E3 2006 News | Reggie Announces Wii Racer

Vice president of marketing and sales for Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime made an appearance at Nintendo World Store in New York City on Friday 28th April. He was there to sign autographs, promote and answer some questions for fans. As he left, he said the following:



It is uncertain whether it will be of an existing franchise or not, but the answer is certainly intriguing.

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Other questions and answers asked and retorted to at the appearance:

Q: Have you seen Mario on the Wii? You don't have to talk about the game at all, I just want to know, have you seen it at all.
A: I can't say that, and there's a reason. The reason that I have is that everyone will know that there's a game! So I can neither confirm nor deny any rumors to that effect.

On violence in videogames:
A: I'll answer that in two parts. First part is that violence in videogames has [inaudible]. I'm a parent. I'm a parent of a 20 year old, and a 16 year old. And so I make choices every day with my kids, with our games, and you know in the end it's up to the parents, it's up to the gamers themselves, to make the important choice about what to play.

On the DS Lite pricing:
A: We haven't announced the price for DS Lite for the Americas. We may announce it at E3, we may announce it after, we may announce it before. It really all depends on [inaudible]. It's a sweet system - I have one in my bag here right now.

On The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' release date:
A: When will Twilight Princess be released. All we've announced is that we have it coming out in the 2nd half of this year. Stay tuned, we may tell you more at E3.

On Metroid Prime: Hunters errors when playing online:
A: If you haven't played it recently, we've had an update in the last three days to work out the issues so go back online to give it another shot.

On the Wii release date:
A: We've said that it'll come out for the holidays.

On whether or not the nunchaku attachment will also be motion-sensitive (a tidbit picked up by Advanced Media Network):
A: We haven't announced anything about the nunchaku, but 10 more days. That's gonna be my standard answer. If there hasn't been an announcement yet - 10 more days!

On whether anything has been announced for Mother 3:
A: Not yet.

Q: When will Super Smash Brothers come out?
A: We have not announced anything about Smash Brothers Revolution. 10 days!

Q: Do you know when the DS lite will be released in the Americas? You don't have to tell us, I just want to know if you know?
A: Do you think I would know?

Q: How are you going to market the freehand style controller in something that you can't really just show on print ads or media?
A: The whole thing about Wii - why we chose the name, why we're going in this direction - it's a brand new turf, in a brand new space, and that means all of the rules for marketing and bringing it out here to the Americas out here means we're going to be rewriting the whole thing. Stay tuned. We're going to be doing a lot of things differently, just like we have been with for Brain Age. We know what the challenges are in terms of how do we communicate it, what it's all about, to put it actually in their hands. Stay tuned.

On getting the Wii ready for E3:
A: ...[recording cut] long enough to work on the various games, we're working on it. It's going to be playable at E3, we're going to find out how it works, with the wireless core controller - well, we'll learn.

On why the Wii was created the way it was:
A: That's a great question because the hardware configuration and the controller is driven by the hand. Iwata wanted to give something that wouldn't be intimidating to someone to pick up and point at your television to control. That was something to make it something simple.

On the recently announced contest with AOL and Nintendo to pick a lucky winner to play the Wii "before anyone else":
A: Three people are going to get to LA. We're going to pick one out from the crowd at our press conference, and they're gonna get to try Wii. On the show floor the next day we're going to be playing it.

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Huge thanks to TriGames.net for being at the event and capturing the information above.

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