This is currently going to be classified as a rumour. The above two slides are supposedly from a Best Buy marketing seminar. The poster who put it up is a credible person and it's on NeoGAF, which is one of the more credible forums online when it comes to games. What the slides indicate are also not too far off from what will likely happen.

The first slide outlines Best Buy's plans for what will be going on with regards to the next generation consoles in the coming months. PS3 and Wii dates are included. If this information is true, expect demo stations and pre-orders on October 20th (PS3) and October 29th (Wii).

The PS3 demo area seems to be loaded with awesome hardware and will take up a considerable amount of space in high volume Best Buy areas. The Xbox 360 saw similar treatment at a few locations when it launched a year ago.

This is still a rumour for now as we have no received any information from Best Buy. It looks like it could be true, but don't take this as fact.

PC World, a UK retailer, has just started its Wii pre-orders. They have systems, games, system bundles, and accessories for pre-order already; and all items have free shipping. If you live in the UK, you might want to look in on this. Please note the following though:

"Pre-ordering does not guarantee you will get a Nintendo Wii on day of launch. We will ensure we get a Wii to you as soon as stock availability allows."

If you're one of the very first to preorder, this is probably a safe bet. If you wait too long, it's probably best to verify that you'll get one on launch first. Exactly how they'll be giving systems is unknown. Remember to ask whether or not the people who put the most money down will receive their Wii first or if it's first come first serve -  no matter where you place your order!

Nintendo has released images from its Wii event held in New York almost two weeks ago; they feature mostly Reggie Fils-Aime. The best thing is, they all look highly "photoshoppable"! Should be interesting to see what crazy things people do to these photos on forums.

Click here for all our previous Wii event coverage. QJ.NET published roughly a hundred articles in the three days that the worldwide Wii conferences happened. If you missed any of it, now's a good time as any to catch up!

 
  

Trauma Center: Second Opinion is set for the Wii's launch and Atlus has released some new screenshots for it! The game will be a remake of the hit DS game Trauma Center: Under the Knife. The game on the DS is known to be notoriously difficult and Atlus has listened to gamers' whining. The Wii version will have three different difficulty modes - Easy, Normal, and Hard. The DS game's difficulty is "Normal." That's right, there is something harder than that. Atlus is crazy.

As you can see from the screenshots, the characters have all received a makeover. Whether or not you like it is a matter of preference. I personally liked the DS games' characters better. It doesn't really matter of course as the bulk of your time will be spent trying to save the lives of your patients! You'll be able to stop GUILT yet again at launch!

  

   

Square Enix has finally realized that whichever console they support exclusively will most likely win. As such, they've decided to spread the wealth a bit in the next generation so that the PlayStation2 doesn't destroy the Xbox 360 and the Wii. It works the other way around too. "We don't want the PlayStation3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them but we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much," says Square Enix senior VP Michihiro Sasaki.

Currently, Square Enix has Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers and Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors set for the Wii already. On the Xbox 360, they have Project Sylpheed. However, they'll need more than spin-offs and new untested IPs if they want to be serious about this multiplatform games. The PS3 is getting Final Fantasy XIII but both Kingdom Hearts and the next main Dragon Quest have yet to be announced. Both are surrounded by rumors with regard to going to the Wii.

We'll see if Square Enix goes all the way with this. They definitely haven't with the handhelds: the DS seems to be getting overwhelming Square Enix support as compared to the PSP.

Nintendo announced that the Weather Channel for the Wii will be accessible in Japan at launch on December 12th. To bring them this service, Nintendo has partnered up with Weather News Inc., the holder of the largest database of weather information in the world.

Whether or not Nintendo will be giving North America, Europe, and Australia the same service is unknown. We will be getting a weather channel, but it might not be until after launch. However, it's extremely likely that it will be at launch with Weather News.

The Weather Channel is just one of many "Wii Channels" that Nintendo is putting into the Wii. The aim of these channels is to try and convince your family and friends who may not play games, to give the Wii a try and get familiar with the controller. Nintendo hopes that they will then start playing games with the controller and become gamers themselves.

According to Nintendo of Canada Vice President and General Manager, Ron Bertran, we'll be seeing a million Wii consoles available in North America on November 19th! "We're looking at a million [units] for North America at launch," said Bertram. "When Sony came out [with their PS3 announcement], they said 300,000." We would speculate that Canada will get about 100,000 while the USA will get the other 900,000.

Previously, we knew that Nintendo would be shipping 4 million units worldwide by the end of the year, but we didn't know what exactly we'd get on the first day or how many units would be going to North America. By the end of the year, North America will probably have between 1.5 million to 2 million Wii units.

Please note that he is wrong about the PS3 number. Sony announced 400,000 units for North America at launch. Bertran was likely going by memory for the PS3. He's probably a lot more sure about his own company's numbers than Sony's.

Pre-order: [Nintendo Wii]

Nintendo's revealed their slogan for their marketing campaign in Europe (or at least the UK). What is it? Well apparently, "Wii Move You" is the message they want to get across. What exactly they mean by that isn't clear just yet, but they're spending a  larger amount of money on advertising this time around with a £10M-£11M (US$19 -US$20M)  budget set aside for it.

A large portion of their campaign will be done online at popular websites. Major search engines like Lycos, Yahoo!, and MSN will be filled with Wii. They especially want to ramp it up during the launch week so that everybody knows  that the Wii is out. They're going to be capitalizing on the PS3 delay.

Whether or not this same campaign will be used in North America is unknown. Canada has had the "Too Much Fun" campaign for a long time. The new campaign might or might not be "Wii Move You." We'll see soon enough! If we don't, then I guess that means their campaign would have failed, right?

It seems pre-orders for the Wii have begun in Mexico at a store called Game Planet. The console's price? 4,490 Pesos. That's the equivalent of about 450 USD. The blogger who reported it says that he expects other stores to be doing it for around 3500 Pesos or the equivalent of 350 USD. The release date? They're uncertain but "probably the end of November" was the statement.

Piracy in Mexico is big and most games are pirated. The high price of hardware might be because they won't be seeing much money out of software. Also, Nintendo doesn't seem to be the distributor in Mexico so that might be a problem too. Hopefully, they'll start representing themselves in Mexico if this is really the case. Note that Nintendo's already doing something similar in Korea.

You can read up on more Wii launch details in the following countries:

• United States
• Canada
• Europe
• Australia
• New Zealand

If we get any more info on any other countries, we'll be sure to let you know!

It was previously rumored that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would be for both the Wii and GameCube in North America, but a Wii exclusive in Europe. Today, it was confirmed that the much anticipated Zelda game will be appearing on both the GameCube and Wii in Europe as well.

Just like in North America, the Wii version will launch first while the GameCube version will launch in December. Nintendo says it will launch by the end of 2006, but exactly when is still unknown. They say the reason is because they had "a priority to manufacture as many discs a possible, but Wii being a bigger focus" but the truth is probably that they want you to buy a Wii. If you want to play Zelda as soon as possible, you'd better buy a Wii!

The picture to the side is a revised box that was supposedly given to retailers for the Wii version of the game. Not completely confirmed.

Pre-Order: [The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]