Wii and Virtual Console Launch Line-Up Revealed

Wii

October 31, 2006, 6:44 pm EST
Total comments: 16

Combined, you'll be able to play 60+ games on your console in a few weeks!

NINTENDO'S WII WILL BOAST 62 TITLES AND COUNTLESS NEW WAYS TO PLAY

32 New Wii Titles and 30 Classics Form Huge Launch Library

REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 31, 2006 – Within the first five weeks of launch, Wii™ owners can pick from up to 62 games, representing the most diverse, and most exciting, console video game library available. Licensees and developers have lined up to support the Wii launch in unprecedented numbers. Wii and its Wii Remote™ completely change the way people play and experience video games by making every motion of the controller translate into action on the screen. All at once, Wii makes games both easier to play and more immersive. In the five weeks after Wii launches in the United States on Nov. 19, gamers of all ages and abilities will be telling their friends and family: "You've got to play this!"

By year's end, Wii owners will have 32 new titles to play, including industry powerhouse games like The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess, Madden NFL '07, Need for Speed™: Carbon and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam™; category-redefining adventures like Red Steel™, Elebits™ and Trauma Center™: Second Opinion; and Hollywood favorites like Cars, SpongeBob SquarePants™: Creature from the Krusty Krab and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Some of these games might be familiar, but if you haven't played them on Wii, you're only getting half the experience.

Wii owners also will return to their youth with 30 classic games available for download to play on Wii's Virtual Console™. These include games for the NES®, Super NES®, Nintendo® 64, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx16 consoles. Players redeem Wii Points in the Wii Shop Channel and download their games. And that's not to mention the entire library of more than 530 Nintendo GameCube™ games that can be played on the Wii console from day one because Wii is directly backward compatible.

"Developers worldwide have enhanced Wii's launch library of new games with countless new ways to play," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Whether you pick a completely new property or a classic franchise, the Wii experience draws you in."

Every Wii owner starts off with Wii Sports™, which comes packed in with the console itself. The sporting collection of bowling, tennis, baseball, boxing and golf lets players literally swing the Wii Remote like a bowling ball, racket, bat, boxing glove and golf club. The games are easy for anyone to try and they dramatically demonstrate how Wii makes video games fun for everyone.

For avid gamers, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess emerges as this season's video game masterpiece. The epic adventure lets players swing the Wii Remote as a sword and can play in a 16:9 aspect ratio with beautiful visuals and glorious sound. Have you ever tilted your controller while playing a driving game, hoping in vain that extra oomph would help you land a huge jump? Now EXCITE TRUCK™ translates those movements of the Wii Remote as players hold it sideways and turn it like a steering wheel.

Wii's launch library contains games of all genres, and each one gives gamers a new way to play. While Wii Sports, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and EXCITE TRUCK will be ready to go on launch day, last-minute polishing by third parties means their exact dates will soon be locked down, though most will launch by the end of November. A complete list of launch-day titles will be announced in the near future. Visit www.Wii.com for updates. Third-party publishers have created an impressive list of launch titles for Wii, and their backing will continue steadily into the new year. Before the end of December alone, the following titles will be available:

Activision: Call of Duty® 3, Marvel™ Ultimate Alliance, Rapala® Tournament Fishing, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam™, World Series of Poker®: Tournament of Champions

Atari: Dragon Ball Z®: Budokai Tenkaichi™ 2

Atlus: Trauma Center™: Second Opinion

EA: Madden NFL '07, Need for Speed™: Carbon

Konami: Elebits™

Midway: Happy Feet™, Rampage®: Total Destruction™, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy™, The Ant Bully

Sega: Super Monkey Ball™: Banana Blitz

SNK: Metal Slug™ Anthology

Tecmo: Super Swing Golf

THQ: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Barnyard®, Cars, SpongeBob SquarePants™: The Creature from the Krusty Krab

Ubisoft: Far Cry®: Vengeance, GT Pro Series, Monster 4X4 World Circuit, Open Season™, Rayman Raving Rabbids™, Red Steel™, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent™

Vivendi: Ice Age 2™: The Meltdown

In addition to these new titles, Nintendo is making the greatest video game archive in history available for download to its Virtual Console. NES games start at 500 Wii Points, Super NES games start at 800 Wii Points and Nintendo 64 games start at 1,000 Wii Points. Sega Genesis games start at 800 Wii Points and TurboGrafx16 games start at 600 Wii Points. Wii Points can be purchased online or at retail at an MSRP of $20 for 2,000 points. Before the end of December, the following titles will be available:

NES: Mario Bros.®, The Legend of Zelda®, Donkey Kong®, Donkey Kong Jr. ®, Ice Hockey, Pinball, Soccer, Tennis, Urban Champion®, Wario's Woods™, Baseball, Solomon's Key

SNES: F-Zero®, SimCity™

N64: Super Mario® 64

Sega Genesis: Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Columns, Ecco the Dolphin, Gunstar Heroes, Space Harrier II, Toe Jam & Earl, Ristar, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

TurboGrafx16: Bonk's Adventure, Super Star Soldier, Victory Run, Bomberman '93, Dungeon Explorer

As previously announced, Wii contains built-in parental controls that let adults set the console to play only games of a certain rating and lock their selection with a PIN code.

