[So The Wii Looks To Have A Pretty Impressive Launch...]

From wii.ign.com

US Wii Price, Launch Date Revealed

The news we've all been waiting for.

by Kathleen Sanders and Matt Casamassina

September 13, 2006 - (This story has been updated with new and clarified information from Nintendo's North American presentation.)

Nintendo fans finally have a price and release date for the company's new generation console, Wii. The Big N has officially announced that the system will hit retail in North and South America for $249.99 on November 19. The New York Times initially published the story and seems, in fact, to have beaten Nintendo Co. Ltd with the news.

Nintendo's Wii console will come packaged with one Wii remote, one nunchuck attachment, an AC adapter, an audio/video cable, a sensor bar, sensor bar stand, a Wii console stand, and two batteries. The US package will also come bundled with a copy of Wii Sports, a compilation sports game that best shows off the mechanics of the system's unique controller. Wii Sports features tennis, baseball, golf, and previously-unannounced bowling and boxing games.

Nintendo said it would provide Wii owners with more than 25 unique games this year.

Wii's much-talked-about Virtual Console download service, which enables gamers to purchase classic games, will offer a library of some 30 titles by the end of the year. Titles will include entries from the Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong franchises, Nintendo said. Virtual Console games will cost between $5 and $10 each. Specifically, Nintendo Co. Ltd. announced that Virtual Console games would cost 500 yen ($5), 800 yen ($8) or 1,000 yen ($10); we're presuming these prices are for NES, SNES, and N64 games respectively.

The Big N confirmed that it would charge $49.99 for its new Wii games, which is $10 cheaper than the cost of typical Xbox 360 titles. (Please note that this price is for first-party games; prices have not been announced for third-party Wii games -- publishers are free to set their own prices on Wii titles.)

Nintendo revealed that Wii's various controllers would be available to buy separately at launch. The Wii remote will cost $39.99; the nunchuck $19.99 and the classic controller about $20.

In a surprise announcement, Nintendo said that it wanted to make Wii a living room centerpiece by shipping the system with features outside of the videogame realm. Wii will include a photo channel, enabling users to display their digital photos through the console. It will also boast regularly updated news and weather channels. In addition, the Opera browser will be available for the system, enabling users to access the web with the console.

One of the channels available on Wii is called the "Mii Channel." Here, players can customize avatars by selecting from a variety of face shapes, hair styles, color schemes, and so on. The hook is that these avatars can not only be stored on the console itself, they can also be transferred to the Wii remote itself -- presumably so players can easily access their personalized characters and take them with them when playing against friends.

Sony recently announced that it would ready 400,000 PS3s in North America and another 100,000 in Japan for the system's launch. Nintendo said it plans to ship 4 million Wii units worldwide by the end of the year.

Nintendo will launch Wii in Japan on December 2 of this year for 25,000 yen, the company revealed. North America will get the system first.

Nintendo of Japan has added an amazing breakdown of the Wii's various interfaces to its overseas website. Everything is in Japanese, but the videos speak for themselves. Readers can check the site directly for a 14-page walkthrough of the system's ambitious features. Included in the list of options are demonstrations of the weather forecast, Mii, and photo channels. The forecast launches a virtual globe that can be spun in any direction. In the photo channel, users can load hundreds of their favorite photos and edit them in real-time. It's possible to message friends with Mii character profiles and to send pictures in messages. And the videos demonstrate surfing the Web with Wii's Opera browser. These are absolute must-see videos.

There's a lot of talk in respect of Nintendo's launch, and I must say, aside from certain launch titles being pushed back (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption being one of those titles), the launch of Wii looks that much more impressive than I admitedly thought it would be. Not only are we now receiving a good 75 to 100 dollars worth of extra stuff, but we're getting classic titles from the past via virtual console for cheaper than most trade and swap game stores. It also comes with a lot of capabilities. I'm very impressed with the way this system is shaping up, and as much as people want to knock it for taking a significant hardware hit in comparison to the other mammoth consoles (Playstation 3 and Xbox 360), it really looks to be far more capable of things that interest me as a gamer. There's a definetly a bridge made by Nintendo with this attempt to change the gaming experience, and I'm now far more excited about this than I was a handful of days ago.

