- Nintendo also announced a new Wii channel, the Wii Speak Channel, will be available for download starting November 16th. The channel, which does require those dreaded friend codes, allows up to four people to chat with one another. As they do, their Miis will mimic their speaking patterns. No word yet on how the channel will do that, but it will probably be simple. You’ll also be able to leave voice messages with friends and narrate photograph captions, if you so choose. Each Wii Speak microphone ($29.99 US) will come with a code that allows you to download the channel at no extra charge.
- The storage problems are over! Kinda. After much bickering by Wii owners over the console's small memory space, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced today that starting next spring (at least in Japan), Wii owners will be able to download their software right to a SD card. It might not have been the HDD everyone was looking for, but it should help quell some of the anger Wii owners have had about having to delete and re-download games over and over.
- Last, and perhaps most importantly, Nintendo announced that after years of waiting, Club Nintendo is finally coming to North America. The program, a staple in Japan, Europe and other parts of the world for years, will be arriving to North America just in time for the 2008 holiday season. Like its other iterations, the North American Club Nintendo will offer points for registering products and completing surveys, which can be used to purchase exclusive items from a Club Nintendo catalog.
A lot of what we saw today is geared towards the “hardcore” Wii crowd and shutting them up. They had, after all, been the most vocal after the E3 press conference debacle. Whether or not this will be enough to satisfy them, I don’t know. All I know is that there are some people who wish they hadn’t dumped their Wii off at GameStop over the summer.
Article comments
1 - Ken Edwards
You forgot an exclamation point :P It is PunchOut!!
Since the announcement was so vague, I have emailed a few Nintendo contacts to see if you can also PLAY games from SD.