Nintendo Wii the next-generation console will be launched first in North America on Sunday, November 19th.
Nintendo Wii console is priced at $250 for the US. There are reports that it will have over 25 first and third-party games available at launch.
“Our goal is to bring gaming back to the masses. You see that in our pricing, you see that in the number of units we plan to make available this year and you see that in how we are positioning the Wii to appeal to every member of the household, including but not limited to the hardcore gamer.” said Nintendo America, President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime .
Nintendo Wii will come with one controller and one secondary controller called ‘nunchuck’ for more advanced games. Nintendo Wii- Mote is priced at $39.99 and Nun-Chuck at $19.99. Nintendo Wii Games will cost $50 with downloadable games for the system’s “virtual console” retailing between $5 and $10.
All Nintendo Wii first party games will be wide-screen but there wont be online titles at launch. Also 30 “legacy” titles will be available at launch for Virtual Console.
Nintendo Wii console is going to be region-free unlike the Xbox 360 which comes with a region lock. Like the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo Wii will be able to play games from other regions, like Japan, without any restriction.
But Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo Vice President of Marketing, has revealed that the Wii has a software switch that individual developers can choose to enable if they want to activate region coding though it doesn’t look like the first-party titles from Nintendo will be restricted.
Nintendo expects to ship four million Wii units worldwide by the end of the year.