Nintendo Wii UK details announced
Nintendo has over the last couple of days held 3 press conferences around the world in Japan, the US and finally today in London.
8th December 2006 is 'Wii day' in the UK and the rest of Europe, with the US launch on 19th November, a surprising 2 weeks ahead of Japan, who's launch is on 2nd December.
The price has been set at £179 / €249 / $250 / ¥25,000 - a little higher than some people were expecting to be honest. I was hoping for more around the £150 mark in the UK.
The bundle in the UK includes a white Wii console, one Wii remote, one Nunchuk and one game, Wii sports. The US gets the same but strangely Japan doesn't get the bundled game.
There will be around 20 games available at launch, including Wii Play and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and from third party publishers: Ubisoft's RED STEEL, EA's Need for Speed: Carbon, Activision's Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, THQ's Disney / Pixar's Cars and Sega's Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.
Nintendo first party games will retail at between £34 and £39 in the UK.
Additional controllers will also be available from launch: Wii Remote - £29, Nunchuk – £14 and the Classic Controller – £14. As a lot of people have been commenting, the controller prices are definitely on the expensive side and if you consider you really need a Wii remote and a Nunchuk for each additional player, that's an extra £43 for each additional controller!
Nintendo have also announced the concept of "channels" that make up the Wii Channel Menu. This is basically the on-screen 'dashboard' you use to access various features on the Wii.
When connected to a TV, the Wii Channel Menu offers a simple interface letting users pick games to play, get news or weather, view and send photos or even create playable caricatures of themselves to use in actual games.
Additional functions allow users to download classic games from the old NES, SNES and N64 systems, among others, and allows you to play them on the Wii’s 'Virtual Console', which works in a similar way to the Xbox Live Arcade.
The console uses the WiiConnect24 service to download content via the channels and offer online gameplay. You can connect wirelessly to your internet connection with the built in 802.11 b/g wireless card or via a USB 2 LAN adaptor.
If you don't know what all the fuss is about, I suggest you watch this excellent video of what the Wii can do with it's revolutionary motion sensitive controller. It looks pretty amazing.
You can also find loads more info over at Wii.com.
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