Wii spreads all over Europe (and down under)

THE US LAUNCH of the Nintendo Wii was confirmed this morning as occurring on the 19th November, with the console priced at $249.99, as stated in the INQUIRER yesterday. You can view some conference pics here.

The Japanese and US conferences were followed by the European-centric meeting, held at 12pm today in London, where Nintendo finally announced the pricing and launch dates for the European market - but not until after a lively Wii tennis game between Tim Henman and Greg Rusedksi, commentated by Gabby Logan. Which was nice.

The Wii will be launched in Europe on December 8th and will be priced at £179 in the UK or €249 (around £168) in the Euro-taking mainland. Similarly to the US, the Wii will come packaged with Wii sports, unlike the Japanese console package.

The US price translates to around £133 or €197, so it looks like Blighty and Europe (to a slightly lesser extent) are being ripped off once again.

Australia will receive the Wii on December 7th priced at $399.95 (AUD), also including Wii sports, which translates to about £160.

Nintendo have also announced that the Wii console will not offer DVD playback, stating that most people already have a DVD player, whilst also allowing them to reduce costs. Third party publishers will have the option to region-lock their games, similar to Xbox 360 software, and it will not be compulsory. µ

See Also
Why Nintendo Wii will succeed
Further Wii info trickles out
Wii splashes out at ¥25,000
First Wii CPus shipped