[NeonAges]

In a highly anticipated conference, Nintendo announced, today, all the details concerning the Wii console.

I'll list basic stuff for people not in the loop but for more info check out your favorite gaming site as I'm sure all the big ones have coverage:


-November 19th (2 days after the PS3 launch...lame, they said they wanted to launch before Sony)
-$250 pricetag
-Bundled with one Wiimote and nunchuck attatchment
-Bundled with Wii Sports (which now included golf, tennis, baseball, bowling, and boxing...awesome)
-Wiimote to cost $40 and nunchuck attatchment to cost extra $20 (This one is really lame, specially considering the wiimote doesn't even have a litium ion inside, meaning you have to supply your own batteries)
-Virtual console games to cost around $5, $8, and $10 for NES, SNES, and N64 games, respectively.
-$50 price point for games

The price of the system is reasonable to me. I hear a lot of people complaining on other message boards saying that they wished it were $200 but, really, I think $250 is still a great price. The price of the wiimote and nunchuck attachment together at $60 has me really disappointed. I would certainly see why paying $60 would be reasonable if it came with a rechargable Lithium Ion battery. But I guess you pay for the technology. It has very nice motion sensing tech inside as well as rumble, a speaker, and even a small memory for storage (to store things such as your custom made avatar to bring over to your friends house to play Wii Sports.

I'm thrilled about Wii Sports being bundled with the system and that they announced bowling will be included...you guys know how much I freakin' love bowling.

I hyped myself into believing that it would launch sometime in October so, of course, I'm disappointed that I'll be Wiiless for an additional month. I think they changed their launch strategy after Sony "changed" theirs. Sony had to reduce the number of their launch units to a mere 500,000 worldwide (do you remember how horrendous the 360 launch was? shortages and angry customers all over the place; And they launched with 3 times that amount at 1.5 million). So, they way I figure it, Nintendo will be right there (with 4 million units) for all those bummed out people who won't be getting a PS3 2 days after it's release. A dirty strategy if you ask me but, hey, it works.

I'm also really excited about the virtual console game prices. I had a hunch that none of them would be any more than $10 but another side of me feared they'd pull a Nintendo and charge $20 for a single NES game like they did on the GBA remakes.

Metroid got pushed back (big surprise) and Mario Galaxy won't be available until early 2007 either, as well as Smash Bros. Brawl. That's cool with me, I guess I'll have Twilight Princess to hold me over until they come out

Excited? Disappointed?
let me know in the Talkback thread!

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