Wii

The Wii is Nintendo’s smallest home console to date; it measures 44 mm (1.73 in) wide, 157 mm (6.18 in) tall and 215.4 mm (8.48 in) deep in its vertical orientation, the near-equivalent of three DVD cases stacked together. The included stand measures 55.4 mm (2.18 in) wide, 44 mm (1.73 in) tall and 225.6 mm (8.88 in) deep, The system weighs 1.2 kg (2.7 lb),which makes it the lightest of the three major seventh generation consoles. The console can be placed either horizontally or vertically. The prefix for the numbering scheme of the system and its parts and accessories is “RVL-” after its project code name of “Revolution”.The console also features a recurring theme or design: the console itself, SD cards, the power supply and all the sockets have one of their corners chipped off in a triangular fashion.The front of the console features an illuminated slot-loading optical media drive that accepts both 12 cm Wii Optical Discs and Nintendo GameCube Game Discs. The blue light in the disc slot illuminates briefly when the console is turned on and pulsates when new data is received through WiiConnect24. After firmware update 3.0, the disc slot light activates whenever a Wii disc is inserted or ejected. When there is no WiiConnect24 information, the light stays off. The disc slot light remains off during gameplay or when using other features. Two USB ports are located at its rear. An SD card slot hides behind the cover on the front of the console. The SD card can be used for uploading photos as well as backing up saved game data and downloaded Virtual Console games. To use the SD slot for transferring game saves, an update must be installed. An installation can be initiated from the Wii options menu through an Internet connection, or by inserting a game disc containing the updated firmware. As a presently uncircumvented system of digital rights management, Virtual Console data cannot be restored to any system except the unit of origin.[49][dead link] An SD card can also be used to create customized in-game music from stored MP3 files, as first shown in Excite Truck, as well as music for the slideshow feature of the Photo Channel. Version 1.1 of the Photo Channel removed MP3 playback in favor of AAC support.Nintendo has shown the console and the Wii Remote in white, black, silver, lime green, and red,but it is currently available only in white. Shigeru Miyamoto stated that other colors would become available after the easing of supply limitations.The Wii launch package includes the console, a stand to allow the console to be placed vertically, a circular clear stabilizer for the main stand, one Wii Remote, one Nunchuk attachment, one Sensor Bar, a removable stand for the bar, one external main power adapter, two AA batteries, one composite AV cable with RCA connectors, a SCART adaptor in European countries (component video and other types of cables are available separately), operation documentation, and, in all regions except Japan, a copy of the game Wii Sports.Nintendo plans to release a version of the console with DVD-Video playback capabilities. This new model will use the CinePlayer CE DVD Navigator software engine by Sonic Solutions.Although software will be used to enable DVD-Video functionality, Nintendo has stated that it “requires more than a firmware upgrade” to implement and that the functionality would be unavailable as an upgrade option for the existing Wii model.After announcing the DVD version for 2007, Nintendo delayed its release to focus on producing the original console to meet demand.

Nintendo hopes to target a wider demographic with its console than that of others in the seventh generation.At a press conference for the upcoming Nintendo DS game Dragon Quest IX, Satoru Iwata insisted “We’re not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games. The thing we’re thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games.”This is reflected in Nintendo’s series of television advertisements in North America, directed by Academy Award winner Stephen Gaghan, as well as Internet ads. The ad slogans are “Wii would like to play” and “Experience a new way to play.” These ads ran starting November 15, 2006 and had a total budget of over US$200 million throughout the year.The productions are Nintendo’s first broad-based advertising strategy and include a two-minute video clip showing a varied assortment of people enjoying the Wii system, such as urban apartment-dwellers, country ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children. The music in the ads is from the song “Kodo (Inside the Sun Remix)” by the Yoshida Brothers.The marketing campaign has proved to be successful: pensioners as old as 103 have been reported to be playing the Wii in the United Kingdom.A report by The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II has played using the console.

