Wii to Launch Nov. 19th for $250

PygmySurfer writes "According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nintendo is going to announce today that the Wii will go on sale on November 19th in North and South America, at a cost of $250. It will come bundled with Wii Sports and channels for such things as viewing photos, as well as news and weather. Finally, Wii will also make it possible to browse the web on your television. Nintendo will also announce that 25-30 games will be published this year, as well as about 30 classic games available on the virtual console, costing about $5-10."

not sure i believe the article quite yet

[Frag-A-Muffin]

The article came out before the Japanese conference. (Which is happening as I type this) They're live blogging it over at kotaku [kotaku.com]

I'll believe it when they Iwata announces it.

Wahoh!

[7Prime]

Interesting, I predicted the bundled Wii Sports just earlier today. When I started thinking about it, the idea of $250 with Wii Sports didn't seem too bad, provided a controller and nunchuck (which is still remains to be seen, as I can't access the article), this may lesson Wii sales SLIGHTLY, as many people were starry-eyed with the $199 price tag (myself included), but I think it might be a better bet, in the long run, for Nintendo to release it with a game of THEIR making that centers around the controller, so that the first experience people will get with the Wiimote is a very solid one. I'm a bit dissapointed to have to wait another 2 months, but it'll give me time to finish Final Fantasy XII at least. And it's just in time for the Thanksgiving weekend. Strangely, it's positioned to be released a week after the PS3, which I think is a GREAT idea, since it will basically give them a week of free press (from Sony) and advertising, and then drown the PS3 the next week.

Meh...

[MageWyn]

I'm not sure that I want Wii Sports. Too bad I can't switch to another game or take $50 off the cost to lose it.

DragonQuest: Swords anyone?

Good news for normal humans

[svunt]

Personally, I start to lose count after a squillion frames a second, I'm sure my eyeballs are only getting 800x600 resolution these days, and I'm just totally over the idea of paying $500+ for a machine, and $50+ for games, when they're extremely high-res, high-speed, and SHIT. The Wii gives me hope that there's something out there for people who like gameplay, not graphics, and have better things to spend the big bucks on than a friggin' procrastinaion console. Nice one, Nintendo.

Re:Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost to nintendo in bundling the game is nowhere near $50, maybe $5 at the very most (99.9% development time). The game is bundled to introduce you to the controller interface, not to be $50 worth of entertainment.

Awwww :(

[Quiet_Desperation]

C'mon! Bundle Zelda! You'll sell fifteen billion of them.

Sweet spot

[trellick]

Have to say, that I think Nintendo have got the pricing just spot on! No only for the console itself, but for the classic games ($5 -> $10), a very very clever strategic move.

No only that, but the price of the new games at ~$10 less than the X360 - gives a clear indication that Nintendo see the X360 as their main competition. Maybe they think that Sony have dropped the ball with their pricing and PR machines!?

No, I'm not a fan boy of any console (in fact I'm a dedicated PC gamer) - but it seems that Nintendo have employed some very smart people for this entire project, considering no-one was really thinking them as a major console player (again) and then last years' E3 and, suddenly, they are ahead of everyone else in terms of buzz. Clever stuff.

Re:possibilities

[idugcoal]

I think the word "finally" was used more in a "closing, final entry in a list of features" kind of way, rather than in an "at last, the feature the world has been anxiously awaiting but never before seen" kind of way.

Jumping the gun.

[Oscar_Wilde]

Considering that the linked article is gone and that the Japanese launch date is apparently the 2nd of December, I think this whole "Nov 19th, US$250" thing might be jumping the gun slightly.

Re:Hogwash!!

[DAldredge]

They will have already take steps to lock in a know exchange rate. It is called hedging.

Re:Sweet spot

[voice_of_all_reason]

$10 for kid icarus? You've got to be shitting me.

Even for the rare ones, you can most likely pick up NES carts on ebay or at a funcoland-like store for a fraction of that price. Without the piss-poor emulation deficiencies that have plagues previous nintendo rereleases (remember the game boy color Nes Series line?)

