But, hey, at least all the guess about price and date can stop now. Well, mostly. Japan has their info: 25,000 yen, on the 2nd of December. And the US has theirs: US$250, on the 19th of November. Europe and Australia are still playing the guessing game - though the European press conference is in about 12 hours. Nintendo of Australia are still yet to announce anything, or even acknowledge the existence of the system on their site, for that matter.
It sure made for an interesting day yesterday though. I wrote a piece for the (deservedly) besieged GWN about the fan reaction to the various announcements. Personally, I’m pretty happy with what came out of yesterday - some of the previously unseen games look interesting, and while the price isn’t quite what I would have liked, it’s not unexpected.
Oddly, after I wrote that piece, there now seems to be a lot more in the way of dissatisfaction, as if people really had expected that there would be things announced at the US press conference that weren’t already obvious from the Japanese event. It’s understandable, I suppose - for most people, the idea of having to pay US$250 for the Wii, one game and one controller is pretty hard to hear after so many rumours regarding a US$199 price point.
But there is some good news, courtesy of Wired, who report that the first party games for the system will be region free, although whether or not theird party games will be is being left up to individual publishers. This is pretty great news for anyone outside of the US who doesn’t want to wait for Nintendo of Australia or Europe to get their respective acts together, and especially great news for anyone wanting to import games from Japan.
More than likely, though, the whining will dissipate, just as it did for the 360 launch, and more than likely will for the PS3 launch eventually. So really, all that’s left to do is wait for the 19th if you’re in the US, or for Nintendo of Australia to actually make an announcement if you’re me.