EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: wiifitplus
Nintendo is no stranger to sales success, with the Wii having sold over 90 million units and the 3DS growing with popularity by the day.
The video game giant’s most recent accolade is having the Wii Balance Board bestowed with the Guinness World Record for “best-selling personal weighing device”. To achieve this honour, the peripheral sold a whopping 32 million units between its launch in December 2007 and November 2010. This impressive total comprises 22.6 million bundled with Wii Fit and 9.4 million bundled with Wii Fit Plus.
Hot on the heels of the announcement of the blue Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games Wii bundle for Europe and the black New Super Mario Bros. Wii console bundle for the US, Nintendo UK has released details of even more Wii console bundles that will be available in time for Christmas.
Nintendo recently announced the existence of a brand new Wii console bundle that includes a black Wii (with Nunchuck and WiiMote) and a black Wii Balance Board, as well as copies of fitness software Wii Fit Plus and the sports mini-game collection, Wii Sports.
It’s official: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the best selling, biggest blockbuster of a game to release during 2009. All of those other times you were told Modern Warfare 2 was the biggest and best don’t count.
As part of an in-depth report published by GfK Chart Track on trade site MCV.co.uk, some interesting worldwide software sales figures for the top five videogames of 2009 have been revealed, with a breakdown by region (US, Japan and UK) also provided.
At number one, Modern Warfare reigns supreme with worldwide sales of 11.86 million units, while Wii Sports Resort dillydallies behind with 7.57 million units.
To find out who the other three are, and what the sales breakdown per region is, you need only casually roll your eyeballs a little further below:
According to worldwide life-to-date sales data released by Nintendo earlier today, three of the publisher’s titles, namely Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, have all surpassed 10 million units sold for the period of April 1st 2009 to December 31st 2009.
US sales tracking firm NPD has revealed that December 2009 has become the videogame industry’s best ever month in terms of sales in the US, generating $5.53 billion in console retail game market revenues – a 4% year-over-year increase from $5.32 billion in December of 2008.
The latest data from US tracking firm NPD Group shows that sales of the videogame industry in the US fell by 19% to $1.07 in October. Both hardware and software sales also recorded a decrease this past month, with hardware suffering the biggest decline, down 23% to $380.74 million, while software sales dropped 18% to $572.73 million.
Even accessories experienced a decline, although only a 2% drop to $118.88 million. The Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers were the top two items for October, in both dollar and unit sales.
According to Chart Track, this past week has seen an enormous amount of new games, and different stock-keepers units (SKU’s) of the same game, releasing to the UK market, with 41 different games and franchises added to their database which comprise 80 SKU’s - from single format PC games, to Band Hero which is available on nine platforms.
Moving up to the top of Chart Track’s UK Software Sales Chart this past week, however, is an older title in the form of Nintendo’s Wii Fit Plus (sales up 3%), while SEGA’s Football Manager 2010 (sales down 53%) shifts down from its first appearance at No. 1 last week, to No. 4 this week.
The Core Group, distributors of all things Nintendo in South Africa, has just revealed that the new and improved version of previous Wii blockbuster Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, will be winding its way into local retailers on October 30th, bringing with it new features to exercise body and mind, as well as making it easier than ever to get a workout at home.
This time around, Wii Fit Plus (don’t call it a sequel) allows users to customise their own training regimes, or leave it up to the software to randomise a routine for you, as well enabling you to isolate specific areas of your body to tone and condition, or to help relieve fatigue and improve your posture.
Wii Fit Plus boasts a ton of new content, including 15 new balance board games and 6 new exercise activities, with new multiplayer options meaning you can challenge family and friends to a variety of balance and training mini-games, while a new calorimeter estimates the amount of calories you’ve burned during a training session.
Look out for Wii Fit Plus in South Africa on October 30th, which is exactly in line with the European release, and be sure to read El33tonline’s hands-on preview of the training software/Balance Board combo over here.
In addition to confirming that the Wii would also be receiving a price cut in South Africa, Core Gaming (distributors of Nintendo in SA), revealed that Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii would both be available here in South Africa in line with the European release of the games.
