hello, nintendo

the least stressful way to buy a wii in nyc

1. Wake up extra early on any day office people have to go to work.
2. Get to the Nintendo World Store before 8:30 a.m.
3. Wait in line outside till the store opens at 9 a.m.
4. Wait in line inside cause the registers are slow.
5. Ask for a copy of Wii Play cause it comes with a Wiimote, costs only $10 more than just a Wiimote, and the games are simple but fun.
6. Buy your Wii. Hurrah!

Celebrity Mii contest!

Friend of Hello, Nintendo Jason Kottke is having a Celebrity Mii contest. If you have a great mii, head on over to his site and enter!

I couldn't get a Wii so all I got was this lousy t-shirt

At just 1/10 of the price of a Wii make your friends 1/10 as jealous. $20 Nintendo Family Tree shirt from nerdyshirts.com. 

Elbow Room

Gothamist on how to score a Wii:

Elbow grease is necessary in order to eventually get Wii Elbow, so suck it up, dress appropriately and be nice to your fellow people in line because you never know when you'll need spot on line saved so you can run to a Starbucks for the bathroom.

The commenter who said "I just came from the Best Buy on 6th and 23rd -- they've been in limited supply, but they've got em." may be on to something, I've seen lines there the last few mornings, but I wasn't sure for what.

Early Zelda Gnits

I have now had two reasonable sized portions of Twilight Princess gameplay.  This hasn't gotten me tremendously far into the game, only about four hours, but I am starting to form some initial impressions.

As with pretty much everyone else who has written anything on the Internet about this game, I am rather into it.  It is great and I am happy and all that glory being heaped upon it is accurate and well-deserved.

This morning, however, I am at work and not playing Zelda, and that does not make me happy.  That makes me petulant and cranky and so I will turn my irritation into rationalization and point out all the things I've encountered so far about this game that aren't great.

Please be aware that after this point there are some minor spoilers about the first 4-5 hours of the game.

Opera on the Wii

Geek Unit:

After only being released for around a week, the Wii's built in (and very neutered) Opera browser has been hacked to allow surfing to almost any website.

[Insert Wiity Title]

I got a Wii on Friday evening.

The adventure (it is true that I live a somewhat boring life) starting Thursday night, when Jen (my wife) learned that our local Best Buy would be receiving a shipment of 30-some consoles.  She offered to go while I was at work and pick one up.

I drove by on my way to work that morning, and there were two lines extending around both sides of the building.  I learned both that the store was also acquiring some PS3s, which explained the second line, and that they had received 39 consoles.  The line was at least 60-people strong; the consoles had been claimed.

Vii

Vox is the best place for Wii chatter, including finding friend codes, exploring Zelda's timeline, or just letting Wii fanatics do the news scouring for you.

WiiTube

Two great Wii videos this weekend. Kid Icarus fans are praying for a sequel:
Someone is already much better at bowling than I'll ever be:


Thanks, Jason!

R.I.P. Fun

Much has been made of the "peaceful" Wii fans but I am sad to say I have something different to report.

Adriana and I waited in line for two hours yesterday for our Wii at the Nintendo Store, but the experience was anything but peaceful. The Nintendo World employees were anything but polite. Instead, they were mocking the folks in line, reporting with glee that we had little chance of getting in the store, and a friend told me that some of the employees were bragging about preferring the Xbox 360!

After we had waited in line for almost two hours, Nintendo World closed the store early (at 5:30) and instead of making the announcement themselves, the Nintendo World employees sent Rockefeller Center security out to intimidate the crowd into dispersing. It was surreal - on what should have been Nintendo World's finest day, they were closing early and sending out fake police to scare away their customers.

A little background here - Nintendo World used to be the Pokémon Store, which was primarily devoted to Pokémon games, cards and dolls. As that trend faded Nintendo made the decision to stop managing the store. They contracted a third party to run their retail operations and rebranded the location as Nintendo World. This makes a lot of sense, but the reality is that the store (which he visit 3 or 4 times a year) is simply less fun than it used to be.

There were definitely some mitigating factors. Adriana and I were polite and quiet, but we felt many of our compatriots in line were loud, disrespectful and obnoxious. It's not surprising that we've grown out of the "first day video console" crowd, but it's a little sad. I understood why the Nintendo World employees felt antagonistic about the loudmouths in line, but they handled the situation very poorly - arbitrarily letting people skip the line, and mocking people who remained in line. If Nintendo wants to be the console choice for adults, they should treat their fans as adults.

Adriana and I showed up at the store again at 9 morning, enjoyed complimentary coffee and donuts, and left with our wii, extra controllers and the choice games about thirty minutes later. It was orderly and pleasant, and most people in line were wearing pearls or a suit and tie. It was 180 degrees different than our experience on Sunday.

Make no mistake. Nintendo and Sony fans are equally capable of being loudmouthed boneheads, and fun is not necessarily written into their DNA. I am also psyched to play Zelda tonight, so no hard feelings.