Nintendo Wii Final Launch Details: November 19, $250

Nintendo's big announcement of the final launch details for their Wii console was hijacked today by a New York Times story, just hours before Nintendo officially confirmed that the Wii will retail in the US for $250, starting November 19.

That's two days after Sony's PlayStation 3 launch on November 17 (at least in the US), which is somewhat disappointing for those of us who trusted Nintendo's previous promise of going on sale before Sony. On the other hand, the Wii is expected to be available in much larger numbers (not to mention a lot cheaper) than the PS3, as Nintendo plans to ship four million Wii units worldwide this year.

At today's press conference it was confirmed that around 30 Wii games will be available by the end of 2006, out of which at least half (some say 25+) are expected from day one. Among the launch titles will be the highly anticipated action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, although its GameCube version has just been delayed until December 11. Excite Truck will also be part of the console's launch offering, and so will Wii Sports - which will actually be bundled with all Nintendo Wii units in the US!

The standard price for first-party Wii games will be $50, and as for classic NES, SNES and N64 games downloadable to the Wii's Virtual Console, their price will range from $5 to $10. The original Zelda is also said to be one of them, and by the end of the year a total of 60 classics are likely to be re-released (half of them from day one).

However games aren't the only thing that Nintendo talked about today. In fact, the Wii will offer an incredible amount of additional features through its "media channels". Twelve of them are expected to accompany the launch as well, including up-to-date news and weather channels (I just love that interactive globe view!), a photo channel (allowing you to browse and edit digital photos stored on SD cards), as well as an Internet channel, giving full web browsing access via the Opera web browser - which will be available at an additional cost.

Most of these channels are presented in short videos on Nintendo's website here, and I have to admit I was really amazed to see what that cute lil' Wii is capable of. If you're more into games, there's also another clip you can view on their website, featuring plenty of gameplay footage. All in all, this looks really great. Just wait 'til I make my news posting rounds from it!

Unfortunately we're still waiting for the European launch details, but we should have them tomorrow after Nintendo's press event here on the old continent. And as for the company's homeland, the Wii will only arrive in Japan on December 2, which might seem curios at first. But in fact, the same thing happened with the Nintendo DS launch back in 2004: it was first released in the US on November 21, and later in Japan on December 2. I wonder what they'll be popping out in November / December of 2008...

P.S. Here's a supposed picture of the Wii package:

UPDATE: The European and Australian launch details have also been announced.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)