I've bought these games once, and played them to death. I've downloaded them again when nesticle came out, and played them to death. Who's the target market here? The nostalgia crowd is savvy enough to pirate old nes games, and the younger crowd is likely to be displeased with the different style of gameplay.

Re:Wahoh!

[Wind_Walker]

I have a feeling that we'll find out very very different released in Japan and the other territories. The Seattle PI article seemed very reliable and sourced Reggie himself in a phone interview. I have a feeling that they're both right.

Japan gets a $200 console with one controller, North America gets a $250 with 2 controllers and Wii Sports to help "sell" the common people on the system.

Either way, I'm going to bed. This will all be sorted out by 11am tomorrow morning.

Re:Anybody really interested?

[10Ghz]

I'm definitely interested in the Wii, and I'm no fanboy. I have never owned a console (apart from the Philips Videopak I had as a kid). Why the Wii, and not PS3 or Xbox? Well, where is the innovation in Xbox and PS3? They seem to be the exact same stuff as their predecessors were, just with prettier graphics. Higher resolutions and more polygons does not equal "innovation". And Sony has been screwing up everything recently, starting with the rootkit-fiasco right down to the PS3-pricing. Because of those reasons, I will steer clear of PS3. Xbox is boring as well. And they are both big machines that run hot.

Now, the Wii.... The price is right, and it actually seems INTERESTING. And it seems that it will have games that even the Mrs. could enjoy. So which to get? PS3 or Xbox which are exactly the same as consoles before them were, the games are just shinier. OTOH, the Wii is quite cheap, and they are actually trying to do something new with it.

The price is right

[LKM]

Personally, I was still hoping for $150. Their mistake.

You can thank Sony and Microsoft for that. With the Xbox and the PS3 so expensive, there's not a whole lot of reason for Nintendo to go too low with the price. Besides, if the price is too low compared to the competition, customers will perceive it as being "cheap" and thus not worthy of their attention. Anyway, it's not going to matter. Nintendo will sell a shitload of these at US$250. They would sell a shitload at US$350, I guess. I know I'll buy one as soon as I can.

And since they bundle a game (I'd have bought the Sports game if it wasn't bundled), it's not a bad deal anyway.

Are you insane?

[LKM]

Is anybody really interested in buying a Wii?

Are you insane? This is the first time I'm actually excited about a console since first playing with my friend's NES! I mean, we've been playing the same games over and over for the last 20 years. For the first time since the Atari 2600, there's something truly new and exciting happening. I'll probably buy three of them (one for my living room, one for my bedroom and one for my girlfriend's place).

Re:Letdown.

[10101001 10101001]

The costs of these games for Wii was non-zero. Costs of developing the base emulator aside, each of the games had to be betatested and the emulator patched in case bugs were found.

Include the cost of the base emulator and amortize the cost. You're still looking at an incredibly low value relative to most modern games.

If you seen how emulation goes, each game has a ton of exceptions which are included in a mile-long .ini file which gets loaded with the ROM.

True and false. One, most emulators (NES and SNES) are able to run a ton of games without exceptions. Two, for those emulators that do need to make exceptions, that remains only true for *those* games. Given that not every game is remotely being offered for sale, one has to recognize that a well written emulator has a high chance of covering most (though probably not all) games without hacks. Ie, the cost to develop the emulator becomes the bigger focus of all games at a greater cost to all instead of making hacks for every game. The former is almost certainly more cost effective. The exception is N64 games, which probably *will* need to be heavily hacked. That has more to do with the fact that the N64 games will probably not emulated but virtualized or recompiled.

Still, the file doesn't fix them all, and the games suffer some glitches. If Nintendo is to emulate old consoles using a new emulator, they must test, fix, modify, test again all the ages old code.

Uh, no. While it's possible that Nintendo may opt to rewrite their own games to work with the emulator, it's unlikely that Nintendo will actually do so. It's cheaper to hire current developers to make a better emulator than it is take people in upper management and demote them temporarily to developers to work on the code they or their peers wrote. Really, it's very unlikely that they'll go about patching many, if any, games, except possible to fix bugs in the original programs.

