Wii date and price by September

by Ludwig Kietzmann { Jun 7th 2006 at 11:34AM }

Speaking at a business briefing in Tokyo, Satoru Iwata has declared that our desperate and entirely unhealthy desire to learn the Wii's launch date and price will be satiated by September at the latest. Unless Nintendo's going for a cataclysmic surprise launch strategy (see: Sega Saturn), a release period of late October to early November seems to be a fair guess.

And that's all it is -- a fair guess. As you are no doubt aware, the internet is a veritable minefield of launch dates leaked from top secret sources and overheard exchanges. Watch your step out there.

Tags: launch, Launch date, LaunchDate, Nintendo Wii, NintendoWii, Revolution, Satoru Iwata, SatoruIwata, Wii, wii price, WiiPrice

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sense @ Jun 7th 2006 11:57AM

Wow, I completely misread that article. I thought September was the launch date. I was so excited I posted it on my own blog. Sigh...Oh, well.

Korexz @ Jun 7th 2006 12:41PM

Still waiting on a keyboard announcement here!

Also, I am waiting to hear that Dreamcast games will be on the Virtual Console. IGN is doing a special on DC games, re-reviewing all 243 of them, and I ask myself why? Seems to make sense being that Genesis games will be on the VC.

Sure the games are bigger, but what stops you from loading direct from the net? Buffer the game and load it up and query the web service again when you need to load more of the game.

I think it is very reasonable to assume this is coming down the pipe. Plus it would keep �hard� copies of the DC games out of console owners hands, and off the SD memory cards.

vidGuy @ Jun 7th 2006 1:16PM

Wow, that post looks familar! ;)

Anyway, it's not official but Iwata hinted at USB keyboard and mouse use when he said that USB components would be operational. Now, I imagine that's only for Opera / UI use, not for in game, but the ability is there. Just imagine, you could have the option to use the Wii remote or a wireless keyboard/mouse setup for some FPS!

I don't think adding choice Dreamcast games to the Virtual Console is out of the question considering the confirmed Sega downloads, especially since it will be easy to expand storage space with SD cards and external harddrives. But the problem of "hard copies" exists with all games, not just DC games.

IMO, the best way to prevent piracy is to make the games available for download in an already-compiled state, one that will only run on the Wii processor. It's easy to emulate software, but harder to emulate hardware. Now, the other problem you'd have is gamers trading SD cards, backing them up on PCs, and transfering compiled games. Nintendo could prevent this by linking your VC purchases to a user ID, or a unique address for your Wii hardware (similar to a PC MAC addy).