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Nintendo Wii wins top video game critics' award

By Lisa Baertlein
1 hour, 48 minutes ago


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Video game critics on Wednesday honored Nintendo's Wii console and Electronic Arts' upcoming "Spore" video game for bringing fresh ideas to the $28.5 billion industry that has been criticized for relying on films for inspiration and on game sequels for sales.

Critics crowned the Wii "Best of Show" after game enthusiasts at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) waited hours to get their hands on the Nintendo Co. Ltd. machine due later this year. They raved about how its new controller allowed them to play sports games like tennis and football much in the same way they are played in real life.

"It's a great story and it's something different," said Geoff Keighley, co-chairman of the Game Critics Awards, an independent group of journalists from 37 North American media outlets that cover the video game industry.

"It proves that you don't necessarily have to spend $20 million on a big blockbuster game to stay competitive and get attention," he said, referring to the rapidly rising cost of developing games for Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).'s upcoming PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Creating games for the Wii is expected to be far less expensive than for the PS3 and Xbox 360, super-charged machines that boast eye-popping graphics capabilities and cost about twice as much as Nintendo's upcoming console.

Wii also won for "Best Hardware" and Nintendo's "Wii Sports" title took home the prize for "Best Sports Game."

EA's "Spore" -- last year's "Best of Show" winner -- won "Best Original Game," "Best PC Game" and "Best Simulation Game."

"Spore" is the brainchild of "The Sims" creator Will Wright. The game promises to let players take a creature from its cellular beginnings all the way through to missions of interstellar conquest.

Other winners include Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios' "Gears of War" and UbiSoft's "Assassin's Creed."

Keighley called the new pool of ideas a good sign for the industry, which has begun to show signs of fatigue as its audience tires of sequels and film-inspired games.

"It shows that this industry can create great ideas that are also great games. It's also great to see that publishers are willing to bet big with original property," Keighley said.

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"It proves that you don't necessarily have to spend $20 million on a big blockbuster game to stay competitive and get attention," he said, referring to the rapidly rising cost of developing games for Sony Corp's upcoming PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

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Wii's Virtual Console is "an alternate approach to the business" - Iwata
Rob Fahey 16:30 02/06/2006
Cheaper, smaller games will enable developers to focus on gameplay, says Nintendo boss

The Virtual Console functions of the Wii platform will enable small games to find a large audience, according to Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata, who says that the download system is an alternative to the "single-minded" approach of the industry at present.

Speaking to the Tech-On section of Japanese newspaper Nikkei Business Publications, Iwata addressed the merits of the Virtual Console as a platform for creating new content, not just for emulating old games - the use with which most prospective purchases will be most familiar.

He implied that games which launch on the Virtual Console could cost as little as 500 Yen (around 3.50 Euro), a tenth of the expected retail price of new games on the system in Japan.

"When creating a packaged game to be priced at 5,000 yen, developers tend to feel the need to create a rich game," he explained. "Yet it is possible to create a reasonably entertaining game in 2 months with a team of three. Offering such games for 500 yen over a network could lead to a reasonable number of people purchasing it. By offering an environment that allows this, we hope to encourage more developers to pursue basic yet enjoyable gameplay."

However, Iwata was quick to point out that Nintendo will continue to develop "epic" titles as well - and that even in the firm's new vision of the future, there is plenty of room for titles such as Zelda, Fire Emblem or Earthbound.

"Content-rich games have their own merit, and I have no intention of discrediting them," he continued. "Such games are important in their own right, and will continue to be in demand. Still - think about it - eating French cuisine or a full dinner each day would quickly lead to boredom, wouldn't it? You'll want a simple bowl of rice and soup every now and then."

"Our intention with the Wii is to propose an alternate approach to gaming business," he concluded, "as the gaming industry is currently far too single-minded."

Iwata admitted to Nikkei Business Publications that Nintendo had fallen from its former position as "champion" of the console market to being a "challenger" - and that "challengers have a hard time getting the market to listen to them."

However, he believes that the success of the Nintendo DS has helped to build momentum and support for the firm's innovations in control mechanisms, which he believes will help to "propel the Wii forward" when it appears later this year.

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Nintendo expects limited losses from Wii launch By Sachi Izumi and Aiko Hayashi
Wed Jun 7, 6:20 AM ET


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese game software and console maker Nintendo Co. (7974.OS) said on Wednesday it is unlikely to lose much money on the launch of its new "Wii" video game console, in sharp contrast to rival Sony Corp. (6758.T), which expects a hefty loss on the debut of its PlayStation 3.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg....E_13nFmvvYLw--

Game machines manufacturers often lose money on initial console sales, but recoup those losses over the life of the product through software sales. Sony expects to post a 100 billion yen ($884 million) operating loss at its game division in the current fiscal year due to costs related to the PS3 launch.

"We can't promise we won't have even a one-yen loss, but we are not expecting an enormous loss," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a news conference. "It is a strange notion that a game console always leads to mounting losses in the beginning."

"We are working to make the Wii business a healthy one from the first year," he added.

Iwata added that even if the company meets its sales target of 6 million Wii consoles in the year to next March and 17 million units of Wii software, Nintendo expected a limited impact on its earnings from sales of Wii for the current business year.

Nintendo, known for games featuring characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Pokemon, also said it planned to boost monthly production of its strong-selling DS portable players by almost 38 percent after introducing the thinner, lighter DS Lite in the United States and Europe this month.

The Kyoto-based company will release the Wii, which features a motion-sensor-enabled controller, in the last quarter of 2006, going head-to-head with market leader Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 console in the nearly $30 billion global video game market.

Unlike Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) new Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, which boast more power and high-definition graphics, Nintendo aims to win over customers with an affordably priced unit and ground-breaking games, hoping to attract a broader audience than the young males who usually make up the console gaming market.

Nintendo kept prices and exact launch dates under wraps but said it would announce them by September. The company has said the Wii would cost 25,000 yen or lower in Japan and $250 or lower in the United States.

PlayStation 3, which will hit the U.S. market on November 17, will be priced at as much as $599, while Xbox 360's premium version that is already in stores costs $399.

Masashi Morita, an analyst at Okasan Securities, said that the accounts will balance if Nintendo sets the price of the Wii console at 25,000 yen, as he expects. "If they succeed in selling in large numbers, in the long run, they will have profits," he added.

Shares in Nintendo closed down 1.55 percent at 18,460 yen. The Nikkei average (^N225 - news) ended down 1.88 percent.

A key feature of the Wii is its one-handed controller that looks like a television remote control and uses motion-detection sensors that allow players to control the game by wielding it like a sword, waving it like a conductor's baton, or swinging it like a baseball bat.

POPULAR DS

Nintendo has forecast 22 percent operating profit growth this business year, helped by good sales of its DS portable players.

The firm said in May that third-party research showed about 16 million of its dual-screened Nintendo DS machines had been sold worldwide, millions more than Sony's rival PlayStation Portable (PSP) hand-held.

Strong demand for DS, and its innovative games such as "Nintendogs" and "Brain Training for Adults" in 2005 helped the entire Japanese game market post growth for the first time in five years.

Iwata said Nintendo will increase its production of the DS series -- DS and DS Lite -- to 2 to 2.2 million units a month after summer from about 1.6 million as of May. The company plans to introduce DS Lite in the United States on June 11 and in Europe on June 23.

He also said it would delay the introduction of a Web browser for DS machines by one month to July and would launch a card with a digital television receiver around this autumn.

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