It's not just "dump ROM into upload dir, slap on a price and index entry, make free for upload." It's a pretty complicated process of betatesting and adjusting the emulator to fix bugs that show up.

Very true. Yet, this cost is relatively small compared to creating games from scratch for the emulated system, let alone making new games for the GBA, DS, or Wii. Any claims that the money is to pay for "development costs" is a best misplaced given that the emulator itself is part of the cost of the console. Or would you believe that Sony has a viable argument to charge more for PS1 games played on the PS2 (after all, it's more work to support PS1 games and do all sorts of tweaks to get them to run on the PS2)? The simple fact is, people (me included) were under the impression that Nintendo was going to make a profit on these old properties but at a much lower price (okay, that's not true; we were hoping they'd offer more reasonable prices but assumed they wouldn't given the whole Classic NES line of GBA games). In the end, the amortized cost of doing bug fixing on the ROMs themselves will be, I imagine, incredibly low. I just find it hard to believe that the bug testing can work out to 1/5th the cost of a Wii game given that Wii games themselves require their own bug testing.

New Video Reel

[Pointdexter]

Lots of games shown in this new video [nintendo.co.jp]. Kitsune has translated the game names and posted this list on Quarter To Three [quartertothree.com]:

1. Wii Sports - the little guys look so cute and the way they move is so adorable! ^_^

2. Forever Blue (Nintendo) - as it's an underwater game, or at least appears to be, I wonder if Nintendo is working with Arika or some developer there at to another Everblue game...

3. Mario Strikers Charged - I haven't gotten a chance to play the first, but it's more soccer with Mario, which can't be awful.

4. Excite Truck - well of course.

5. Fail to Shave with the Controller - looks dangerous.

6. Dragon Quest: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors - inevitably, it will be the best game on the Wii by virtue of just being Dragon Quest! :P

7. Sengoku Musou Wave (Koei) - Otherwise known as the Samurai Warriors, at least thus far, but in 1st person? Reminds me of that one Neo Geo game, what was it called?

8. Red Steel (You Be Eye Soft) - why do all the yakuza lack shirts in this game?

9. Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn - Hells yes! Bring it on! It's something goddess for the subtitle, but a bit blurry to tell.

10. Swing Golf Pangya (Tecmo) - Was this the online PC game? I don't follow these types of games...

11. Occupational Therapy with My Supportive Boyfriend - Hm.

12. WiiSports - More cute! Yeah for cute!

13. Super Mario Galaxy - Whoa! That part with the lava flows? Trippy!

14. Necronesia (Spike) - It's Necronesia, by Spike.

15. Trauma Center (or Caduceus as its known over here) (Atlus) - Yeah! More Trauma Center!

16. Sonic and the Secret Rings (Sega) - Intriguing, let's hope it doesn't feel too limited!

17. Boy Giving Enema to Farting Imaginary Friend - Will probably only interest sex fiends.

18. Wing Island (Hudson) - Wow! Is this like a Pilotwings revival? That would be sweet, Pilotwings rocked!

19. Pokemon Battle Revolution (Pokemon) - Technically you have to say it's made by the Pokemon company, since legal-wise, they're separate. But we all know it's Nintendo.

20. Bleach Wii (Sega) - Licensed games will be more creative with the Wiimote! *snicker*

21. One Piece Unlimited Adventure (Bandai Namco) - Though this does look cool and there are quite a few good One Piece games and the manga is turbocool. Still, I'd be more reassured if it were made by the Namco side.

22. Dragon Ball Z Sparking NEO (Bandai Namco) - Sequel to Dragon Ball Z Sparking Trinity.

23. SD Gundam Revolution (Bandai Namco) - Too bad this game looks like Poy Poy crossed with Gundam, because it's going to suck and you know it.

24. Crayon Shin Chan (Banpresto) - from the ultrapopular manga/anime. Didn't this series come to America recently? I wonder how it's being received in the land of South Park.

