“I have an idea for an Infendo post you should do…” — Sean Malstrom

And so began this simple post on an extraordinary idea. Perhaps a bit crazy too, but then again all disruptive technologies are labeled as such before they’re accepted en masse.

The idea? That the Balance Board packaged with Wii Fit isn’t an accessory at all. It’s a console, just the like Wii or even the PlayStation 3.

You were wondering when Nintendo would update the Wii? Unveil a Wii 2? Good news: The Wii Balance Board is it.

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Remember that damning New York Times piece about Wii, low attach rates and how the system is anathema to “hardcore gamers?”

It’s been pretty much summarily attacked all week long as an example of poor reporting (believe me, I can relate), but this article from Ars Technica–and a response from VGChartz, from which the NYT compiled its data–pretty much smothered the article’s weakened husk as it slept.

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As is too often the case today, Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PES 2008) was released late on the Wii after PS3 and Xbox 360 versions were already well out the door. Sounds familiar, right Harmonix? However, unlike the gimped, no frills version of Rock Band that’s headed to the Wii in June, PES 2008 was held back by Konami to give the game the extra attention it needed to fully make use of the Wii’s unique controls.

Next Generation has a profile up today with PES European team leader Jon Murphy that tells me Konami “gets it” when it comes to what makes a Wii version of any port “sing.” By all signs and portents, the Wii version of PES 2008 is by far the superior version, both from critical acclaim (86% Metacritic) and customer response. (more…)

Wii Fit is big in Japan (1.5 million sold in three months) and arguably will be as big if not bigger in the US when it goes live in a month or so (more people, more people who subscribe to new “weight loss” gimmicks, Wii’s existing momentum among people outside the now incorrectly described “core” or “traditional gamer”). But, just in case, Nintendo is allegedly preparing a massive marketing push to ensure the peripheral is seen and experienced by as many people as possible. I’m talking Oprah here people, Oprah. (more…)

Last week, while the Infendo offices bubbled with giddy Brawl-induced enthusiasm and my colleagues took some brutal smash attacks from the regulars, I was taking a week-long break in sunny San Jose.

Finding a launch-week copy in California was almost impossible, so as soon as I landed in Pittsburgh late last night, I committed to a very important goal. There would be no phone calls, no unpacking. At least not for a while; more than anything else, I needed to get my Smash on.

I drove home, tossed my luggage in the corner and made an impetuous 12:15 AM beeline to a local Wal-Mart, desperate to find a leftover copy of Brawl and to log some late-night hours of Smash. I expected to a find ghost town, an empty department with few, if any, copies and nary a nearby Wal-Mart associate to assist me.

What I found was quite different.

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Thanks to the one-two punch of titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the quirky Wii Fit balance board, Nintendo has widened its lead in Japan over Sony’s PlayStation 3.

According to an article from Reuters today, Nintendo’s Wii game console outsold the PlayStation 3 nearly 4-to-1 in Japan in February despite Sony’s console beginning to narrow the gap last autumn. In addition to strong hardware sales, Wii software titles also dominated the best seller list. Super Smash Bros. Brawl led the software sales with 1.33 million units, followed by Wii Fit which sold 309,311 units in the four weeks.

According to Reuters, Enterbrain and the Japanese gaming mag Famistsu, the Wii’s lead on the PS3 appears to be widening. In February it was 4:1; in January, the Wii outsold the PS3 by almost 3-to-1. Nintendo sold 331,627 units of the Wii in the four weeks to Feb. 24, compared with 89,131 units of the PS3, market research firm Enterbrain said.

Microsoft, content to sell to that lucrative “niche collector’s market” in Japan, sold 14,079 Xbox 360 units in the February reporting period.

Has Super Smash Bros. Brawl smashed, clobbered and otherwise surpassed sales expectations in Japan? Seems so, according to some Final Smash-level rumors pouring out of the Far East this morning:

Cubed3 has a translation of a Japanese blog post referencing a purportedly leaked Famitsu sales report that says the highly-anticipated game sold 500,000 copies, or 80 percent of available stock, on its first day of Japanese release.

The sourcing is admittedly not very concrete, but the number does seem plausible given reports of retail shortages and the game’s strong showing on the Amazon Japan charts. Then again, Super Mario Galaxy only sold 250,000 copies (edit: fixed typo) in it’s entire first week of release, and that was during the highly-charged holiday season.

