Wii Party!

Written by pikaby

Nintendo's next big Mii-centric game after Sports Resort makes its appearance!
After the relatively cold reception to Wii Music (Miyamoto must be standing in a corner with his face to the wall before selling off all his musical instruments...okay, not), Nintendo is making a new entry to the Wii *insert name here* series of games! It's called....Wii Party!

Announced at Iwata's Financial Results Brefing on Nintendo's own site, Wii Party will play out in the same manner as a game of Mario Party. Roll dice, moves spaces, play minigames, and so on. Only this time it's using the hugely popular Miis as characters instead of the increasingly limited roster of people in Mario's universe. Miis are now in a class of their own, gaining popularity in every single region around the world, particularly in Japan, what with Tomodachi Collection still being a sales juggernaut nine months after its release. As Iwata said:

"In this software, Miis are used as the players’ characters. According to our own survey, we know that more than 160 million Miis have been created by our customers in Japan, the U.S. and six countries in Europe alone, In Japan, thanks to the popularity of the Tomodachi Collection software, an increasing number of Japanese are taking to their Miis. In a sense, it is a natural move for your Miis and your friends’ and family members’ Miis to show up in a Wii party games."

 "Nintendo has not launched a marquee party game since Mario Party 8, launched in summer 2007. However, since Wii is usually being played by several people at once and the global sales of Mario Party have reached 7.6 million units, a party title has great potential.
This is one of the titles which, we hope, will play an important role for this fiscal year."

Sounds like a more exciting prospect than a Mario Party 9. Me, I liked having Miis around when the console was first out, and Wii Sports Resort was the one that made me fall in love with the simple, Lego-like caricatures of people.

It's not just about the board game either. As in any good Mario Party game, there's always a wide assortment of extras and minigames(something Nintendo are very good at, and 3rd party developers love to imitate). On the menu screen below, there's a board game, a 'travel' game, roulette, bingo, and what Iwata is rambling about, the 'Living Party'

The developers are spending significant time for this title so that they can include elements that are must-haves in a party game as well as making sure that adequate volume of game play are available. We are developing it with the intent that every Wii player will be able to find a game that can be enjoyed. In a game play mode called “Living Party”, there are unique game play only available with the Wii Remote.

Some broken grammar on the report(it's the Japanese Nintendo site), but the message is clear and far from broken. If Wii Party turns out to be as substantial a package as Sports Resort was, it's going to be another must have,not just for casuals, but all gamers alike.

Wii Party!