Op-Ed

Blogjam of the Week: Guess Your Wii

This story fits just as easily under the "Hype Makes Right" banner, but since we don't have one of those, we're running it here.

Nintendo actually started this one themselves, so it's hard to find too much fault (especially since I joined in the fun myself), but that's what we do. If we can't poke fun at ourselves, who can, really?

Nintendo's press release from earlier in the week hinted that a possible release date for the Wii was encoded amongst or between release dates for their software offerings for the remainder of the year, which prompted battalions of internet nerds (including this one) to attempt to decipher the date. Nothing wrong there. Nintendo set us up the bomb, and we rose to the challenge.

The solution? As I posted earlier in the week, based on evidence presented by Ars Technica, my money (all $249 of it) is on October 2nd. Yesterday, documents leaked to JoystickwithaQ by a "secret informant" at Activision (which indicated an October release for the upcoming Tony Hawk title for Wii) seemed to support my theory. Feeling confident, I started deciding which bills I'd "forget" to pay next month. And that's when things got interesting.

Ubisoft UK may have pulled the rug out from under all of us. According to ProG, Ubi announced today in a PR email that Red Steel, the Yakuza-themed Wii launch title, will be releasing in November. Now if Red Steel is a launch title, then it would release at launch, right? Meaning the Wii is coming in November.

So now I'm vexed. Sorely. And you know what vexation causes, right? Hype. And free press. Way to wag that dog, Nintendo.

For blatant media manipulation in the face of total irrelevance in the console battle, I'm awarding Mario and Co. a Blogjam score of 249100206. Which is how much I'm willing to pay and on what date I expect to be parted from it.