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"Wii Price and Launch Details"

Right. An 'interesting' conference in London has eventually produced the price and date for the Wii European Launch.

Gaby Logan and a host of other people showed off the Wii details and waxed lyrical about how the DS has been a major success. Interestingly, the Wii will actually be sold for a profit (unusual for a console, money is usually made on the software and not the hardware).

As well as the Mii software, that lets you create Avatars to represent you online and the cool Mii room that you can put them in, there's the weather and news channels built in. It's all looking quite cool and well thought out. There will be 15 Virtual Console games at launch, with around 10 more per month released (which puts the Live Arcade on the 360 to shame) and you get the Opera Internet Browser as well.

http://www.wii.com/ should be updated with the European information soon too and screenshots/video of the Wii screens.

So, here are the most important details from Nintendo:
The Date:December 8th 2006
The Price:£179
The Package:white console, one Wii remote, one Nunchuck, Wii Sports

£179? :( might have been tempted with £150 but another £29? Hmm I'll think about it.

Did you say nunchuck? :S

There's the Wii-mote (the thing that looks like a TV remote control) as well as the Nunchuck thing (dunno if that's the official name, seems to be what everyone's calling it because you attach it to the Wii-mote with a cable, so it looks a bit like you could swing it round like Michaelangelo outta Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

The Nunchuck bit also has motion sensing I think, has the analogue stick on it, and also has a trigger button underneath...


I think the price is quite good, it does include Wii-Sports, but hopefully they'll release a cheaper version without Wii-Sports a few months after Xmas, and maybe reduce the controller price a bit too.

Other than that, I think the news is all pretty good. One of my housemates was talking about getting one, so hopefully he'll have one in the Spring term of Uni, should be fun.

"Users can easily download (for a fee) several of their favourite games for the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, TurboGrafx, Mega Drive and even MSX from the Internet, and play them on Wii."

Holy crap. Rings of Power, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Abrams Battle Tank, Ecco the Dolphin, Road Rash...

I'm quite surprised by the pricing of the controllers more than anything. £45 for a full controller is very expensive. I understand Microsoft charging £40 because the 360 has a certain air of exclusivity/quality/premiumness (I don't think that's a work) to it, but Nintendo is going for everyone.... That includes readers of The Sun, people who work at SPAR and even people who blag a bus pass and £40-a-week from the government.

I definitely think that two parts of the controller should be sold for a collective of £30. People will be happy to pay £180 in a day and age where they can spend that much on McDonalds in little over 4 weeks. Also, I understand the Revolution doesn't output in HD, but please let there be a component lead.

The launch line-up doesn't fill me with too much enthusiasm. I'm going to get Zelda and probably MP3 on impulse, but the Wii Sports will probably take up most of the time. Plus, it's the sort of thing my family will love. I'll probably be on BF2142, DEFCON or Company of Heroes (Which is quite spectacular, by the way.)

For those questioning the £180 price tag, add 17.5% (VAT) to the US price of £132 (£155) and then add shipping costs of £25, and you can see why they came up with that price. I know, technically, we shouldn't have to pay for shipping costs, but they can't just let shipping however many consoles to the UK deck their 8-digit bank account too badly - and we are on the other side of the world!

But anyway... launch details seem fine to me. Now it's just a case of the agonising wait. (Agonising how? I'm not sure... Games bore me very quickly. From the box being kept dust-free to the console eventually having bowls of cereal left ontop of it normally takes about 3 weeks. Maybe less.

Toe Jam & Earl?

Sold.

Game wrote:
> For those questioning the £180 price tag, add 17.5% (VAT)
> to the US price of £132 (£155) and then add shipping
> costs of £25, and you can see why they came up with that
> price. I know, technically, we shouldn't have to pay for
> shipping costs, but they can't just let shipping however many
> consoles to the UK deck their 8-digit bank account too badly -
> and we are on the other side of the world!

Hang on, the thing is probably made in Japan or China, so they'd need to ship it to the US as well... would be a bit cheaper to ship to the US than Europe I guess, but...

Anyway, as I've said before, electrical goods are always more expensive in the UK for a variety of reasons, given the US price I don't think anyone should've expected it to be £150...

:S I don't think my Daddy will fork that much out for me.

Final Fantasy I-VI might also be available as Square Enix are supporting Virtual Console. Actually, I dunno why I'm getting excited about games I finished playing years ago being available on a new console.

Maybe it's because I can now force my nephew to play them to 'educate' him on why his uncle is such a game guru.

And I can play consoles I could never afford.

Bah that is what emulators are for :-D

(Although it's a damn crime the 360 never had an achievement for shooting the food in Gauntlet)