Nintendo Japan today held a press conference to announce the Wii information the world has been waiting for. In Japan, Wii will launch on December 2, 2006 for 25,000 yen, the same price the GameCube launched for back in 2001. Sixteen games from ten different companies will be available at launch.
Nintendo also revealed details of Wii’s interface (The system will use different channels for weather, friends, send photos from phones to your Wii), the GUI of Wii, Virtual Console pricing, what’s in the box and new games plus screens from the press conference!
Everything you ever wanted to know about Wii inside. That is … everything but the Australia date and price which will be revealed tomorrow.
VC Pricing
Famicon (NES) – 500 yen ($5.66AUD)
Super Famicon (SNES) – 800 yen ($9.06AUD)
Nintendo 64 – 1,000 yen ($11AUD)
The Japanese will have the option of using their Credit Card to make purchases, or a Points card (Eg. iTunes cards).
Respected Japanese magazine Famitsu reports thirty Nintendo games and thirty PC Engine/Megadrive (Turbo-Grafx/Genesis) will be available before year’s end. The price of the PC Engine/Megadrive games is unknown. 10 New Virtual Console games will be released each month, Nintendo also listed over 20 companies including Capcom, Sega, Konami that will be supporting the Virtual Console.
Also revealed was the price of Zelda: The Twilight Princess and Wii Sports. Zelda will retail for 6800 yen ($76AUD) while Wii Sports (which includes Baseball, Tennis, Golf, Bowling and Boxing) appears to be a budget title and will retail for 4800 yen ($54AUD). Presumably this is an indication of a price range between 4800 and 6800 for Wii games in Japan. It is unknown if other regions such as Australia will follow a similar pricing method.
Including in each Japanese Wii box is the following:
1 x Wii console
1 x Wii controller strap
1 x Wii Remote
1 x Nunchuck controller
1 x AC adaptor
1 x AV cable
1 x Stand
1 x Support plate
1 x Sensor bar
1 x Sensor bar stand
2 x Battery (AA)
For extra controllers, Nintendo Japan will sell the Wii Remote and Nunchuck attachment seperately. The remote will cost 3800 yen ($43AUD), while the Nunchuck attachment will cost 1800 yen ($20AUD). The Classic controller (used for VC games) will also cost 1800 yen.
Also shown off was the Wii interface, with editing software for photos, characture design for a Wii based avatar as well as everything else. We’ll have more information on this tomorrow when we get the english press releases and of course the Aussie date and price.
Please note that AUD prices are direct conversions. They are a guide only.
Links to Check out
Game Lineup
Wii Interface
Weather Channel
Friends Channel
News Channel
Pokemon and Zelda Trailers
Japanese Launch Titles via 1up
- Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Atlus)
- Elebits (Konami)
- Necro-Nesia (Spike)
- Super Monkey Ball: Uki Uki Party Daishuugou (Sega)
- Swing Golf Panya (Tecmo)
- Wing Island (Hudson)
- Kororinpa (Hudson)
- SD Gundam Revolution (Namco Bandai)
- Tatsujin Festival (Namco Bandai)
- Tamagotchi no Pika Pika Daitouryou! (Namco Bandai)
- Red Steel (Ubi)
- Wii Sports (Nintendo)
- Odoru Made in Wario (WarioWare Smooth Moves) (Nintendo)
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo)
- My First Wii (Nintendo)
2006 Post-Launch Titles
- Pokemon Battle Revolution (Nintendo)
2007 and Later Titles
- Dragon Quest Swords
- Sword of Legendia (potential Tales of Legendia spin-off) (Namco Bandai)
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (Square Enix)
- “”Gun Shooting”" (presumably Virtua Cop) (Sega)
- Pac-Man Carnival (Namco Bandai)
- Gundam (Namco Bandai)
- Bomberman Land (Hudson)
- Legend of the River King (Natsume)
- Harvest Moon (Natsume)
- Rayman (Ubisoft)
- Excite Truck (January) (Nintendo
- Fire Emblem (February) (Nintendo)
- Wii Big Brain Academy (Spring) (Nintendo)
- Disaster (Spring) (Nintendo)
- Project HAMMER (Nintendo)
- Super Paper Mario (former GC title) (Nintendo)
- Wii Music 2007 (Nintendo)
- Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo)
- Smash Bros X (HAL/Nintendo)
- Battalion Wars 2 (Nintendo)
- Donkey Kong Barrel Jet Race (former GC title) (Nintendo)
- Forever Blue (Nintendo)
- Mario Strikers Charged (Nintendo)
- Mario Party 8 (Nintendo)
- Metroid Prime 3 Corruption (Nintendo)
- Eye Shield 21 (Nintendo)
- Animal Crossing (Nintendo)
- Kirby (presumably former GC title) (Nintendo)
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