25. Tamagotchi no Pika Pika Daitoryou (Tamagotchi the Sparkling President) (Bandai Namco) - Tamagotchi for president? Elected by board game? That can't be good, what if you forgot to feed the president and he dies?

26. Change the Channel...If You Can - Looks challenging!

27. The First Wii (or My First Wii) - Aha ha ha ha ha haa haaa. I can't resist. aha ha ha ha

28. Elebits (Konami) - This game is so mysterious. It's like voyeur vandal Pokemon.

29. Rayman (You Bee I Soft) - Those bunny commercials are fantastic. "But they can dance!"

30. Super Monkey Ball Cheerful Party (Sega) - Is there any other kind of Monkey Ball party? Do people play it at funerals? Is that why we needed the clarification?

31. Fishing Master (Hudson) - Yeah.

32. The Religious Festival Master (Namco Bandai) - I will be the number one ranked player on this, just you watch.

33. Furi Furi (Taito) - An

So much is right, they can't go wrong.. can they?

[NekoXP]

Bundling a game by force at least means retailers will have to think twice about "compulsory bundling" like they did with the XBox360. Remember when the Playstation 2 came out? A lot of people bought one in the beginning because they wanted a new console but ALSO because their original Playstation 1 was completely hosed through 6 years of play. They come into the store, with their $500 for the new box, and... oh.. I have to buy one of these "packs" with 2 shitty racing games in it? All I wanted was the PS2, the demo disk, a new Dual Shock ('cos my old one is friiied) and to play all my old games maybe with some texture filtering. Denied. Disappointed. Hand over the $750 :(

I love love love the browser, and the weather thing, and virtual console.. just seeing R-Type in Nintendo's Japanese presentation made me wet. I want to play Super Mario World again, and when I get stuck, I want to press the HOME button, fire up Opera, and look for the GameFAQs article. Oh no more running for a magazine or booting the PC just for that!

Playing all those old Gamecube games for $5-$10 in the bargain and second-user bins at Gamestop will keep me happy for SOOOO long.

Yeah we'd all like it to cost $150, but Nintendo are apparently going to sell the Wii at a profit in contrast to the super-expensive loss-making XBox360 and Playstation 3. They have plenty of scope to cost reduce, lower consumer prices in the future, without it being a real financial tussle for them.

HOORAY! I've never been this excited about a games console in my life.

Re:Anybody really interested?

[grumbel]

N64?

Aehm, N64 had the first true 3D jump'n run (Mario64), first game with lock-on fights (ZeldaOoT), analog-stick, rumblepack, dedicated controls for the camera and tons of other stuff. Its probally the most innovative console around since the beginning of console gaming.

Practical considerations

[Y-Crate]

Does anyone else think that the Wii controller might just get a wee bit annoying to use after a while?

It seems like one of those really awesome ideas until you think about holding your arm in the air and waving it around for a couple of hours. Perhaps it's just me, but I see a decent potential for a good number of people to just get really turned off by the design after a relatively short time.

Try sitting down, picking up a remote control and waving it in front of you at a slow pace for about five minutes. Imagine doing that for at least 30-40min to an hour or more at a time. I can't see how that could be comfortable. (for the purposes of my experimentation, I've used an Apple Remote which is smaller and lighter than the Wii controller, as well as standard TV/Cable box remotes)

Re:Good news for normal humans

[danbeck]

Who says PS3 games will be shit? Great gameplay and great visuals are not mutually exclusive

I say it. What do we have to look forward on the PS3? Riiiiiidge racer and a 1,000 more titles that are simply rehashes of games gone by with larger version numbers. Games will look amazing, but will also be boring as fuck. Sadly, I'm only looking forward to two games on the PS3... MGS4 and FFVIII. Notice something there?

To me, PS3 and Xbox360 represent progress. Releasing an old console in a new casing (Wii) is not progress. Ask any developer what they would like to improve on the platform they are developing for and the most likely answer is "more memory, more storage, faster CPU and better graphics".

And what would they do with it? Graphics. You don't need more memory or a faster CPU to come up with solid game mechanics, engaging story, good control and solid gameplay, just prettier graphics, modeling and animation.

