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Animal Crossing/WiiSpeak bundle box revealed, price worries continue
A Portuguese Nintendo fansite happened to notice the appearance on Amazon of the Animal Crossing: City Folk/WiiSpeak microphone bundle. Only just now after looking at it have we realized what Nintendo has done here: they've guaranteed City Folk's bestseller status by making it yet another first-party Wii game with a bundled peripheral. It now joins Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit. People really love big boxes!Amazon's price for the bundle is a cause for concern. Either they never bothered to update to the $59.99 price or the price is back up to $69.99. We'd like to make an official announcement at this time: Wii Fanboy endorses the lower price this November. We think it's the right decision for this county.%Gallery-27704%[Via FNintendo]
Make your pets hate you, win a Wii and Animal Crossing
If you have no interest in actually paying for a Wii and Animal Crossing: City Folk, Nintendo has your back. For the next three weeks, the company is encouraging people (North Americans only) to dress their pets in adorable outfits, and send photos of the unamused, uncomfortable animal(s) to this website. Come November 16th, the fifty best will win a Wii, a copy of Animal Crossing: City Folk, and a WiiSpeak microphone. Maybe this is the excuse you've needed to justify buying a pug?The rules encourage an Animal Crossing theme, meaning the entries featured so far on the site are fairly rubbish, with most people just putting a hat on a disgruntled labrador. We sense our own idea is a winner. Protip, though: getting a necktie on a giraffe is hell.%Gallery-27704%[Via press release] KK says: buy Animal Crossing: City Folk to visit the city, reach out to friends, and make Iwata cry!
IGN's hands-six-to-eight-feet-away-from WiiSpeak preview
IGN's Craig Harris tested out the WiiSpeak microphone and voice chat functionality inside Animal Crossing at Nintendo's San Francisco office. His experience seemed much smoother and friendlier than my own, possibly as a result of improvements in the technology, a quieter environment, or a voice that is capable of normal human volume. Treehouse staffers told him that the voice chat has improved significantly since E3.Conversations came in clearly enough from multiple positions in the room, though Harris noted a drop in quality when his interlocutors in Nintendo's Redmond office drifted far away from the mic, which seems pretty obvious. He was able to converse in a normal speaking voice from his position "six to eight feet" away. However, with no option to turn the music down or off in Animal Crossing, the game tended to drown out the voice output.There was a mysterious "Use Headphones" option available in Animal Crossing, whose function is currently unknown. Harris speculates that it sends voice and game audio through separate audio channels, but maybe it just changes some preset audio settings to optimitze performance through tiny speakers. It's not as if you can plug a headset into the Wiimote or anything.%Gallery-27704% Ever since it was revealed back at E3, WiiSpeak has been the talk (both good and bad) of the town. Check out our hands-on time with the device, as well as the details you may have missed on the WiiSpeak Channel. Plan on picking one up? Then you might want to check out Game Night, where you'll surely be able to chat with your fellow Wii lovers in the future.
Animal Crossing: City Fashion
The video here may be a little ... YouTubed, but you can see it at the Animal Crossing: City Folk website. And it's clear enough to see that there are a ton of clothing and style options. You can make yourself look like a Power Ranger, a sumo wrestler, or pretty much any variety of ridiculous you'd like. And all it takes is months of scouring shops, the dump, the lost and found, trees, the sky, the ground, the mail, and your friends' catalogs!After the break, more life in (and around) the Animal Crossing city! Enjoy a brief serenade by Totakeke, learn about the shoe-shine skunk, who will happily change the color of your shoes with what must be really thick polish, and visit the tent of the roving fortune teller, Katrina. And at the end, presents! Well, a video about presents.%Gallery-27704%
Check out Tom Nook's price gouging
We all know how crooked Tom Nook is. He has no problem with turning new residents into indentured servants, tasking them with delivering packages and carrying out other duties throughout each Animal Crossing game. Once freed from his grip, however, you're free to give him money by checking out the only game in town, his shop. Curious as to how Tom Nook's store evolves from a shed to the big mart it becomes after you've given him many, many Bells? Check out the video above.%Gallery-27704%[Via Go Nintendo]
Animal Crossing: Emotional, Spendthrifty Folk
Animal Crossing: City Folk is sticking to the formula laid down by Wild World fairly rigidly, but it's not all a rehash. Some new outlets and characters can be found in the city section next to your village, two of which have been recently showcased in daily videos at City Folk's official Japanese site. The first of these stars Dr. Shrunk, whose dubious comedic talents have finally landed him the big one: a gig at City Folk's Theater. Here, you'll be able to watch the good doctor take to the stage, 'enjoy' his stand-up routine, and hopefully learn a brand new emotion in the process -- as you do. The second video (after the break) covers the Auction House (where you'll be able to offer items for those on your Wii's friend list to bid on), which appears to be manned by a Gyroid. Perhaps they ran out of ideas for new talking animals. %Gallery-27704%
