Seemingly secure of its sales dominance in the console market for the time being, Nintendo’s E3 press conference offered few new surprises for the Wii’s growing legion of fans. Having already revealed the new WiiMotion hardware on Monday, Nintendo made its exclusive Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music titles the main attractions at its press event.
As a sequel to Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort will stick with the tried-and-true formula of many mini games in a single package. However, rather than sticking with more pedestrian sports, Resort will step into more interesting fare with games like Power Cruising (riding a jet ski), Disc Dog (throwing a Frisbee to a dog) and Sword Play (self explanatory). Since the games will require more finesse than the original Wii Sports, Nintendo will bundle the game with the WiiMotion, which provides more accuracy in the Wii remotes.
Wii Music will follow in the steps of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band with rhythm-based game play, but will take advantage of the Wii remote’s flexibility to offer players a choice of 60 different instruments. True to Nintendo’s casual gaming bent, it’s also free from the possibility to lose: players just get together and make music, there’s no challenge to fail at.
Nintendo says the Wii Music will go on sale before Christmas, while Wii Sports Resort will come out in the spring.