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When you're in this industry, it's important to watch trends. This goes doubly for hardware companies. A representative from Nyko shared some of his observations with me. Specifically, the fact that the Wii is drawing a different audience. A wider audience, perhaps, as Nintendo was hoping, but definitely a different audience - and these players tend to play in groups.
Perhaps it's got something to do with the television ad campaigns, or maybe it's just the fun caused by the more physical aspects of waving your controller around, but the Wii has become the console of choice for parties. Nyko realizes this and is offering a new product to target these players: the Party Station.
The Party Station is designed to take your Wii-playing experience and add convenience to the party-related aspects - the ones that the console simply doesn't address. These include a central docking station that features things such as four Wii-mote holders and four freezable drink coolers that perfectly fit a 12 ounce can. The Party Station also has a removable (and washable) chip and dip tray on top. Also, adding realism to Wii bowling sessions as well as a convenience for any game where the action gets a bit hot and heavy, you get a built in hand-dryer (like you would find at a bowling alley). And, while these are all useful, yet some would say whimsical, features, the best feature is probably the four built-in manually advanced LED score counters. These allow you to play with four people (or teams) across multiple video games, while keeping a running tally of the score. If you want to make up special scoring rules, that's up to you. Perhaps some game counts 2 points per win. Perhaps someone loses a point because they forgot to take a drink... it's your scoring system - Nyko simply provides the way to keep track of the score. For that matter, the games could be on different systems, and you could still use the Party Station to keep score.
The Party Station is still in development, getting the last few changes worked out, but it is slated for a September 2007 release with a price point of around $25 USD. |
