lols "expanded connectivity" -- you'll get to sit through a WFC connection screen.

thats not really a bad price if this gets Wii Speak in the hands of lots of people and forces Nintendo to take seriously its online infrastructure than I'm all for it.

booo I don't pay that price for an AC game that changed very little.

Wrong, AC has been casualized.  That's a very big change.

Has Wii Speak be confirmed for other games, yet?

well i think a number of 3rd party developers are making games for it, nothing confirmed yet because most are still getting the tech and still working out kinks of online.

This is why its important for this package with Animal Crossing to sell well. Lots of sales = lots more games using this.

Nah AC is one of those accessible games with very hardcore potential.

exactly. its only known as casual now because its a fad word everyone likes to throw around, even if it doesnt make sense in the context they're using it in.

I'm glad they finally decided to ship a bundle; it didn't make sense not to, with AC being the only game to support this thing by the end of the year (most likely).  Price is good IF the game is actually worthwhile and full-featured, but I have my doubts.

It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo still sells the game by itself for $50 -- if so, how many AC owners will really be using voice chat?

Internet sucks some times you know? I mean you have to use use "voice" as an adjective to describe chat, when 20 years ago, chat was nothing but "voice", a minority created, a second Final Solution.  wouch

Just goes to show how worthless that label really is.

That's a steep price for me to waste my time gatecrashing other people's villages and complaining about the weeds...

This purchase is getting more and more iffy.

Animal Crossing actually could be considered pretty hardcore.  I stopped playing it on the Cube because it was eating up my life.  It's a game that requires dedication.  You can't just pop it in for 10 minutes once every two months.

It however appears to be casual focused because most longtime Nintendo fans already have it for the Cube and a fair chunk of us don't want to buy it again.  I guess it's a "newcomber" focused game.  It's for people that didn't buy it on the Cube and haven't gotten sick of the concept yet.

When people complained about Nintendo acting at E3 as if THIS was the core gamer focused title for the remainder of the year I imagine a big part of that was because most core gamers that have followed Nintendo for any length of time already have this and won't buy it again.  That's not everyone thinks but thinking about it that's why I initially discarded it as worthless.  It's a lot like Mario Super Sluggers in that it's barely an update and thus is not considered a "true" core gamer focused effort.  Both games are for people that missed the first game on the Cube.  They may not be dumbed down non-games but they're clearly aimed at the new group Nintendo has attracted with the Wii.  Anyone who has the Cube version has no reason to by the new version.

Animal Crossing Wii is really another enhanced "Wiimake".

I think there's definitely more new to Animal Crossing than there was to Sluggers. Anyway, I'm stupid enough to buy Madden every year so I'm fine with a new Animal Crossing every 3.

I have to ask though, if they sell this thing separately at the 20 dollar price point like many have expected, what's with the slap-in-the-face bundle?  Give us some savings Nintendo.  You put an extra memory card in the first AC for what amounted to 'free'.

They already announced that the WiiSpeak separately is $30.

Come on, Nintendo doesn't do that anymore.  Didn't they make a statement about not lowering the prices for older games?  They cut corners on the Wii specs to save money and then STILL made a hefty profit on the hardware.  No breaking even and making the profit on games.  No putting in the most powerful hardware they could afford to at the competitive price point.  No we're stuck with a Gamecube 1.5 because Nintendo wanted to make a profit on the hardware.  And I recall the Japanese Wii being cheaper than the American one by like $35-40 or so at launch.  In Japan Wii Sports was sold seperately while in North America it was bundled.  But the cost to the consumer was pretty much the same as buying the game and system seperately only we, you know, HAD to buy the game.

Today's Nintendo doesn't believe in offering deals.  They never were that great with that stuff in the first place (let's make our Player's Choice titles $10 more than the PS2 and Xbox discounted software!) but their whole business model is pretty much "sell through ignorance".  Joe Casual won't think twice about how the Animal Crossing bundle has no savings at all so Nintendo is not going to give away $10 to be nice.

Nintendo has always insisted on making a profit on the hardware, it's nowhere near a new policy, it's the way they do business. And you can't seriously be arguing that bundling WiiSports was a bad move by Nintendo. Finally, the $30 price point for the standalone WiiSpeak was set at or just after E3, you do save $10 with the bundle.

I'm not.  Hell that was a GREAT move for Nintendo!  Everything I've mentioned has been great for Nintendo.  Everything to do with the Wii from day one has been great for Nintendo.  Though I'm not a Nintendo shareholder so being forced to pay for Wii Sports wasn't so hot.  I enjoy it enough though that it's not too bad.  It isn't like Keith Courage.

But when Nintendo actually announces how they don't plan to do Player's Choice pricing and want us to pay full price for every game forever how are we supposed to react?  Should we be happy that our favourite videogame company is squeezing us for every last cent because they know they can get away with it?

No, that does suck. Even though these days I'm either going to buy a Nintendo title shortly after release or not at all I remember back to the N64 where most of the games I bought were Players Choice. There are always other ways of getting older games for cheaper than asking price, though.

"With a single off-hand comment, Ian was branded as Lindy's eternal enemy."

Oh ok, if it's gonna be 30 bucks then yeah... good price.

You know what I can actually see this game flopping if they force the bundle.

My manager is at that conference. I can't believe he didn't call us (my co-workers and I) and tell us. It might work. Too many people want the mic with the game. Making it cost more isn't what we had in mind, but this just might work.

Have you seen Wii Fit in many stores?

I've seen Wii Fit in 3 stores on the same day.