confirmed that Dead Space will be heading to the Wii. This specific information comes from MTV’s Steven Totilo. Not too much information has been released other than that, but this post will be updated as soon as more details arrive.
This information comes from an Investor Q&A with Satoru Iwata. Some of the more important details have been paraphrased.
– ‘we scaled back because it’s how things look now and we want to reflect accurately so as to not defraud investors or shock the market at the end of the financial year’
– ‘Our relationships with 3rd parties are improving, and you’ll see results in the medium-term’
– ‘Wii was scaled back because the hardware bump was less than expected for year end in Japan. We’re going to try hard to impress the market better this year. Wii Music wasn’t a mistake but we had many communications issues, which have better prepared us for the future. We’re always going to try new propositions, and we’ll try hard to make another one like the launch of Wii, brain training, and animal crossing DS’.
– ‘Obviously with the current state of the exchange rates, there is no chance we can release DSi for the same cost as current DS Lite in foreign countries. We’re doing customer research before announcing’.
– ‘Not adjusting manufacture of wiis down and no huge stockpile. they were all shipped abroad’
– ‘Wii system update, featuring for example the SD Card fix, is coming in Spring as suggested at the conference last year.’
Course: Block Plaza
Main objective: Find fastest route
Tournament date: 2/1 – 2/10
With the sales of the DS/DSi, one might think that the portable is here to stay for quite awhile. However, Apple’s Greg Joswiak has a completely opposite opinion. Joswiak commented on the DS, noting analysts have told him that “the DS is the past of gaming devices and that the iPod Touch is the future of gaming devices.”
“Well, it’s not just the screen quality – it’s the graphics capability, the compute power, the App distribution model. I had an analyst tell me in September – and he was so right – that the DS is the past of gaming devices, and that the iPod Touch is the future of gaming devices. It certainly has our competitors scrambling in what they’re going to do in reaction to this. I think it’s a tremendous start that we’re having at entering this gaming market, and there’s no doubt that that’s happening – it just is.”
