Nintendo unveils Wii Music game and Grand Theft Auto for DS

CORRECTION: The headline on an earlier version of this post incorrectly said Grand Theft Auto was coming to the Wii. Grand Theft Auto is actually coming to Nintendo's DS hand-held console.

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Nintendo today jumped into the rapidly growing genre of music-themed video games with its own title, Wii Music, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Wii Fit, Nintendogs and other hit titles.

Wii Music lets as many as four players at a time jam on virtual instruments, including violin, drums and guitar. Nintendo showed off the new game at a press event in Hollywood and put a video of the game on its website.

The Japanese company also gave hard-core game players a present: Take-Two Interactive Software is bringing its Grand Theft Auto franchise to the Nintendo DS hand-held console, which mostly features casual fare. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is expected to be available before Christmas.

Nintendo said it had sold 10 million Wii consoles and 20 million DS devices in the U.S., generating $5 billion in retail sales. The Japanese company said further that it had sold more than 70 million DS consoles worldwide and projected that it would sell 100 million by the end of March 2009.

Nintendo also announced Wii MotionPlus, an attachment to the Wii controller that will allow the remote to better capture wrist and arm movements. It will let players turn the Wii controller into virtual drums, Frisbees and saxophones.

Nintendo notably did not announce any new installments of its Zelda or Mario franchises, which are purchased mostly by serious gamers. "There's not a lot for core gamers here, but that's not what Nintendo is about anyway at this stage," said Geoff Keighley, editor of Gameslice.

-- Alex Pham

Photo: Wii Music image courtesy of Nintendo

Comments

[Confused]

But is GTA coming to Wii? The headline sez so, but I don't see it mentioned in the article.

[Chris]

Um the title is a little deceiving, Grand Theft Auto is NOT coming to Wii, it is coming to DS.

[Chris Gaither]

Chris and Confused, thanks for pointing out my dumb mistake. I totally botched the headline on Alex's post. It's been corrected.