Talkback

nickmitchOctober 31, 2006

Very nice.

KaironCarmine Red, Associate EditorOctober 31, 2006

Talk about a port machine.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Nick DiMolaNick DiMola, Staff AlumnusOctober 31, 2006

8 bucks for a Genesis or SNES game is a tad pricey, I hope these come down as time goes on. I would really like to pick up Gunstar Heroes and Toe Jam & Earl, but for that price I'd rather get the solid copies of them and play them on my Genesis.

JonLeungOctober 31, 2006

Looks like the Japanese have a much larger selection to start with.

TJ SpykeOctober 31, 2006

Where the F*ck is Super Mario World? Reggie promised that would be a launch title.

Ian SaneOctober 31, 2006

It ain't 62 games, it's 32. VC games don't count. I expected NOA to "count" VC games but it's still annoying to see it just the same. It's okay if the actual Wii releases are consistent but I don't want to see large game droughts being justified because there's so many VC games available that I already own or have played a million times.

The list of initial VC titles looks like someone looked at the first year of releases for each system and picked titles at random. Sim City is included but not Super Mario World? F*cking Pinball, which wasn't even worth trading for in Animal Crossing, is available but not SUPER MARIO BROS (unless "Mario Bros" is a typo)? The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario 64 are the only games in the Nintendo list that I would consider some of the top games for their respective consoles. Most of those other titles were uninteresting a year after release. I question the point of even releasing junk like Urban Champion aside from completeness sake. If you are going to be so scattershot I suggest going in chronilogical order. So the SNES starts with Super Mario World, Pilotwings and F-Zero and goes from there.

NWR_pap64Pedro Hernandez, Contributing WriterOctober 31, 2006

I am dissapointed as well.

HOWEVER, I think Nintendo may have chosen to do a minimal list because...
1. They are playing it safe and see if people are willing to invest on Wii points and Virtual console games
2. They don't want the classic games to overshadow the BRAND NEW Wii games (highly unlikely, but I wouldn't be surprised if some people buy the Wii just for the VC games and forget about everything else)
3. They want the third party games to shine at launch. If you look at the Wii launch games as well as the VC games, the third party games are the best. This is very different from the Nintendo that would make sure it was all about them.

Still, Nintendo DID promise that they would release new VC games every month, so sooner or later we will get the truly great games.

MaleficentOgreOctober 31, 2006

the entire launch window looks like nintendo is doing all they can to take a backseat to third parties. It pretty much insures that anyone buying something other than zelda will get a third party game.not a horrible idea. same with the VC. companies see that sega and hudson games are selling and they'll jump on board too, which is all too good for nintendo. nintendo titles are going to sell whenever they come out.

TJ SpykeOctober 31, 2006

pap, I hope you're wrong on part 1. Some companies do the same thing with TV shows, releasing a DVD with 5 random episodes and call it a test to see if people will buy a season set (I want a season set, not random episodes).

Seeing if people will buy crap like Urban Champion to see if we want the good games would be idiotic. I want Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2, Super Mario RPG, Super Metroid, Paper Mario. Hell, Super Mario World was the 1 VC launch game I was hoping for.

If this is the final list (I hope Nintendo adds some more before launch), there are only 3 or 4 VC games I am interested in.

sycomonkeyOctober 31, 2006

I was under the impression that Metroid Prime 3 was a launch title, and yet it does not appear on this list. Was it delayed? It's not like I could possibly afford a Wii, Zelda, AND Metroid. $300 is quiet enough money to spend in one day.

KaironCarmine Red, Associate EditorOctober 31, 2006

Metroid Prime was delayed into 2007, and is assumed to be coming out sometime in the first three months of that year.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

TrueNerdOctober 31, 2006

What are you guys whining about? One of the finest sports games ever made, Ice Hockey, is coming!

Fatso players for the wins!

couchmonkeyNovember 01, 2006

Yeah, I was going to comment that the SNES lineup is a bit thin, but then the Internets hit me with a wall of whine and now all I have to say is, THAT'S AWESOME. Lots of games here.

JonLeungNovember 01, 2006

Seems kinda weird that Wario's Woods, which I think is the last Nintendo-developed NES game (in North America, anyway) is available along with a bunch of the real NES classics.

Ian SaneNovember 01, 2006

"Seems kinda weird that Wario's Woods, which I think is the last Nintendo-developed NES game (in North America, anyway) is available along with a bunch of the real NES classics."

Isn't Wario's Woods also available on the SNES with better graphics and sound? Actually looking it up the SNES version came out first which suggests that the game was originally designed for the SNES and then got ported to the NES later on. Might as well wait until they make the SNES version available.

TJ SpykeNovember 01, 2006

I would recommend people pick up Animal Crossing for $20. Get Tennis, Golf, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Excitebike, Punch-Out!!!, Wario's Woods, Baseball (and The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. if you have a Action Replay).

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