Wii Preorders at EB/GS starting on Friday

I thought about just posting this in the other thread, but I'm guessing not everyone who wants to preorder a Wii would look in a thread about PS3 preorders.

As with the other thread, at this moment, there isn't really much of a source outside of message board posts, but I believe the same people that were confirming the PS3 preorder date are confirming the Wii preorder date. Here's the thread at NeoGAF for those that want to check it out ("confirmation" is on page 2):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123273

So yeah, if you want to preorder a Wii, you might want to check out a local EB/GS Friday morning. Sounds like each store will have between 12-36 systems available to reserve.

 

1 million in NA IIRC. I thought I read something about Canada getting like 100K, so like 900K for the US I guess. Another million will be split between Europe and Japan at launch I believe, and 4 million will be shipped WW by the end of 2006 with NA getting the largest share.

 

I sure hope you're joking. There are some things Sony has to worry about with the PS3, but exclusives arean't really one of them, at least compared to what the competition has. MGS4 (which you mentioned), FFXIII (and FF vs XIII I think), Tekken, Virtua Fighter, SOCOM, God of War, Gran Turismo, Devil May Cry, R&C, UT2007 (if it stays exclusive), Mercenaries 2 (if it stays exclusive), etc. I could probably go on listing, but you get the idea.

Now if you're saying that none of those games seem amazing to you, then that fine. That's just up to personal opinion.

That actually hasn't helped MS that much, if at all, so far IMO. Biggest factor might just be developers using the 360 as the lead platform in a multiplatform game...but that's about it (and even that can change or vary from game to game).

It certainly didn't help the DC against the PS2.

It isn't really a proprietary disc format...maybe about as proprietary as DVD was for the PS2. I'm in the "DVD is not enough for next-gen games" camp, so I personally love that move (even if it was proprietary).

Agreed. Although I suppose if Sony can improve production as dramatically as they say they can (500K WW at launch, ~6M by early 07), then I don't think it will really be a problem. FWIW, MS has been out for almost a full year and has only sold maybe 3-4M WW (IIRC...about to be updated later on with September sales coming out today).

Now whether or not that can happen is a whole other story.

It might have been a last second addition, but I think it is showing that it does improve games quite a bit. I know impressions from Lair and Warhawk were pretty positive regarding the controls. Plus, there's always this:

Spoiler

Assuming VC can actually make that fun to do.

I'm actually pretty excited in seeing how some developers use it.

Yeah, I don't know if many people realize it, but GT is a pretty big franchise WW. It is about as big as Halo, if not bigger from what I can tell.

 

All I know is that MS hasn't really put itself in a great position to have a ton of 360s out there before the PS3 launches, which seemed to be the whole point of launching early. And while doing so, they are giving the PS3 the chance to have an extra year of tech in it. It is probably too early to say exactly how much of an advantage the PS3 has in the tech department, but I can see that being as much of an advantage for the PS3 as the gain in marketshare was/is an advantage for the 360.

If nothing else, the PS3 will always have the tech advantage. In another 6-12 months, the PS3 might have already surpassed the 360 in marketshare in 2 of the 3 major regions (Japan and possibly Europe).

How important is that though? I imagine the PS3's network will be a lot closer to XBL than the PS2's network, and the PS2 outsold the Xbox like 4-5 to 1. The GC had an even worse network (if that is even possible), and it is/was within a couple of million of the Xbox. And the Wii will probably perform very well with its network (or lack thereof) too.

The fact that playing games online is free on the PS3 and Wii might be more of a factor than how they compare to XBL (unless MS lets people play online for free too).

Of course, on the other side of things, if DVD fails as a game format, it's a bit of a dampener on the 360. Now, that is a debatable topic, but I think it is telling that we have a major title being distributed through Steam that takes up 10GB, as well as "several" PS3 launch titles needing the capacity BR provides.

IIRC, Sony pushed CD and DVD pretty hard. Those turned out well.

If you want to look at the companies backing both formats, Blu-ray has FAR more companies backing it that backed DVD than HD-DVD. HD-DVD is much more "proprietary" in that regard.

 

Some pics of the Wii's interface:

 

Looks like some people are already camping out: