Here it is, in all its glory.
The image was said to be a conceptual marketing ad sent to Infendo in June of 2005. Notice the accuracy of the Wii outline, including undertones of “thinking” i.e. playing outside the box.
The backstory was featured on this week’s episode of Infendo Radio. Listen in, if you haven’t already.
(Oh, and by map, I really mean niche game blog linked-to from bigger sites.)
As I said on the podcast, before this story, Infendo averaged a few hundred readers a day. After this story, traffic increased to 1,500 per day, according to internal metrics.
Since then, Infendo averages 2-3000 readers per day during the slower summer months, and 5-8000 readers during busy holiday months, depending on games, of course.
And for any wondering, our site traffic ebbs and flows with the popularity of Nintendo in general, including now. The more excited people our about Nintendo, the more traffic we enjoy, and vice versa. It’s been that way since the beginning.
That said, I’m curious: Do any current readers remember this when it was first posted? It would be fun to honor the most loyal Infendo reader of all time, maybe even with junk swag I have in my closet.
Yeah I remember when it was first "leaked" onto the web. It was the one that got me hooked on Infendo in the first place.
I can't remember how I first stumbled across Infendo but it was probably around this time. It was one of the Nintendo sites that wasn't blocked by the work web-filter which helped to keep me coming back too!
I started listening to the podcast soon after and have been hooked ever since – keep up the good work guys.
I've been reading infendo since late 2005, but I don't really remember this post…
I really don't remember that one at all. I don't how I stumbled on Infendo but I have been coming here for long time, since 2006 before the Wii launched. Once I got into podcasts in late 2007, early 2008 that's when I started to listen to Infendo Radio.
i remember this ad, but I'm not sure if I came to this site or not. This is a really great Nintendo site, I'm glad you keep it up.
I just want to know where the forums went? I miss that.
I've been following Infendo since late 2005 I think…but don't remember this image 🙁
@Fuzz: I miss the forums too, it would be nice to restart them with a clean layout (not so many categories)…
I started reading and commenting on Infendo a little bit later… There must have been some other big post later that year, because I see a lot of readers that started to frequent this site around that time…
Could it have been around the 2005 pre-E3 craziness that Infendo got its second boost?
I totally remember this. Back then, I was constantly checking Infendo, GoNintendo, Revolution Report/The Wiire, and Falafelkid's Revolution speculation blogspot. I could not get enough of Revolution Rumors. It's pretty cool that this one turned out to be a real concept for the Wii, but as usual, people still declared it to be fake and said that anybody that even considered it to be real was an idiot; just like they do with real conspiracy theories.
i was a fan of scott johnson from the instance and was checking out the itunes store for more podcasts when i found infendo radio.
@InvisibleMan, Sept 2005 was another big month for us, which is when Nintendo unveiled the controller at TGS
Does anyone remembers this guy that started posting things (don't remember if it was on comments section or in forums) about Motion controlling and said things like "follow the Blue light" and stuff…very prophetic (is that a word?). Everybody was flaming and calling him fake and at the end he was right…
Been a while. Oh how far has Nintendo gone since then!
I can remember flipping out about the then Nintendo Revolution, and sitting in my Auto CAD class in high school hitting the F5 key on every blog site (Infendo included) to be on top of the latest Nintendo news.
Good times.
I remember when I was interning as an engineer in 2005, and almost all game sites were blocked on their network. I found Infendo, which wasn't blocked, and it became my go to site. Your coverage of the Revolution rekindled my interest in console gaming!
i've been here for quite a while, i think it was before this because i dont remember this post XD
yay