Animal Crossing Wii unveiling expected in July 2008. What we know so far

Animal Crossing Wii is expected at E3 2008. Since developer Nintendo hasn’t revealed any of their second half of 2008 lineup, the community-building & sharing life simulator could be making an appearance on the Wii in late 2008. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has openly said the company has unannounced games up its sleeve for E3 2008, where they usually do their surprise unveilings at a pre-E3 keynote. Let’s take a look at what Nintendo has said about Animal Crossing Wii in the past three years with a conclusion at the end of what to expect.

April 2005: When the Wii was still codenamed Revolution, Animal Crossing Revolution was confirmed in an interview with Animal Crossing DS’s producer Katsuya Eguchi. The producer said a connection between Animal Crossing DS and Animal Crossing Wii is a possibility. To quote: “The reason why we created the Animal Island [in Animal Crossing on the GameCube] was to give something [NES games] for people to take with them on the Game Boy Advance. Maybe with the DS we’ll do something similar between the DS and Revolution.”

March 2006: At the Game Developers Conference 2006 Animal Crossing lecture Katsuya Eguchi mentioned: “Much like the conversion from the console Animal Crossing onto DS, we are now exploring how to bring what we have developed in Wild World onto Revolution. This time it is about bringing the world we’ve set up on DS over to the console world of the Revolution,” while talking about the Wi-Fi-enabled world specifics of the DS game.

May 2006: Katsuya Eguchi, manager/producer of Software Development Group 2 at EAD, and the man in charge of both Wii Sports and Animal Crossing Wii was once again interviewed:

Question: How is work on Animal Crossing for Wii progressing and what can we expect from the final product?
Katsuya Eguchi answers: Right now we’re currently considering our options in terms of what we can do with the various features of the controller and through WiiConnect24. With regard to the controller, basically it could become potentially your axe, your shovel and your fishing rod. You can imagine what can happen there. Again, we don’t know if this will happen for sure because it’s kind of a trial and error process. With regard to WiiConnect24, you could have someone visit your town even when you weren’t actively playing and maybe leave you a letter or a gift [while your Wii is in standby mode, so the Wii’s blue light might start blinking]. Also, through Wi-Fi Connection, players could play simultaneously.

Question: Is Animal Crossing for Wii in a state now where it’s playable, or is it still in concept form?
Katsuya Eguchi answers: We’re still just hammering out the concepts. It’s not playable yet.

June 2006: Katsuya Eguchi hinted in a video interview that in-game connections to mobile phones and PCs (for basic functions such as messages) would be included in Animal Crossing Wii. To quote: “Another application might be someone could send a letter from their cellphone or from an email address on a PC to the Wii, and then the player living in the town in Animal Crossing could receive that letter.”

Hitting on Wii to DS compatibility he said: “There probably will be Friend Codes for the Wii version, however, we’re not so sure about [DS] compatibility. So it’s most likely that everyone will be using new codes.”

October 2007: British games magazine Edge is reporting that “Animal Crossing for the Wii will be an MMO/social networking title“. Nintendo refers to the title as a ‘communications game’ rather than a videogame, and playing already depends on real-world timekeeping, weather patterns, social conventions, and above all else economic interactions like most MMOs have.

February 2008: If Animal Crossing Wii turns out to be a full-fledged Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game, it will use the newly announced Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay And Play service (that’s Nintendo’s planned online Wii games subscription service). Although Nintendo will want to keep online play free to cater to the 9.2 million Animal Crossing DS fans worldwide.

Conclusion: Animal Crossing Wii will obviously feature online gift exchanging and letter sending (from Wii to Wii and from email to Wii). But its biggest addition will be that after exchanging friend codes, you’ll be able to play with one or more friends online simultaneous! This creates a real-time, online community in larger towns that allow you to chat, work on building the town, and play motion controlled mini-games together. All signs point to these hints coming true and the game should get fully unveiled by Nintendo at the E3 Summit 2008 on July 15-17th.

PS: To get Totaka’s live performance shown in the image at the top of this page, you need to play a Super Smash Bros. Brawl match in Smashville on Saturdays at 8PM.

UPDATE July 2nd: The latest issue of the UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine has an image of Animal Crossing as their E3 promotion hinting at an Animal Crossing Wii unveiling at the show by saying “It’s been a while! It’s time to revisit an old friend. How’s your village doing these days?”

Scan via Cubed3

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