Features// SPOnG's Review Of 2006: December

Wii Launch In The UK
08/12/2006

And so begins the final sprint towards 2007.

The first nugget of excitement in the run up to Greedmas came courtesy of Microsoft in the form of its 360 HD DVD drive. Just saying “360 HD DVD” made us feel like policy makers for the civil service choked up on acronyms. Then again, if we did work for the Civil Service we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it. It was a timely release, coming just after the appearance of the PS3 offered ‘Mercan and Japanese gamers Blu-ray functionality but, sure as Santa would never drink-drive his sled, we whole-heartedly believe that was a coincidence…

The 360’s HD peripheral paled in comparison, however, to the excitement afforded by new Nintendo hardware goodness. Japan was the second region to get the Wii and, as with its American release, it was a much smoother affair than the PS3 launch. There wasn’t a hint of a riot on the streets of Tokyo. Instead, we had the pleasure of reporting nice, orderly (if bizarrely intricate) queuing systems populated by obvious gamers rather than the cynical crowds of scalpers present for Sony’s launch.

As the numbers started rolling in it became apparent that the Wii launch was the biggest home console launch in history, with 1million of the blighters (600,000 in America, 400,000 in Japan) finding their way into the homes of eager gamers. This compares to 360,000 PS3s sold over its November launch. 1million consoles sold without a loss, we might add.

Then, not a month after the PS3 hit shelves in Japan, chatter about the PS4 began. Paul Holman, President of Technology for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, spoke to Aussie tech mag Smarthouse and told them “To say that there will be no PS4 because of a management change is a bit far fetched” (referring it Ken Kutaragi’s move upstairs). He also stated that the PS4 will not come out before 2010. Not quite stop-the-presses stuff, but it’s nice to see the whispering’s started before us Brits have even seen a PS3.