Do you know how many times developers have said to themselves "we would have loved to do that, but PS2/Xbox/Gamecube couldn't handle it"?

Yes, I've heard this said many times, but the context has *always* been graphics, not gameplay.

Expect to see lots of "multiplatform" games released for both PS3 and Xbox 360, but not for Wii because making compromises isn't worth it.

Are you saying that Wii owners won't be subjected to AMAZING multiplatform hits like Naruto, King Kong, Under the Hedge, Monster House, Cars, One Piece, et. al? Thank GOD, I was worried about that.

Advances in technology have made games like Oblivion possible. Is Oblivion better than the RPG games we had ten years ago? Yes, it definitely is. Similar examples can be found in any genre.

NO, it most definitely is not better. You seem to only be able to equate quality games with high-end graphics, but you are sadly mistaken. There are a lot of high quality RPGs out there covering different creative genres, styles and systems that are far better than Oblivion.

Worse, your flagship example here runs like crap on the 360 and it requires a pretty damned powerful PC to boot. Why? Because the damned graphics are so fucking over the top. The story sucks and the premise of wandering around the country like some homeless hippie drunk might be liberating to some, but it makes for a game that quickly loses it's appeal.

Lastly, while this is entirely my personal opinion, wtf is up with the character models in Oblivion? I know that in the real world not everyone is beautiful, but neither is everyone as butt fucking ugly as they are in Oblivion. Does the Bethesda team have a fetish for the morbidly ugly?

Re:WTF?

[Eccles]

and will take bog standard SD cards for expansion. Add an extra $40 there just to get a 64MB card so you can save games (cursing under your breath that if it used standard flash you could get 1GB for the same price).

If it's bog-standard SD (and wikipedia agrees it is), I've seen 1 gig cards for $20, 4 GB for ~$60. You're a bit behind the times there.

Re:Good news for normal humans

[SilentChris]

We'll see. I am an ardent supporter of all the consoles (more competition = better games). While some attempts to introduce better "gameplay" by Nintendo have been successful, others have felt flat.

For example, I just bought Starfox for the Nintendo DS (I waited for the reviews and decided 80% from most gaming rags was enough). The game controls almost entirely with the stylus. You would think that would grant you slightly better control, but it doesn't -- everyone I've seen playing the game is constantly crashing into things. It was an interesting design decision -- does playing with the stylus actually improve the gameplay? Not really. It could've been a very fun game if they just used the traditional controls. (Ditto on Metroid for DS, which is known to give people hand cramps).

I don't doubt the stylus and Wiimote can add innovative spins on gameplay. It just seems a lot of developers right now are throwing darts and hoping a few stick. Which is fine when you're hammering out the beta, but when if you as a consumer have to pay $40 for a Starfox game that is intentionally crippled in the control department, you kind of wonder if it's worth it.

Re:Practical considerations

[Garse Janacek]

Holy shit! You're right! Pure speculation does suggest that the controller will be uncomfortable to use for long periods!

Damn... if only Nintendo had thought to test the controller for 30-40min consecutively, they could have noticed this problem and corrected it before release.... too late now....... why didn't you say something sooner?!

Re:with a SPORTS game

[Eccles]

I think they should make a wiimote that weighs about 20 pounds, so people can get a decent workout while playing.

Re:Anybody really interested?

[Jerf]

So, what exactly would qualify as innovation, anyhow?

If you game the definition to something like "If anybody anywhere ever thought of it before it was deployed, it's not innovative", then you're going to live a very uninnovative life. Which is fine, but such a definition of "innovation" that nothing can meet isn't very useful.

I suppose there aren't any innovating programming languages since LISP since proper LISP macros could emulate pretty much any of them. A consistent definition of "innovative", but not a useful one.

Exchange rates? No, inflation

[joe_bruin]

The SNES released in 1991 for $200. Assuming 2% inflation per year, $200 in 1991 dollars is equal to $269.17 in 2006 dollars. The price of the console is going down!