Wii reigns in Blighty

IT'S MONDAY MORNING so it's time for the weekly games news round-up.

Wii
If you didn't already know, the UK launch of the Wii occurred on Friday. We've already given INQ readers a breakdown of what was in the Wii box, reported on the hilarity of the Wiimote's POO-WC FCC moniker, and the tabloid Wii puns in use.

There were plenty of other launch day shenanigans occurring else where in Europe. A quick glance of this Wii-store-rush from Germany demonstrates the scope of retailers ability to deal with any degree of high-demand.

Nintendo report that 50,000 UK Wiis sold out within the 12 hours after launch. The usual launch pandemonium ensued with police turning up to move people away from the scene of the Oxford Street launch, earlier on in the day. Spong has a full low-down on the launch, and CVG has pics. The mainstream press concentrated on Nintendo's inability to ship enough Wiis to meet demand, with the BBC leading - who knows what they would make of a console launch akin to what the US and Japan have had with the PS3.

It seems the Wii is already being hacked to a degree. A couple of enterprising users have already started to read data from the Wiimotes, and have begun to use the peculiar new wireless joypads on a PC and even an Apple. Here's a quick video of one hacked Wiimote in action on Windows.

We were a little disappointed with the meagre amount of games on the Wii virtual console, but Nintendo are promising to release new content every Monday.

Unsurprisingly, considering the huge uptake of DS and Wii, Nintendo are now in-line to beat earning forecasts for 2006/7, reports Reuters.

If you're bored of financial forecasts and fancy a chuckle, check out the Japanese Wii manual courtesy of CrunchGear, or maybe Peter Bridger's alternative version of Wii here - it seems not everyone could get a real Wii on the day of release, and had to make do with a little imagination.

PS3
PS3 owners were delivered another update to their consoles this week, with the 1.3 firmware being made available.

The update is intended to fix the problem we reported last week concerning games that run at 720p resolutions on an older HDTV that can't display 720p but can display 1080i - the PS3 drops the resolution to 480p instead of upscaling it to 1080i. The PS3 can now default to 1080i in a 'resolution hierarchy', which was meant to alleviate the problem.

Unfortunately this only works if you're playing a game that supports both 720p and 1080i. Early reports say that the PS3 still can't upscale a game from 720p to 1080i, so in games with a single resolution if 720p, you'll still get bumped down to 480p.

The resolutions your TV support can now be selected manually via the PS3 interface allowing you to stipulate the maximum resolution of your display.

The update also added support for the bluetooth media remote, which is expected to ship soon, a backup tool for memory cards to be stored to the console's hard drive, support for PS2 peripherals via USB, and a HDD formatting option to reset your console to factory settings.

Sony also added a BD/DVD image output option, for switching between automatic, RGB and Y Pb/Cb Pr/Cr over HDMI.

According to SCEE VP of Technology Paul Holman, Sony will deliver another major firmware update with PS3's release in Europe, which was delayed until March. Holman did not give specific details, but alluded to the PS3 becoming "as much a media centre for the home as it is a gaming machine".

Continuing the media-hub vibe, Holman said that the PS3 could possibly come with a keyboard and mouse to let users easily access the net or use a third-party OS installed on the machine, and that the PS3 was not really a gaming console as much as an all-in-one entertainment centre.

He also dispelled analysts' predictions that the end of the Playstation line has occurred with its third iteration, stating that a PS4 will be launched by Sony.

Good news for Tekken fans. Famistu has stated that Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection will be offered as a downloadable PlayStation 3 title. The PS3 version will be an arcade port with new content, including a playable Jinpachi. The game will also be enhanced for HD.

Xbox 360
It seems limited PS3 stocks, and the launch of the new Blue Dragon game in Japan, have heated up Xbox 360 interest. Joystiq (with queue pics) reports that pre-orders for the new Blue Dragon Xbox 360 hardware bundle sold out some weeks ago, while gamers queued for their copies in Akihabara on the morning of the release.

More negative news comes from Xbox-Scene who claim an Xbox 360 owner has filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for the problems (including bricking) he and others have had due to the fall system update. It will be interesting to see how this pans out, considering the Wii had a similar bricking-update recently.

Further news concerning Gears of War comes regarding Xbox Live usage, which has jumped 80% since GoW's launch - similar to what Halo 2 garnered. It also ousted Halo 2 from the Xbox Live usage charts, but not before due time.

An in-depth look at HD films on the Xbox Live Marketplace, comparing the quality to HD-DVD, can be seen at xyhd.tv. The reviewers concluded that it competes very well with the quality expected from HD film.

In other gaming news, Multiverse has announced that they have gained rights to a Firefly MMORPG. Multiverse is a company started by several former Netscape employees. You can read more here. µ

See also
Amazon has Wii
Unwrapping Nintendo's new console
Nintendo Poo added to Nintendo Wii
Wii turns from Japan to Woolworths