Outdoor Wii-osks in London

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jan 13th 2007 at 1:25PM }

The people of London must be really trustworthy, considering they were treated to outdoor Wii-osks yesterday. Any self-respecting American in a metropolitan city would have asked to demo the unit, taken the Wii-mote, cracked the marketing flack over the head and run off with the system. But alas, these are not Americans.

Reader Limpit writes, "The unit itself consisted of a Wii, nice Samsung HDTV, Wii Sports, 2 Wii-remotes, and 2 guys in some very funky looking white Wii puffer-jackets. They seemed quite happy, and so did the little crowd of people who had gathered to witness the marvel that is Wii Sports."

Limpit correctly goes on to say this display is part of Nintendo's massive marketing machine storming across the globe. Any readers see these outdoor kiosks in your neck of this third rock from the sun?

[Thanks Limpit]

Tags: kiosk, london, outdoor, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Juan Montoya @ Jan 13th 2007 1:56PM

Here in Chicago they have four Wii kiosks in the middle of Chicago Ridge Mall for people to try out. They have two people there helping people attach their wrist straps and telling them how to play. I tried, the girl and the guy were really friendly and welcomed me to try out every single game on all four kiosks.

Nice job Nintendo :]

diskoboy @ Jan 13th 2007 5:29PM

I still don't understand why Nintendo is staying out of the 'HD revolution", but all the demo kiosks and TV's used to promote the Wii in commericals are all HDTV's....

Anyone care to explain?

Kyle Kennedy @ Jan 13th 2007 2:14PM

...where is the power being generated?

Coop @ Jan 13th 2007 2:26PM

They are burning PS3s for heat and using it to power the kiosks.

Kyouryuu @ Jan 13th 2007 2:32PM

I'm surprised that many of the stores I go to have the Wii on display only. The Wii is very much a "playing is believing" experience. You had that controller to someone and they can understand the game right away, no questions asked. That is the biggest selling point of the system, not flashy demo reels of games and other people enjoying Wii Sports. It makes sense that Nintendo's marketing should be focused on creating a hands-on experience.

pockyninja @ Jan 13th 2007 2:35PM

And Sony fanboys were mocking Nintendo's lack of television advertisement. It's a great idea, really. Why tell people about your product when you can simply let them try it out?

Dan @ Jan 13th 2007 2:57PM

This kinda pisses me off - whats the point of them flaunting this thing in our faces if we can't buy it anywhere? Stop advertising the thing on TV every ad break and spend the budget on making more of the fuckers :-)

Nyrone @ Jan 13th 2007 3:11PM

Haha, yeah....my friend has been looking around London for weeks with no luck. WE NEED MORE Wii (that just sounded wrong)

Mr. Khan @ Jan 13th 2007 3:09PM

Yeah, that $450 million they spent on this whole advertising campaign could've made about 3 million Wiis, you're right

Pikachelsea @ Jan 13th 2007 3:13PM

Yeah, all Americans are violent criminals, while all British are cultured and civilized! YOU TELL 'EM!

Keep your generic profiling to yourself, kthx.

LukeCube @ Jan 13th 2007 3:45PM

In Australia I was working as one of the kiosk attendants. We usually demoed the E3 versions of Zelda, Wii Sports, Wii Play and either Warioware or Excitetruck. Most of the people either had "heard of it on the news" (even though Id never seen it on TV myself) or had never seen it at all. Many people commented on how this was a good way to advertise, but the flaw was that the tour went for 2 weeks after release, and the Wii sold out everywhere in New South Wales in about 3 days.
Although I never saw any ads for the Wii on TV in Australia, there were teaser ads going on in Japan when I was there (October), so I guess they used different styles of campaigns in different countries.
On the topic of outdoor kiosks, safety and whatnot; I was never involved in any kiosks outdoors. Although Australians are probably less likely to attempt to steal the Wiis, we still tied a 4-5 meter long cable between the safety strap and the kiosk unit just in-case. There was also usually big crowds gathered around, so no-one would try to steal it anyway.
We didnt get any of those puffer jackets, probably because its not a good idea to wear a jacket at the start of summer in Australia. We still got some cool Wii shirts though!

matchu @ Jan 13th 2007 4:09PM

riiight, you Australians less likely to steal the wii....wasn't Australia settled for the sole purpose of storing known criminals...im not sayin, im just sayin

LukeCube @ Jan 13th 2007 4:21PM

What? I said probably. If youre going to troll, don't do it on something as trivial as that, and brush up on your Australian history first.

Nicolas Redfern @ Jan 13th 2007 4:24PM

Now at this point, in regards to the violent Americans jokes, some British person (not me!) would make a remark about Scousers.

tyetheczar @ Jan 14th 2007 12:40PM

As a scanlation of a chapter of the manga Mahou Sensei Negima! once(no-twice, oy) stated: "Wii will rule the World!"

playclever @ Jan 13th 2007 4:40PM

Yeah, funny there were no reports of this in Liverpool ;)

Was pleasantly surprised to see a Wiiosk in Southampton's shopping centre on Friday - not outside, but still... Watching the action looking down from the coffee shop 2 floors up was pretty cool.

Interestingly, I could only see 3 Wii reps, and 2 of them were sitting playing through Zelda :)

brad @ Jan 13th 2007 4:47PM

I know that Nintendo is pumping a lot of cash into advertising, such as the 101 Wii TV adverts that you have probably seen if you watch anything on TV! I really liked the idea and possible gimic-factor of the outdoor Wii demo unit, and hope to see one closer to home very soon!

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Steve @ Jan 13th 2007 5:30PM

These same kiosks exist at all Westfield-owned malls in the Chicagoland area.

At least they did, until some uncivilized Americans came with their guns and robbed the kiosk of its wiimotes.

sigh. . .

n3rrd @ Jan 14th 2007 5:42PM

@diskoboy

Quite possibly because it's easier to construct (and transport) a display unit with a nice compact LCD display as opposed to a clunky (but reliable) CRT?

MJ @ Jan 13th 2007 8:15PM

The gamestop in Birmingham has one, most of the time there's a queue though. They won't let me play anymore because I've been there too often, hey but it's fun showing off your skills after you've played at home all day anyway...

HourGlassEyes @ Jan 14th 2007 12:21AM

Westfield Topanga Plaza in Woodland Hills, CA has a Wii Kiosk... right outside the GameStop where I got my Wii on launch day. =)

driven2sin @ Jan 14th 2007 1:37AM

weren't they taught to play with boomerangs?? figuring they'll just wipe themselves out eventually?

Kesh @ Jan 14th 2007 7:12AM

@9
The point isn't that all Americans are criminals, but that the crime rate in the US is much higher, especially for violent crime. Hence the likelihood of a violent theft would be higher in an American city. We're not profiling you, we're profiling the country based on the statistics available.

Ibere @ Jan 14th 2007 5:20PM

They had one here in Brazil (yes, in Brazil!) during Xmas season in a shopping mall. They had a guy in his 40s who I think was some kind of big shot for Nintendo Latin America and a hot girl using an old Nintendo uniform (it had an old slogan written on it, I think it was "who do you want to be" or something, you know, that campaign from 1 or 2 years ago). They handed me one wiimote and the other one for another guy, asked what game from Wii Sports we wanted to play and then we played a game of Tennis while the guy from NIntgendo took some pictures. After that the guy said how much it was costing (R$2400 in our local money, aproximatelly $1200! Go figure) and the lady gave a Wii shopping bag. After Christmas the kiosk was gone.