OMG Nintendo

The Japanese launch date for Wii Fit Plus has been announced: October 1st. While a US date is not yet available, a similar time period is expected so as to take advantage of the holiday season.

Surprisingly, the thing that caught even more attention than the release date was the issue of its price. Bundles with the Balance Board cost 9,800 Yen, which is about $104. That is pricey but about what one would expect for something like that. On its own, however, the Wii Fit Plus will only cost 2,000 Yen, which is the equivalent of around $21. This is incredibly cheap for a new, First Party Game and it will be interesting to see if the low price carries over into other territories.

If so, then it will certainly be worth it for those who have the first Wii Fit and Balance Board to get the new one… assuming the game itself is good, of course.

The newest issue of the Japanese magazine CoroCoro has revealed that, for the first time ever, the stars of two MegaMan series are going to be teaming up for their greatest adventure ever on the DS!

Some may be disappointed to learn that the MegaMen in question are MegaMan.EXE and MegaMan: Star Force.

The basic plot of the game, currently titled Rockman.EXE: Operate Shooting Star, appears to be that a new villain named ClockMan travels back in time to the era of MegaMan.EXE, with the MegaMan of Star Force hitching a ride. Once in the past, the Star Force MegaMan must team-up with the EXE MegaMan to save the world and the future.

Which of the two battle systems (if either) the game will use is unknown and the current screen shots show recycled sprites from the GBA games for the backgrounds in the EXE time period. However, there are new character portraits for the dialogue, a new map system and “a slick opening movie”.

While .EXE and Star Force are not the most popular versions of MegaMan, a game like this is interesting. As stated before, this is the first time two versions of MegaMan have done a team up story and if it is any good, perhaps we’ll see more MegaMan team ups.

All Megas VS Great Robot Masters, anyone?

The newest firmware update for the DSi in Japan has gone live. With this update, Japanese DSi owners are now able to upload pictures taken by the DSi’s cameras directly to their Facebook accounts. A US release of this update has been promised for “Fall”.

Considering Facebook’s lower standing compared to other networking sites in Japan, it seems odd to have it launch earlier on that side of the ocean. Perhaps it is an attempt to stimulate business for Facebook? Being able to upload the pictures from your gaming device does not seem like a tide-turner but we will have to see.

Shin Megami Tensei games have always had very interesting looks to them and, if the trailer for Strange Journey is any indication, the newest title is not going to be changing that trend.

From the looks of things, you are going to be playing as a team of soldiers sent to the South Pole to Stop Second Impact investigate a “mysterious matter” covering the South Pole. The trailer does not show any gameplay and there is no sign of how the SMT’s iconic monsters will be incorporated into the experience.

No word on a US release date but considering how fondly the more recent SMT games have been regarded, this DS title has a pretty good chance of making it.

Xbox 360's streaming movie service through Netflix has made the console into the living room media center that Microsoft always dreamed about. It looks like Nintendo is going to compete by offering its own streaming media service featuring Warner Bros. films... but only in Japan. Awesome!

Even better is that the Warner Bros. film lineup Nintendo is using for their Japan-only service consists primarily of classic Hollywood productions like 2001: A Space Odyssey and more recent blockbusters like Batman Begins and The Last Samurai. Each rental will cost 300 Wii Points and last for 48 hours. Viewing the movies also requires buying the 500 point Everyone's Theater Wii app. The service already offers a lot of Japanese TV programming, including anime and live-action dramas, for viewing.

In the future, Japanese viewers will get some movies released for the Everyone's Theater channel concurrent with the DVD and Blu-Ray releases, such as the upcoming (over there) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There's currently no word about any attempt to create an American equivalent to the Everyone's Theater channel, and really no reason to believe Nintendo of America even wants to bother with it. The Japanese channel is made and backed by a company called Fujisoft that doesn't seem to do business in the West.

Some would argue Electroplankton was not technically a game. It was all about creating unique sounds and music and gained a cult following over the years since its release. It did not exactly light the sales chart on fire and, as a result, finding copies of the game is almost impossible now, unless you are willing to pay inflated E-Bay prices.

In Japan, DSiWare is looking to change that. This week, four downloadable segments of the game, each featuring a specific Electroplankton, have appeared for sale. The plan is to offer the separate Electroplankton as ten separate downloads for 200 DSi Points each. That means, if we are lucky to get a US release, a buyer would ultimately pay $20 for the whole thing. This seems a fair price, especially in the face of the previously mentioned rarity and inflated E-Bay prices.

You do not even need to buy all of them if you get enough satisfaction out of playing with only one or two of the specific Electroplankton. I guess if someone really wanted a physical copy to show off, this would not interest them. For everyone else, this seems a good chance to try it out on the cheap.

Granted, this all depends on a US release happening, so we will have to wait and see.

The Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (AKA CERO), the Japanese equivalent of the ESRB, has traditionally given the Grand Theft Auto series of games a rating of Z. Chinatown Wars has continued the trend. While not a perfect match, the closest equivalent rating in the US would not be M but AO. Yes, that means the Japanese version of Chinatown Wars is more restrictively rated than it is in America.

What makes this interesting, is that Chinatown Wars has become the first Japanese DS game to receive this rating. As a result, it is being looked at to see if Z-Rated games on the DS can turn a profit, not unlike how the US version was considered a test to see if M-Rated DS games could sell. While the US response seems to have been a shaky “not so good”, it will be interesting to see if this holds true on another front.

The Wii movie streaming service, Minna no Theater Wii, got a big shot in the arm recently. The impressive library of Paramount Studios has been added, bolstering the number of titles that can be shown. While the service is currently only available in Japan, Nintendo has indicated they would like to bring it to the US.

Having a well-known US company like Paramount on board, would go a long way to getting more people willing to use the streaming service in America. This would be especially true, if Paramount offered movies and TV shows that were either currently unavailable on DVD, or long out of print. That in turn could encourage other companies to do the same, and see what they have not put out on DVD yet, but could sell if they did.

Of course, all this depends on if Minna no Theater (under whatever name they could decide to use for a US release) actually appears on this side of the ocean. We will have to wait and see.

This isn't quite E3 news, but it's big enough that it's worth bringing up in a week that's otherwise all about the news and the hype. A press release went up on Nintendo's Japanese Web site that announced a new red DSi and a black Wii for release in Japan later this year. The red DSi hits on July 11, while the black Wii and a suite of similarly colored controllers-- Wii Remote, Nunchuk, and Classic Controller PRO-- become available August 1.

Typically Japanese Nintendo hardware gets released in a broad range of vanity colors that never make it overseas to the US or Europe. Even if they do eventually come to the US, it can often be many months or even years after their initial Japanese availability. In the case of the black Wii, it's the first vanity color edition ever for that system and that's sure to drive up demand. While both systems look pretty slick, I wouldn't recommend importing just to have them... unless you want to be locked into the Japanese versions of DSiWare or WiiWare/Virtual Console, anyway.