Hello, Room Service? Yes, I'd Like A Wii, Please.
Apparently not content with putting one of their family-friendly Wii gaming consoles in every home in the world, Nintendo is now trying to establish their monster hit in every room in the world. Starting with Marriott and Renaissance Hotel rooms. The "Wii and You Package" comes with unlimited use of the Wii in your own guest room and a basket of treats to eat while you play. (Probably Toblerones and mini bottles of liquor) Also, it's a unique Wii system that doesn't require disc swapping. Just choose any of the 20 games from the menu that include Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, and even Wii Fit. Hey, I know I would love to be able to play Wii Fit while away from home to keep my workout going without having to lug that damn Balance Board around. (That thing's heavy!)
There is a slight premium for the Wii package, but it doesn't appear to be much more than an extra $50 on top of the regular room rate. It's also only available at six hotels: The New York Marriott Marquis, Renaissance New York Hotel Times Square, Boston Marriott Cambridge, Bethesda Marriott Suites, Annapolis Marriott Waterfront, and the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix. So if you plan on traveling in any of those areas, you can have some gaming in your hotel room and maybe even put it on your corporate expense account! (It's less embarrassing than pay-per-view porn!) The only catch is that it looks like you'll have to hurry. Nintendo's press release doesn't say anything about dates, but the New York Marriott Marquis website says that the Wii guest rooms are available seven days a week through October 31, 2008. And there are a limited number of rooms available for the promotion. So it would seem this isn't a permanent fixture at the hotels... at least not yet. Maybe if it's popular, they'll keep it going.
If anyone who travels a lot tries this out, please let me know — I'm so curious! (But not curious enough to spend almost $500 to spend a night at the Marriott Marquis!)
Wootini
Posted to Video Games on 30 September 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: hotels, marriott, nintendo, promotion, renaissance, wii
In the last year alone, I've stayed in 2 hotels with almost this same setup (a Nintendo console built into the set top box with the games delivered to it digitally) except it was Gamecube games at 7 bucks an hour, and one additional hotel that had N64 games at 6 bucks an hour. I think in all three cases the VOD system was Lodgenet.
There were only something like 8-12 games to choose from in either case. You choose the games from the TV remote as if you were choosing bad pay-per-view straight vanilla pr0n or Disney movies. It was only a matter of time before they made the upgrade to Wii, though I'll be curious to hear whether the Wiimotes are tethered like the previous systems' hotel controllers are.
Glad they're finally doing the flat rate thing, but I usually take a console with me when I'm traveling anyway. Strange that I've never seen one of these setups with a PS2 or Xbox.