Since its launch, the monthly sales numbers of the console have been higher than its competitors across the globe. According to the NPD Group, the Wii sold more units in the United States than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 combined in the first half of 2007. This lead is even larger in the Japanese market, where it currently leads in total sales, having outsold both consoles by factors of 2:1 to 6:1 nearly every week from launch until November 2007. In Australia, the Wii exceeded the record set by the Xbox 360 to become the fastest selling games console in Australian history.On September 12, 2007, it was reported by the Financial Times that the Wii had surpassed the Xbox 360, which was released one year previously, and had become the market leader in home console sales for the current generation, based on sales figures from Enterbrain, NPD Group, and GfK. This is the first time a Nintendo console has led its generation in sales since the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo warned that the Wii would remain in short supply throughout 2007, while the company produces approximately 1.8 million Wii consoles each month. As of January 5, 2008, the Wii has sold 7.38 million units in the United States according to the NPD Group. As of January 20, 2008, the Wii has sold 5,019,337 units in Japan according to Enterbrain, which is already more units than the Nintendo GameCube had sold in Japan.In Europe, the Wii has sold 0.7 million units in 2006 and 4.8 million in 2007 according to estimates by Electronic Arts.Prior to the release of the NPD Group’s video game statistics for January 2008, the Wii has been ahead of the Xbox 360 and PS3 in US sales in most months since the Wii and PS3 were released, according to data by the NPD Group.While Microsoft and Sony have experienced losses producing their consoles in the hopes of making a long-term profit on software sales, Nintendo reportedly has optimized production costs to obtain significant profit margin with each Wii unit sold.According to the Financial Times, this direct profit per Wii sold may vary from $13 in Japan to $49 in the United States and $79 in Europe.

On September 14, 2006, Nintendo announced release information for Japan, North and South America, Australasia (Oceania), Asia and Europe, including dates, prices, and projected unit distribution numbers. It was announced that the majority of the 2006 shipments would be allotted to the Americas, and that 33 titles would be available in the 2006 launch window.[18] The United Kingdom suffered a large shortage of console units as many “high-street” and online stores were unable to fulfill all pre-orders when it was released on December 8, 2006.As of March 2007, some UK stores still had a shortage of consoles, and as of June 2007, demand still outpaced supply in the United States.Nintendo announced that it would release its console in South Korea and China in early 2008.

The console was known by the code name of “Revolution” until April 27, 2006, immediately prior to E3.According to the Nintendo Style Guide, the name “is simply Wii, not Nintendo Wii.” This means it is the first home console Nintendo has marketed outside of Japan without the company name featured in its trademark. While “Wiis” is a commonly used pluralization of the console, Nintendo has stated that the official plural form is “Wii systems” or “Wii consoles.”Nintendo’s spelling of “Wii” with two lower-case “i” characters is meant to resemble two people standing side by side, representing players gathering together, as well as to represent the console’s controllers. The company has given many reasons for this choice of name since the announcement; however, the best known is:
“ Wii sounds like ‘we’, which emphasizes that the console is for everyone. Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii. ”

Despite Nintendo’s justification for the name, some video game developers and members of the press initially reacted negatively towards the change. They preferred “Revolution” over “Wii” and expressed fear “that the name would convey a continued sense of ‘kidiness’[sic] to the console.”The BBC reported the day after the name was announced that “a long list of puerile jokes, based on the name,” had appeared on the Internet.Nintendo of America’s president Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledged the initial reaction and further explained the change:
“ Revolution as a name is not ideal; it’s long, and in some cultures, it’s hard to pronounce. So we wanted something that was short, to the point, easy to pronounce, and distinctive. That’s how ‘Wii,’ as a console name, was created.

Nintendo of America’s VP of Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan defended its choice of “Wii” over “Revolution” and responded to critics of the name by stating: “Live with it, sleep with it, eat with it, move along with it and hopefully they’ll arrive at the same place.”

The console was conceived in 2001, as the Nintendo GameCube was first seeing release. According to an interview with Nintendo’s game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction. “The consensus was that power isn’t everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles can’t coexist. It’s like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction.”
Two years later, engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005, the controller interface had taken form, but a public showing at that year’s E3 was withdrawn. Miyamoto stated that, “[W]e had some troubleshooting to do. So we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console.”Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show.

The Nintendo DS is stated to have influenced the Wii design. Designer Ken’ichiro Ashida noted, “We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS’s touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype.” The idea was eventually rejected, with the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical. Miyamoto also expressed that, “[I]f the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board.”