Thoughts?

[Clever Graphics]

Well now don't I feel silly?

I really need to stick to posting on the electronic's section.

[Clever Graphics]

(or I have no clue what I'm talking about and I sound really ignorant - one of the two).

I agree with two of the two.

So you agree that I was right in the first part of the post and then agree that I am both inaccurate with what I say and that I'm ignorant? Interesting.

Anyways, most of what I understand about this kind of stuff stems to calculator programming that I picked up from Matt. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about at all, I just figured in premise (that's if the parameters for what I would've done exist in programming), it wouldn't be as hard as it seemed.

[Clever Graphics]

I don't think it's a question of how it's done, but more of why anyone would sacrifice their time to do so.

Though, I'm sure it's really simple, I just lack the patience and overall motivation to do something so clever.

(or I have no clue what I'm talking about and I sound really ignorant - one of the two).

[Ps2 Or Xbox 360]

Adapters to turn those old style connections into coaxial cable are a dime a dozen. I wish I could remember what they are called....

I should definately look into that, then. I have original copies of Pac Man, Dig Dug, Asteroids, among others.

[Help Me Please]

Don't let friends softmod your Xbox. That's always going to be a mistake, chances are they watched someone who knew what they were doing help them or simply read a tutorial online. I'm not too into modding, but you may want to invest in a stick, as suggested, to beat your friend. There's not much left to do unless you go to one of the game stores and ask for help.

[Ps2 Or Xbox 360]

I own both.

My input - don't listen to the people demanding that you 'wait for the PS3'. I've owned consoles from every major company including an original Atari (which is now sitting in my basement without a compatible place to actually play it - they don't make TV's with the kind of input-output required).

Bugs are inevitable, and the only system I never featured any bugs on were the launch Nintendo systems I have. I won't pimp the Nintendo, and that's because there's not enough games and compatible accessories to make it a viable choice for anyone wanting to purchase it (the price and core-group of solid games aside, there's really not much else).

The Playstation 2 had bugs when it first came out, bug similar to the Xbox 360 sitting in my living room. Over-heating, disk burns, flat out not working - I've seen and heard them all. One of my good friends saved up and bought a launch Playstation 2, and that lasted less than a year before he had to replace it. This, however, doesn't nearly cover every game who owned the system, as I purchased one not long after him and have had it successfully working since I bought it.

Regardless, don't buy into system failure rumors, for the most part the people experiencing that problem are those who bought launch 360's. I got mine in March, and aside from it lens burning my FIFA World Cup 2006 disk, I've had no problems (for the record, my dog ran by knocking the disk from the tray causing the burn and massive scratching, one of my only complaints about the console itself, but I'll cover that).

For your buck, you're getting a lot with the 360. Bloated? Not really - the Hard Drive effectively allows you to stream music and other media from your PC to your 360 if you're buying the non-core package deal (which is great, don't get sucked into the cheaper buy, because upgrading the individual accessories is going to run you about twice the cost of the core itself). There's a lot to offer - as much as people want to complain about games 'being rushed', there's a couple of great buys out there ranging from RPG (Dead Rising and Oblivion, in spite of the fact that it's a better PC buy) to fantastic sports games like Fight Night Round 3 and NCAA 2007 (although NCAA has been stated as a better purchase on the Playstation 2). Rockstar Table Tennis is a blast and Live has a lot to offer in terms of what you can purchase. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter is awesome as well, even better with Live. There's stuff on there to keep you busy, a lot of fun games, so those claiming there's not much to offer on the 360 probably don't know much of wha they're talking about.

That's my case for the 360. It's a nice system, I like it. It's easier for me, a guy who's not on the PC all that much and doesn't have the time to put in a lot of PC gaming. Those making the case for purchasing or building a PC don't account for the fact that they probably spend more time on it be it for work or for pleasure. I find consoles that can hook up to my TV and can be transported on the road easily, as well as play well with a core group of friends makes for much better fun. That's just me, I've never been a big PC gamer.

As for the Playstation 2, it's cheaper, it's quality, it's got a lot of great games - really, it's making a choice. Which buy is going to be better for you. Owning both makes it more difficult for me to tell you one or the other, they're both great buys, at least in my opinion. Hope I could help out.