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After long waits and much anticipation (though, oddly, not as much as for the PS3), the Nintendo Wii has finally made it's North American debut.

Nintendo's newest console made it's official debut at 12:01 this morning, though many chains that opened for midnight launches for the PS3 forced gamers to wait until normal store hours.

Another marked difference from the PS3 launch was the attitude of the fans. While anxious PS3ers aggressively guarded their places in line, the Wii lines were more quiet and orderly, with some customers even displaying attitudes of friendliness. One Manhattan man and his friends even brought previous Nintendo consoles to the line and invited other hopefuls to play while they queued.

Furthermore, the much-anticipated Virtual Console is officially up and running, with games from all pre-Gamecube Nintendo consoles as well as the Sega Genesis system currently available for download. More titles are promised by year's end.

The Wii launch was marred by none of the violence and crime that affected the PS3 release. Were video game fans simply tired out after a weekend of camping out on sidewalks for the two new consoles, or was the Wii's relative abundance responsible for the calmer atmospher? Whatever the case may be, despite reports of Wii availability being as much as ten times greater than initial PS3 availability, stores still sold out within minutes.

Source: Gamespot

Finally, my personal story. I dragged my husband out of bed at six o'clock to take me down to the local Target while he went to Best Buy. He was number 69 in a line for 63 available Wiis, and I wound up being just three people too late. However, one of the earlier people in line kindly sold me his ticket for a mere $10. ($10 for two hours of standing in line that I didn't have to endure? Well worth it, in my opinion.) So, I walked out of there with my very own Wii and a copy of Twilight Princess.

So far, I'm loving the new console. All of the reports about the Wiimote being incredibly responsive, intuitive, and easy to use are absolutely true! The Mii feature is highly entertaining (my plaza is already populated with the Mario Bros., Link, Zero Suit Samus, and a few others of my own creation), and Twilight Princess is looking to be the best new Zelda game since A Link to the Past, way back in the SNES games.

Am I a Nintendo fangirl? Up until this morning, I would have said I was primarily a Sony fan. But, as far as I'm concerned, the Wii might have just won my heart. We'll see if others feel the same way--this just might be Nintendo's coup in the console war.

After numerous delays and much anticipation, the PS3 has finally reached the American market, greeted by cheering crowds, overt displays of capitalist greed, and, of course, muggings.

Patrons of Sony's flagship epnoymous store in San Francisco were treated to a grand display of the console's arrival as a flashy SUV guarded by armed security pulled up to make a delivery. Of course, the actual product was already waiting inside the store, but that didn't stop the crowd from going wild.

In New York City, where hopeful fans had been waiting in line for days, line cutters and rainy weather tried the patience of many. Celebrities entertained the crowd, but the real fun came when the doors to the SonyStyle store opened: everyone admitted knew they were guarenteed to walk away with a PS3.

And, of course, if you missed your chance at one of only 400k consoles, you could always try eBay, where American entrepreneurship has led some of your fellow citizens to sell for well over $2000--more than three times the price of the $599 tricked-out version.

Unfortunately, some of your fellow Americans saw launch day as nothing more than an opportunity to line up exciting new crime. A Gamestop in Elk Grove, California, was robbed of several PS3 and XBox 360 consoles by a pair of armed men, and line-waiters in Connecticut and Oregon were mugged.

Source: various Gamespot

For several months now, Western fans of the notorious and quirky Mother/EarthBound series of RPGs have been anxiously awaiting a diffinitive answer to one very agonizing question: Will Nintendo of America finally deliver the third installment to the franchise - only recently launched in Japan this past April - to North American GameBoy Advances? As far as localization is concerned, the official word suggests we shouldn't hold our breath.

Although lacking in great detail, NoA's localization manager Nate Bihldorff, as reported in an interview by Planet GameCube, explains what could perhaps be considered the nearest thing to a true conclusion: "I'm not working on Mother 3. I don't have all the writers under me, so there may be other people in discussions going on with it, but I wouldn't look forward to it in the immediate future, no. Sorry, I know! There's a big Mother fanbase, there is." Bihldorff further advises, "At least everyone can go back and play Melee to get your Ness on."

Certainly this all comes as little surprise to those familiar with Nintendo's track record attributed to handling the Mother series; even the GBA re-release of Mother and Mother 2 (EarthBound) was denied the slightest prospect toward a domestic launch. So does this mean we'll never again see a legally distributed Mother RPG within this hemisphere? If Nintendo of America, like Nate Bihldorff, has begun to contemplate the true depth of the game's fanbase, then the chances otherwise may in fact rise to more realistic proportions.

Source: EuroGamer

Apparently it's been discovered that E3 is destined to come to an end, this last years E3 being that last one due to companies withdrawing. In other words, our favorite Big Wig Video Game Companies have started pulling out of E3, deciding that marketing purely with their own company would be more efficient and cost effective. Without the support of the big boys for software and hardware manufacturing, there would be no point in continuing the event.

I, personally am very sad about this happening, I was hoping to go to E3 this next year.

Source: Next Generation

According to this nifty RPGFan article, Square-Enix has released a new statement on the rest of their 2006 releases, including specific American release dates for three games.

Dirge of Cerberus ~Final Fantasy VII~ will be released on the Playstation 2 on August 15th, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime will be released on the Nintendo DS on September 19th, and Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria will be released on the Playstation 2 on September 26th.

Also confirmed to be released later this year but after September ends are Final Fantasy XII for the PS2, Final Fantasy III and Children of Mana for the DS, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors for the Wii, and Final Fantasy V Advance and Final Fantasy VI Advance for the Game Boy Advance. We have no official release dates for any of those six games, but many publications and retailers have already posted release dates for several of them, including an October 31st release date for Final Fantasy XII and an October 30th release date for Children of Mana.

The Charismatic, Energetic, Takes-No-Prisoners Executive Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, has become the new President of Nintendo of America. The current president will become the chairman of the board. Reggie will maintain his work as the overseers of the Sales and Marketing department as well as "lead the day-to-day operations of Nintendo of America." Mentioning the name "Reggie" to a hardcore Nintendo fan will generally elicit a big smile - this move will surely draw the fanbase closer to Nintendo as well as draw attention to the company as the Wii's release date draws nearer.

Source: Games Are Fun