Nintendo announces Wii Music with 50 instruments

by Kyle Orland on Jul 15th 2008 1:01PM

At Nintendo's E3 press conference this morning, the company showed off the long-rumored Wii Music. The game uses the Remote and Nunchuk, along with a foot tapping on the Wii Balance Board, to simulate a drum set. The game also lets players blow into the Wii Remote speaker to simulate the play of a saxophone. There will be over 50 insturments in the game, including the piano, violin, guitar and marimba.

"Wii Music is a slightly different play experience than you've seen with other music games," explained Nintendodesigner Shigeru Miyamoto. "Now most music games require you to press buttons with precise timing to symbols on screen, but we've designed Wii Music to allow everyone, inclusing those who can't read music to enjoy the experience of playing music." Instead of following a strict set of notes, Wii music will let players improvise and create their own music using the Wii. The game will record videos of your on-screen play sessions. More to come.

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Tags: breakingnews, E3, e3-2008, Wii, wii-music

Reader Comments (80)

How should a music game not be "rhythm-based"?

One of the instruments better bea Euphonium. Or I will be pissed.

Wii Music sounds absolutely horrible. Nintendo really sucked it up this E3...hopefully they somehow surprise us later this week?

Also, how are 5 people playing? Can't the wii only support 4?

holy shit this looks like crap to the crappy crap crap.

I just don't get nintendo sometimes.

... and yet millions of people will buy this. It'll be sold everywhere and then after a week it will go in the drawer right next to the balance board.

What I find most aggravating isn't the sales, but the smuggness of those idiots that say "Well, if the product is so bad, then why did it sell X million copies in Y weeks?"

This is crap. The Wii is a fad...it's just a fad that makes lots and lots of money by throwing fads on top of fads to keep it "fresh." See: WiiMusic See: Wii Play 2 or whatever the hell you call it See: WiiFit See: Wii Super Accuracy Addition 20XX. See: WiiWheel. See: Wii Chat peripheral.
All of those "peripherals" have only 1 or 2 games for it.
Microsoft's conference was pretty 'meh' until megaton hit, but Nintendo's was just laughable. They really cashed it in beyond anything I could imagine.

Dude---when a product does well for one retail cycle (about 3 months) and then vanishes, that's a fad. When a product does well for a couple retail cycles, then tapers off, that's a hit. When a product---like, say, a games console---sells spectacularly well for two years, and products connected to it---let's say, games---also sell vast numbers, that's called a success.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Wii library myself, but all this "la-la-la-I-can't-heeeeeeear-you" fad-calling is just... sort of sad.

You keep saying that word (fad).

I don't think it means what you think it means.

I think I'll stick to Guitar Hero/Rock Band.

The only part of Wii Music that looked cool was the drums. Considering the fact that I do not own a balance board, and have no interest in ever getting Wii Fit, I will probably never buy it.

Am I the only one who's getting really frustrated by all these peripherals you pretty much have to buy to play new Nintendo games?

Yeah the wiifit board is a bit annoying to me. Feels like we are being pushed to buy it even though we don't want to use it.

Oh my god this is embaressing to watch!

"Most games require you to actually do something right, but we've taken the lead of the American educational system and decided that no matter how useless you are, everybody can be a winner now that there are no standards by which success is defined!"

LOL +1

A winner is you!!

Perfect assessment. Basically, somebody in a wheelchair can play these games and still win... and did I mention they're paralyzed from the neck down?

Great counter, rooster.

Oh my gawd.

yay so all you do is hit a button and it starts playing a pre rendered song... Like a crappy toy I had as a baby... I was expecting better the only person I cud see interested in this is my grandma or 2 year old brother. I was hopng for a ds micro this is crap

omg

is anyone watching this trainwreck on stage right now? was that supposed to look good? because it made me cringe with pain. keep talking about how many DS' you sell Reggie. I guess making real games isn't in your market strategy.

The Mario Bros. tune was shockingly bad.

I turned the stream off at this point.. I heard enough about crappy music games yesterday with MS, I don't need to see anymore.

Not to hate, but this game really doesn't look that fun. The great part of RB/GH is trying to master the intense fingerwork/footwork/vocals.

I think the fact that you can't really do that only hurts the game.

And 50 instruments? You mean like saxophone, trumpet, trombone, french horn, etc? How different can playing all of these instruments be?