Regardless of the final number, it looks to outsell Galaxy pretty easily. Does this mean all the punditry was wrong once again about the Wii when it drew all of those “conclusions” about Galaxy’s poor first week sales and what it meant for Nintendo and it’s Wii strategy!? Oh me oh my, maybe it does!

P.S. — Don’t forget to check out Infendo’s exclusive coverage of new Smash Bros. characters at David’s Smash-o-Meter series! 

Today Gamasutra asked a bunch of analysts if Nintendo should revisit the 1980s, when the Nintendo Seal of Quality actually meant something, and then apply that mindset to the Wii.

Apparently, there’s a dearth of low-quality, sub par efforts on the Wii right now, and it’s officially time to completely forget the DS’s early track record and again start declaring to the hilltops that the sky is falling and the bubble is set to burst. (more…)

All signs are pointing to 2007 being the best year ever for video games, but how did the industry stack up against some of the Old Guard like movies and music?

If the Entertainment Software Association (via Ars Technica) is to be believed, it was a banner year that left tired old things like “CDs” and DVDs” in the dust. (more…)

Is the tide turning? Was I actually right for once with one of my now infamous pro-Nintendo Infendo rants?

I only ask because this morning I read something that was borderline Bible end-of-the-world Revelations territory: Wii software sales for December were officially higher than the market leader, Xbox 360.

This spectacular feat actually occurred last month in the wake of the annual video game software sales Mecca, the “holidays,” and it’s been confirmed by the bastion of video game bloggers’ stats everywhere, NPD.

I wonder… how will the naysayers spin this one? (more…)

OPINION — It’s officially time for 3d party developers to put up or shut up.

The act of complaining about developing games for a Nintendo console and turning a profit against the big bad Ninty and its cadre of 1rst party behemoths has officially been exposed as the pathetic, cry baby act that it is. (more…)

Even the mighty Rome fell, eventually. So too will EA, I think, although not in quite as catastophic a fashion as the great decendents of Romulus and Reemus.

But eventually, nonetheless.

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This past year was arguably a year of high’s and more high’s for Nintendo. Any of the firm’s blemishes were easily washed away by its monthly successes, and the core gamer — the everyman and woman who once again controls the fate of the video game industry — would tell you that Nintendo met their expectations and then some (with the exception, of course, that supply chain issues will cost the company an estimated $1 billion). That said, room for growth exists in spades, and I fully expect 2008 to be another banner year for the house that Mario built.

In that light, I suppose it is fitting that the head of Nintendo, President and CEO Satoru Iwata, would top the Top 25 People of 2007 list over at Next Generation. (more…)

Are you one of the doubters? When you saw Wii Fit debut earlier this year, did you scoff and sneer like 95% of the “enthusiast press?”

News today from Japan goes a long way towards making people like you the left out in the cold variety, as Wii Fit has not only sold decently, it also boosted the sales of other Wii games that many people were ready to right off as disappointments in the land of the rising sun. Like Super Mario Galaxy, which had slipped out of the much ballyhooed top ten list picture until today. It was a shame, really, and this new trend, I hope, is indicative of a resurgence for the plucky plumber, whose latest effort is perhaps one of his best ever.

On a related note, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime was peppered earlier this month about the “attach rate” of the Wii and how it was perceived to be poor, especially when compared to the Xbox 360 (here’s some free analysis: it is lower, but it’s not as bad as the press was reporting in 2007. Surprise). I bring that up because I’d like to know if there’s ever been reporting done on the attach rate of an accessory for any given console.

Anyway, here’s the list, which is very reminiscent of Nintendo-themed top ten lists from earlier this year… (more…)

The Wii and DS combined outsold everything else by a sizable margin in the month of July according to NPD. The reason? Both systems are cheap, they think differently, and there are absolutely no good games for either machine. Well, I know two out of three of those reasons are accurate…

1. Nintendo Wii: 425K
2. Nintendo DS: 405K
3. Sony PlayStation 2: 222K
4. Sony PSP: 214K
5. Microsoft Xbox 360: 170K
6. Sony PlayStation 3: 159K
7. Nintendo GBA: 87K