Prerelease:Wii

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Wii.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: An unholy amount. See: here for what still needs to be added (wiki still work in progress).

Pre-Announcement

According to the "Wii Terminology" document included with the SDK, before the abbreviation "RVL" was settled on (for "Revolution"), developers used "NNGC" instead.

In an interview with Steven L. Kent, it was stated that

Nintendo is working on its next-generation system. Allow me to call it GCNext or GCN. The abilities of GCNext will be different from what you have seen from consoles in the past. What Nintendo is currently discussing is not about state-of-the-art technology for enhancing processing power. But what I, Miyamoto, and Mr. Takeda [engineering leader Genyo Takeda] are discussing is what should be done to entertain people in a new way; and in order to achieve this, what functionality must be added to our current technology.

— Satoru Iwata (April 11, 2004)

E3 2005

Debuting as the Revolution, Nintendo only showed the console. In the press release, Nintendo mentions specifications that are identical to the final release (512MB internal flash memory, 2 USB 2.0 ports, etc.). However, it mentions one feature that seems to have been dropped from here onwards: an accessory for the playing of movies and other DVD content.

Another lost feature was the availability of multiple colors at launch. Although Nintendo focused mainly on the black-colored Revolution, green, red, silver, and white versions were shown.

Tokyo Game Show 2005

Revealed at TGS 2005 was the controller for the Revolution. Differences to the final controller include "START" and "SELECT" instead of + and -, much like previous Nintendo controllers; lowercase "a" and "b" buttons instead of 1 and 2, possibly changed as to avoid confusion with the A and B buttons; and the Power button is rectangular, rather than circular. The player indicator lights are indicated by numbers, rather than bumps, and the Nunchuck port is thinner. The HOME button has a blue dot on it, rather than a house icon.

Sorting

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• 15 September, 2005: Tokyo Game Show 2005
  • Controller revealed[3][4][5][6][7][8]
    • Pics[9][10][11][12][13]
  • Revolution Teaser Video[14]
  • Nintendo stops referring it as the "Revolution"[15]
  • Iwata's keynote[16][17]
  • Conference[18]
• 23rd September, 2005: Specs "leaked" (rumoured?)[19]
• 23rd March, 2006: GDC keynote[20]
• 29th March, 2006: Actual specs confirmed[21]

(bound to be more, include patents)

Assorted:

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