Also, peripherals=Nintendo moneymaker.

IRL, a lot

In a video game, nothing

Hooray uniqueness!

i'm confused...
they said four people could play
then they had 6 people demo it
and technically wouldnt the balance board count as a "controller" it syncs with the fourth spot i believe
so in the normal game will it be 3 people with a drummer?

Already calling it

Nintendo had the worst press conference by far. hands down

Agreed. They definitely did NOT bring their A-game this year: Animal Crossing looks like crap and isn't an MMO, they introduce precision controls that, while certainly useful, should have been in the Wiimote in the first place... and that's it... no big announcements. Microsoft showed off and announced like 80 bajillion games, features, a peripherals yesterday. Unless Sony can drop a bombshell like "PS3 is $300 and you can install Windows or OSX on it. Oh yeah and FF13 is exclusive again, and here's 10 huge games you can't play anywhere else"... unless Sony can really come out swinging, then I'd have to say MS won this year's show and will subsequently dominate this generation of consoles.

Blowing into a speaker?

200k per week, 700k per month?

WTF?

There are some serious basic logic faults here.

Nintendo Wii - Snake Oil for a new century!

So keep the DS, eBay the Wii.

Its over, Microsofts E3 is down for the count. Ladies and gentlemen, your new Heavyweight champion of the World, REGGIE FILS-AIME

wow.. horrible outing Nintendo. The only thing that moderately excited me was Animal Crossing.

This shit should burn.

Bet you can't wait to pick up Viva Pinata, Banjoo: nuts and bolts, and You're In the Movies, can you?

Since they didn't show up, is it safe to say that Disaster and HAMMER will be released around the same time of Duke Nukem Forever?

Air band!

I got so much anger towards Nintendo right now...and so much to vent, but you my friend made me feel good again with just two words.

With Rock band and Guitar Hero World Tour who on earth wants to be hitting the air when you can hit actual peripheral instruments?

what about the Theremin? that better be one of the 50... actually it deserves it own game.

Theremin Hero!

wow that was like listening to a pre school band.
its a cool idea for kids or for people bored out of their minds. but like everyone said....why hit the air
when you have guitars and drums and a mic to use.

this is what happends when you let all of your heavy hitters out of the bag too early.

they didn't even give us any heavy-hitters this e3. its still a secret...

one word.
BEAMZ.

The smoke parts, my heart is pounding, I am expecting pikman or perhaps a new ds.
And WTF is this some crazy guy pounding the air with the nunchuk and wiimote. Oh and some dude playing the saxophone somehow by hitting like 7 buttons.
That doesnt even make sense, NINTENDO SUCKS

Um, can I pretend like this never happened because I was prepared to crap my pants in excitement for anything remotely good and instead I crapped my pants because I Nintendo's biggest surprised involved adults playing air instruments.

Can Wii Music even be considered a game?

This is what Nintendo did with the trust of gamers everywhere? They just took a big giant dump on all of us. Next gen I hope people return in kind. We will not forget the WII-NCIDENT. Nintendo took our money and turned its back on us.

If we have learned anything from the DS, Wii and WiiFit it is that the more negative comments there are the better the product will be received by the general public. From the comments here so far I would say Nintendo has another hit on their hands.

Nintendo sucks!

Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music look really interesting to me. The concept of creating your own music (to a certain extent) with other people sounds really fun. And absolutely hilarious with a little alcohol. It's in no way a Rock Band-killer, but it's an interesting and different take on a music game. Oh, and the casual Wii audience will absolutely eat it up.

You're not making your own music to ANY EXTENT. NONE! Pay attention.
Even if you could, the movements were completely inaccurate (cough cough like any wii game), so it's like having a keyboard that randomly decides to play the note or not.

The casual wii audience are a bunch of fucking morons.

I think you need to broaden your thinking a little bit. The casual audience is not looking for GTA Wii. They're looking for games that are fun, but not so intense you have to have a degree in gaming to understand them. These games, while not completely fun by yourself are fun, especially if you have a large group of people together. They have some merit if you're by yourself, but they are wonderful additions to your gaming library to complement "YOUR 360/PS3 HARDCORE EXPERIENCE".
Just because you don't like something doesn't mean there are people out there who don't. This game will sell because people think it's fun and that it's worth THEIR money. If you don't think it will be fun, then don't freakin' buy it.

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Nintendo announces Wii Music with 50 instruments

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