Nintendo Wii is ¥25,000 yen, or about $222 USD !!

October, it's official, but the day dunno, I bet is going to be the 20 or 26.

 

I haven't heard anything official. Source?

 

GameCube was $100 less than PS2/Xbox
N64 launched at a lower price (albeit much later) than the Saturn/PS1
SNES launched later (again) than the Genesis/TG-16, but matched the initial launch price of the TG at $199.99

 

I'll wait for an PAL price, but if thats too pricy then its import city for me! I'm expecting £150 UK price, €200, $200. Bit of a bargain to me, it's cheaper than a PSP!

 

is japan still going to get the system first? Also hopefuly months in advance (like 2-3?).

If region protection follows nintendo's lovely standard (ie simple), I might snag up a jpn unit at launch (prefer jpn packaging and they always get the cool colors).

--edit--
Japan will probably get a few colors at launch with usa probably getting only 1 single safe color insted of the cool ones.

 

I still need to know about the Wii 24 service, wether or not I can download Japanese games from Europe.
I'll probably pick up a European system (warranty + Nintendo VIP points) though...

 

Looks like after ten years Nintendo is starting to get thier shit together. Ever since Sony jumped in they've been fighting an uphill battle, looks like they're finally on the right track.

 

Well, we should all reserve final judgement until this thing actually launches and as been on the market for a few months. Whether or not Nintendo delivers on everyone's huge expecations remains to be seen...Microsoft and Sony have been plagued by hardware issues, shortages and a host of other problems right out of the gate, so anything could theoretically happen.

 

The $199 price point is huge, but the problem is going to be convincing the casual gamer that his next gen machine doesn't have to have next gen graphics. I mean if the wii can't produce cutting edge visuals your casual user is just going to see it as inferior, regardless of the quality of its games. It's the same old battle Nintendo has been fighting since the N64. The fact that Nintendos games are primarily cartoony doesn't help much either. Personally I hope Nintendo fares better this generation than last but I think that its going to take more than a killer price point to do it.

 

Japanese source quoted Nintendo as saying:
"Not over 25,000 yen in Japan or $250 in the US". It might not be $199.

 

Well, $250 compared to $300/400 and $500/600 is still better. Personally, I am fearing the possibility of the first ad driven console if people stop buying the expensive ones.

 

Yeah but is also traditional to have specs as high as the competition's.

Wii is cheaper to make, so unless the remote is really expensive I dont see why ninty couldnt sell the system for $199 like they did with the Gamecube (that BTW was more powerful than PS2).

And if that was the case, then who's gonna buy an extra remote if they are so expensive?

To be honest I think the fanboy hype has created an RDF around ninty's marketing dept. and now they think that because a bunch of fanboys and hardcore gamers are willing to pay $250 for what could be considered an already obsolete console (from the technical standpoint) then the whole mainstream that's buying PS2 is going to do the same.

 

The remotes should be reasonably cheap. There's nothing in them that costs a huge amount of money. The gyrometer is about $0.50, the accelerometer about the same, the IR and mini-speaker are next to nothing, and buttons/casing are cheap when you're mass producing.

That's not to say Nintendo aren't going to use the new tech as an excuse to overcharge.

 

Nintendo has a habit of saying consoles will cost $250 and then really launch them at $200, i.e. the Nintendo 64.

I am still betting on a $200 price point.

 

Personally I am seeing a $249 and a £229.

Have we heard anything about region coding yet? I think the Wii would be the most interesting console to have no region coding. But you know Nintendo....

 

If the plan is for a sub-£200 launch, that much will probably get you a console, pack-in game and credits for your online account. After all, the basic technology behind the Wii isn't exactly cutting-edge, and hopefully Nintendo can exploit this and subsequently carve its own niche in the market with a lower price than other "real" next-gen systems. However, the issue of region protection and how such encoding may affect the emulation features is something that we've still yet to be reassured of. Then again, if Nintendo has managed to get this far (i.e. "revolutionising" the control interface, properly embracing the networking concept, etc.) it's possible Wii won't be as outdated as previous hardware efforts - what exactly was the reason for the GameCube's relative lack of support for online gaming, anyway?

 

It looks like the Wii controller uses a sensor to pick up the signals not much unlike the one used on the Dreamcast game Samba de Amigo.


I also like the classic pad. Let's hope the D-Pad is just like the original SFC one.


You've got to love the comic book art of these shots. Note that these were done by Nintendo :lol:


Yakumo

 

I don't really know if you should read into this particular story too much, but somebody from Nintendo has supposedly claimed that halogen lights interfere with the Wii's motion sensor. Also, thanks for those shots of the actual sensor - I had previously thought it would be integrated within the actual console, though I'd heard in the past as well that something would be put under the screen when playing. At least I know what to expect when I finally go for a Wii, hopefully later this year...

(I really do need to grow up and stop it with the "Wii" jokes!)

 

True, and caution is probably a better route to take here. Still, it's hard not to get excited about the Wii when both Sony and Microsoft are promoting their consoles by saying, "Ours would be the perfect companion to the Wii."