Wii Fit Plus will be released on the 4th of October across the US with the European release following a short while later on the 30th of October. Core Gaming has confirmed that the South African release will be parallel to Europe, meaning that Wii Fit Plus will arrive here towards the end of October!
Nintendo has announced that Wii Fit Plus will be available across North America on the 4th of October. The publisher also revealed that it would be releasing new colours for the DSi, Wii Remote, Nunchuk and Wii MotionPlus.
Wii Fit Plus includes new features as well as new exercises, yoga activities and balance games. Wii Fit Plus will be available bundled with the Wii Balance Board for $99.99 while the disc will be available on its own for $19.99. Head over to our hands-on preview of Wii Fit Plus for more information.
Wii Fit literally took the gaming world by storm when it was released across the world early last year. It took Nintendo’s much talked about strategy of drawing more people into the video gaming circle and getting more gamers off the couch to new heights – and pretty soon gamers and non-gamers alike from around the world were clamouring to get on the Wii Balance Board.
We had no way of knowing it then, but Wii Fit also ushered in a new fitness genre that would later go on to inspire other third party publishers to follow in their footsteps. And follow they did, Ubisoft launched My Fitness Coach followed by EA Sports Active and various other publishers who brought their take on the fitness game to the Wii console. So it was only logical that Nintendo would follow up on the success of Wii Fit before long, especially since with other exercise games hitting the shelves it soon became clear that Wii Fit was lacking a few things that other games had started to deliver.
Continue reading El33tonline’s Wii Fit Plus hands-on impressions.
The launch of Wii Sports Resort was held in Johannesburg yesterday at Core Gaming’s swanky new offices in Sandton. It felt like a day at the beach with the room decorated with umbrellas, hula-hoops, beach balls and Core Gaming staff decked out in Hawaiian style leis and flip-flops.
Eager journalists got the chance to try out Wii Sports Resort on one on five Wii consoles set up at the venue. We also got some hands-on time with the much anticipated New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus, due to be released sometime towards the end of the year. The games were flown out from Europe for the day and it’s great to see South Africa really being put on the map with these kind of events showcasing upcoming games.
Although we stumbled upon the existence of Wii Fit Plus a little while ago through the discovery of an English logo for the game on the Japanese trademark database, we knew little about what the next installment in Nintendo’s highly popular franchise would include.
Even though Wii Fit was released just a little over a year ago across North America, it is still selling like crazy as evidenced by the latest NPD figures which showed it to be the best-selling game in the US for April, selling a whopping 471 000 copies. Its success story is similar across the globe, with the title appearing regularly in both the Japanese and UK’s software chart each week. In fact Wii Fit has spent a total of 16 weeks since it launched in the UK in the number one spot, even spending seven consecutive weeks at the top this year so far, while its life-to-date sales now stand at 3.4 million in Japan.
Yet, despite the title’s continued success Nintendo most likely thought it prudent to release a follow-up in light of the fact that third publisher’s titles such as My Fitness Coach and EA’s Sports Active are no doubt making inroads into their share of this market share. And so last night Nintendo announced that Wii Fit Plus will be arriving on our shelves as early as this fall.
Nintendo have managed to keep pretty tight-lipped about their announcements at E3 this year. The only slip was the unearthing of an English Wii Fit Plus logo on the Japanese trademark database, suggesting a sequel to the popular Wii Fit will be revealed tonight. We also predicted that a new Mario game may be unveiled to appease the hardcore gamers who were disappointed by last year’s performance but let’s see what Nintendo had up their sleeves by taking a look at what happened at the Nintendo’s E3 Press Conference.
(Update: Now includes footage accompanying the announcements at the conference, including New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2.)
The event started with Nintendo’s executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway taking the stage and discussing how videogames are becoming more and more popular. She promises to deliver both innovation and surprises during tonight’s show, before introducing us to a videogame character who has appeared in over 200 different titles. Cue the Mario retro video montage.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Dunaway continues, talking about how great Mario was in 3D but how Shigeru Miyamoto has been striving to move him into a new dimension, thinking for 15 years now about one new way to play a new Mario game. Apparently number four is the key. A logo for New Super Mario Bros. Wii is displayed on screen!
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