Animal Crossing: City Folk in Creepy Mii Masks
We spent our limited Animal Crossing: City Folk time at E3 messing with the new Mii masks, reducing an effigy of a normally jovial executive to a blubbering mess. Should you want to follow our example, it's quite easy to do! And just a little bit off-putting, as this video of the new salon shows. You just go to the salon, choose the Mii you'd like the mask to resemble, and then ... a giant machine, buzzing and arcing with electricity, clamps down over you and reshapes your head! If you think about it like that, it's a bit weird that the Mii mask blinks and displays emotions. But, then again, you have to earn each emotional display by watching stand-up comedy, so maybe we're already in Weird City. %Gallery-27704%
WiiSpeak Channel dated for Europe
Wii lovers and fans of speakerphones across Europe, the WiiSpeak Channel has been dated for your region. The Channel and peripheral will debut alongside Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City on December 5th, less than a month after North America receives the game and service. Sadly, there's no word on what the bundle will cost you and if it'll be much more expensive than the bundle we're getting in North America. We'd like to think it will cost around the same, but we know how you guys get the shaft sometimes. Ever since it was revealed back at E3, WiiSpeak has been the talk (both good and bad) of the town. Check out our hands-on time with the device, as well as the details you may have missed on the WiiSpeak Channel. Plan on picking one up? Then you might want to check out Game Night, where you'll surely be able to chat with your fellow Wii lovers in the future.
Joystiq goes hands-on with Nintendo's Media Summit line-up
The embargo on play sessions has lifted and Joystiq has let loose some write-ups for games that were present at Nintendo's big Media Summit last week. They've spent quality time with The Conduit, Animal Crossing: City Folk and even Call of Duty: World at War, to name a few. So we suggest you hit up this link and get to reading!
Joystiq impressions: Animal Crossing: City Folk
Animal Crossing is a one-hit-wonder. You might like it and play it forever, hate it and avoid it completely, or think it was catchy and then just get tired of the tune. Animal Crossing: City Folk does little to change our perception. This is Animal Crossing, again; go fishing, pull weeds, repeat. Some love it, some hate it, and some just want something new. From what we saw at the Nintendo Media Summit, the city is just another place to go. Instead of Tom Nook's shop in your own town, you can buy from an upscale store. Instead of waiting for the fortune teller to visit, you can see her in the city. A few minor additions include a city-based auction house and theater where you see shows. The rest of the updates seem equally subtle. You can play with your Mii face. Up to four players can meet in one of their towns or the city. Gamer can talk over the WiiSpeak microphone (sold separately). You can type messages by plugging in any USB HID keyboard. Otherwise, it's Animal Crossing again. %Gallery-33749%
Animal Crossing/WiiSpeak bundle cheaper than we thought
Remember when we reported on a $69.99 price tag on the Animal Crossing/WiiSpeak bundle? Well, it turns out that price was off, by $10. Yes, the bundle will in fact retail for $59.99. That brings WiiSpeak down to $10, with the purchase of Animal Crossing: City Folk. Animal Crossing: City Folk and WiiSpeak will be out in North America on November 16th.%Gallery-27704%
Nintendo unveils Wii Speak channel for four-way voice chats
Remember that Wii Speak microphone that Nintendo announced at E3 for Animal Crossing socialization, and then everyone promptly forgot about? Well, shuffled in with its other announcements yesterday, Nintendo announced the Wii Speak channel, that will allow for up to four people to voice chat directly without all that pesky fishing and digging and tea sipping and cute getting in the way. Unfortunately, literally nothing else is known about the feature -- we're curious if we can use that USB mic we got for karaoke, and we're sure you have burning questions of your own, but Nintendo's clearly going to debut this feature and the related hardware in its own sweet time.[Via Joystiq]
From The Conduit to Call of Duty: New screenshots from Nintendo's media summit
click to embiggen While we can't talk about what we played at today's Nintendo fall media summit in San Francisco (embargoes lift Monday), we were able to snap plenty of pictures from the event, including The Conduit, Dead Rising, Call of Duty: World at War and Animal Crossing. More galleries after the break.%Gallery-33462%
Six of our favorite Media Summit videos
You've already had the chance to examine scores of wonderful screens from new Wii games announced at the Nintendo Media Summit. This new post is dedicated to displaying thousands of more screens (squashed together to create videos) of some of the bigger titles that have been shown at the event.We settled on placing Nintendo's official Punch-Out!! trailer at the top of this post, but could have easily led with some truly fantastic Sin & Punishment 2 footage, an impressive tech demo of The Conduit, or Yuji Naka's wacky-looking Let's Tap. Instead, all of those (and more) are past the break, and need to be viewed right now. Before you go, though, one final note: if any game released this year has a funkier soundtrack than Let's Tap, we'll be gobsmacked.
