There’s been a lot of anticipation overseas for news on the price and release dates of the Nintendo Wii. However I hadn’t thought to check these details out for good old NZ. Until now.

I was only able to find online info for two retailers so I’ll wander down to ebgames and ask them what they’re doing. Some sites are talking about a November 19th US launch date, which would sit relatively well with the December 7th release date that both gpstore and gamesman agree on. However I wouldn’t rule out one of them just copying the other one.

They also agree on pricing (almost).

gpstore.co.nz: $499.90
gamesman.co.nz: $499.00

So, if these details stick, the Nintendo Wii will be $220 less than the Xbox 360 and a massive $700 less than the Playstation 3.

To give non kiwis an idea, that difference ($700) is an entire week’s after-tax pay for an average single income family.

Put another way, that difference would pay my mortgage for more than a week, and I would still have a ‘next-gen’ console.

There’s a lot of talk about whether the PS3 will make it overseas, and whether the Wii will destory it and the 360. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how it does in New Zealand.

Update (now post-lunch): Ok, it would seem that it makes no difference where you buy the Wii (I’m left wondering what restrictions are being placed on retailers by nintendo). Ebgames are also selling for $499.95 and on the 7th. They also revealed that the “price includes one wireless Wii Remote controller, one Nunchuk™ controller and the groundbreaking collection of five different Wii Sports games on one disc”. Bond & Bond at some point had a tiff with Nintendo and aren’t stocking the Wii (or any other Nintendo product) and Dick Smith seem to be the last cab off the rank. Chances are though that they’ll stock the Wii (since they have the DS) at the same price as everyone else.

Update (20/11/06): As advised in one of the comments below, Dick Smith Electronics has listed their supply of the Wii for an industry leading $498.

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The word is out about two new games that Peter Jackson and wife Fran are to “create”.

The first is the next Halo, and the other is an ‘entirely new project aimed at luring new audiences to video games’.

This rather vague description was then followed by; ‘release dates are not yet available’.

Flip, we don’t know the release dates of games that are 99.9% finished, so I don’t think it’s necessary to inform readers that a game that doesn’t exist, and for which there doesn’t seem to be a concept doesn’t have a ‘ship date’.

I also found a few other comments pretty interesting.

Jackson said the new technology available allowed storytellers to express themselves in a new way.

“My vision … is to push the boundaries of game development and the future of interactive entertainment.”

He said game technology was at a stage where film makers could “work their craft in the same way they do today with movies and books but taking it further with interactivity”.

I didn’t play King Kong (other than a few minutes on a 360 in-store console) so I’m not sure how good it was. However it worries me when a movie director starts to say about how he’s going to effectively make ‘interactive movies’ in the form of games.

It’s hard to be sceptical when a kiwi icon like PJ is involved, but seriously, I have my doubts.

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I just read the editorial by The Independent’s Johann Hari titled It’s time to send Clarkson to the scrapyard.

What a pile of crap.

The crux of the article is that speeding is bad and Jeremy Clarkson is intent on killing the nation’s children, single handedly causing global warming and undermining the nation’s security.

My point of view is clear. I love Top Gear. Not as much as I love my wife, not as much as I love my guitars and not as much as I love my wonderful Ranfurly Shield holding North Harbour rugby team. But it’s somewhere up there.

It is easily my favorite tv program.

So, I would definitely appear to fall into the “army of Top Gear speedophiles” that Johann ‘get out of your freakin’ office’ Hari is talking about.

However, I drive a 1991 Toyota Corolla GLX (1.6L), don’t speed (except by accident) and haven’t had a ticket since January 2005.

So I would argue that the “speedophiles” that love Top Gear may not be up to the shenanigans that Hari wishes they were. But his point that Jeremy Clarkson is a menace on the British roads is true isn’t it?

Nope.

On a top gear episode that aired in the UK in November 2005, Clarkson interviewed Dr Stephen Ladyman, Minister for transport. At a point in the interview, the subject turned to points on their licenses (a result of speeding fines). It turns on out Dr Ladyman had nine points while Clarkson had….. zero.

Yes, zero. Clarkson had either not been speeding, or hadn’t been caught in a while.

So the worst that Clarkson can be accused of is being a hypocrite.

Ultimately, the show is great because they do things and drive cars that I will never do or have. There will be those who go out and try to emulate things they have seen in the show, but these people are the definite minority. The sort of people who willingly put Jellyfish on their heads. Do we really want to structure society around these sorts of people?

BBC are saying that they are “delaying” the new season of Top Gear until Hammond recovers. This sounds more like a PR move to allay people like Hari.

If Top Gear is cancelled permanently, the world will have lost one of the greatest television programs ever, and will have become a more boring, cream coloured and politically correct place to live.

Let’s all hope someone at the BBC has more brain cells than Johann Hari.

Posted in Life's happenings | | No Comments »

How can a site as massive, as successful and as lucrative as penny-arcade.com be so broken?

It’s an interesting question for which I’d love to hear an answer.

As I speak, their latest comic ‘The Secret Weapon‘ isn’t there, and if you click on the forum link, you get a 404.

These are hardly isolated incidents. For months they’ve had problems with the structure of the site. Posts don’t appear, comics don’t appear, links don’t go to the right comic, the list goes on.

They told us they’d fixed them, but things still seem to be very, very broken.

I’m hardly one to talk, the html validation icon down the bottom of my browser continually whining on about the deficiency of my code.

However my site (for the moment) is lucky to get thirty unique visitors a day, so perhaps I could be excused.

I love PA, but when you get millions of hits a day, and presumably thousands of dollars revenue, I can’t imagine that I would find any excuse reasonable.

Posted in Current Events, Gaming, Tech | | No Comments »