With about an hour left to go at Times Square in New York City, the Nintendo Wii launch is imminent in America. The Wii launch party there has attracted over 1,000 people (and eventually ended up being thousands of gamers waiting in line to purchase a console, hit the corner of the street and wrapped around all four sides of the city block) to be the first to get their hands on the Wii.
At the scene is Gizmodo and they mention word on the line is that there are 5,000 Wiis inside the store waiting to be snatched up, so there should be none of the violence and bloodshed come midnight compared to what we saw happen earlier this week with Sony’s PS3 shortages. But then again, Nintendo fans grew up playing Super Mario games where even the hills have friendly smiley faces 😀
Nintendo hosts the midnight launch at Toys “R” Us Times Square, and there will be Live entertainment including acrobats and performances by DJ Ravidrums.
Then when Sunday, November 19th, arrives at 12:01 a.m. the doors open for for the folks waiting in line to be first in the United States to purchase Wii.
Reggie Fils-Aime, President & COO of Nintendo of America, will be present there to give away the first Wii consoles. While we’re sure he’ll be on his best behavior at the Wii launch tonight, just be careful he doesn’t take your name.
Anyway, here’s a “Wii for all” commercial:
And here you can see various gameplay footage:
Later on tonight Gamespot will be doing some live coverage of the Nintendo Wii launch, so you might want to check out their Wii Live Video page.