Animal Crossing: Timely Folk
One thing Animal Crossing: City Folk won't be replicating from previous Animal Crossings is the horrendous delay in getting a PAL version out. Wild World on the DS took nearly four months to cross the Atlantic to Europe, while Animal Crossing on the GameCube turned up two years late (though lucky Australia had to wait for only thirteen months).This won't be the case for the Wii game, which will launch in Europe this December, where it will be known as Animal Crossing: Pointless, Overlong, Awkward Subtitle Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City and come bundled with WiiSpeak. Happy news for any Europeans who thought they would miss out on any vital, fruit-related conversation at Game Night!%Gallery-27704% KK says: buy Animal Crossing: City Folk to visit the city, reach out to friends, and make Iwata cry!
New Animal Crossing gets name change in Australia
Australia's OFLC ratings board reveals that Animal Crossing: City Folk will be renamed for the continent, reports IGN. The new name of the game will be Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City. Strange as folk as that may be, IGN speculates that the name change is due to a European direct translation. The site points to a similar case involving Wario Land: Shake It! being renamed Wario Land: The Shake Dimension.
Animal Crossing: Let's Make the Title More Awkward
The good news is that Animal Crossing: City Folk has been rated by the Australian OFLC board, meaning that it may actually come out in that region less than one year after the US release this time. Maybe. The bad news is that Nintendo seems to have decided to release the game there under a different, less mellifluous title than the US version: Animal Crossing: Let's Go to the City. For those of you in Australia, we don't wish to spoil the game for you, but the "city" is where folk reside. Is there some regional difference we aren't aware of? Does the word "folk" have a negative connotation in Australian English? %Gallery-27704%
Point/Counterpoint: WiiSpeak vs. ISpeak
Nintendo, who recently introduced the stick controller and the scale controller, is at it again, with the WiiSpeak, a microphone that you put on top of your TV so a whole crowd can share in voice chat as they play Animal Crossing (and, later, other games). Voice chat isn't new, of course, but voice chat for a whole room is.Is this a worthwhile innovation? Is Nintendo's new approach really preferable to just wearing a headset and having conversations with your Internet pals? Will having the mic several feet away even be a workable solution? We obviously don't know, but we can debate about what we think. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; }
You're not worthy: GameStop eXpo rumors
Every year (well, at least since being banned from E3) the grand minions of GameStop Corp. descend upon the dessert oasis that is Las Vegas, Nevada -- with a Capital X -- to become better informed about their retail products, so as to make professional recommendations to their far less knowledgeable customer base. With a few cleverly placed posers, 1UP has infiltrated the sore-thumbed masses of regional managers who have traveled great distances to earn bragging rights over the adolescents who, in turn, loiter inside their finely vacuumed establishments. Finally, some payoff for another hard year of underachievement (remember kids, these are just rumors): A trailer for a new Indiana Jones game (could it be?) will premiere next week ... after everyone's returned home to Nowheresville. 60 GB Xbox 360 hard drive will be $99 with 3 months of Xbox Live and an ethernet cable; or 12 months of Xbox Live for $70 and a copy of PGR4. Decisions, decisions... Animal Crossing: City Folk will be bundled with the Wii Speak "community mic" and sold for $70. (And after this, Nintendo will be done with peripherals. Promise. *Crosses fingers behind back.*) GBA's Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories will get a surprise port to ... (wait for it) ... PS2! [Update: As several commenters point out, a Chain of Memories port remake has been available in Japan since March 2007.] Visit 1UP for the full range of oohs and ahs. Bet you wish you'd forgone that degree and stuck it out at the strip mall, huh? Just imagine: You could be there. Right. Now.[Image credit: dougward]
Amazon opens WiiSpeak preorders
WiiSpeak isn't the kind of thing we can imagine selling in Wii Fit quantities, but it's getting hard to tell nowadays. Maybe the microphone add-on and Animal Crossing: City Folk will be overshadowed by the other big first-party release of November, and supplies will be plentiful, but why take the risk? You can now preorder your own WiiSpeak at Amazon, and rest assured that you'll be able to bitch behind Nook's back with your Wii Friends from day one. Hang around now, and you may be confined to the keyboard.[Update: Removed potentially confusing comment]%Gallery-27704%[Via Punch Jump]
