Japanese Wii-price: 25.000 yen (225 $)

[hermes]

http://www.video gamesblogger.com/2006/05/25/nintendo-announces-japanese-wii-price.htm

And opera-exec says you can browse internet with the wiimote:

http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=17269

-which is maybe a bit unnecessary ... ? It's great for the ds - but internet on console... (oh well it could work - lets see...)

[brkl]

At least 250€, then?

[hermes]

To be precise, they said that 25.000 yen was the maximum price - so this news isn't really news at all - I'm just trying to keep the hype going....

[miffy495]

Still, a $225 ceiling is pretty sweet. This thing'll cost me less than my PSP, and bring what appears to be far more joy. Well, we'll see after loco roco, but you get the idea.

[Nappi]

It wouldn't bother me even if the final price was 250€, considering that it would still be less than the price of most of the good mp3-players.

Internet browser isn’t going to be very important feature for me, but it could certainly be handy sometimes. For example, when watching tv (and if the device really doesn’t take long to start up), it would be easy to check things like “why is that guy famous?” on commercials without having to move from the couch.

[miffy495]

it would be easy to check things like “why is that guy famous?” on commercials without having to move from the couch.

Don't do it, man. Some things are better left a mystery.

[Twilo]

That's like €175 man, slap on 15 bucks delivery and you have an import dream.

Sweet like crazy.

[SpiderMonkey]

"I believe that Web technology will increasingly be a part of the gaming experience, whether it's live content being pushed onto games or you're just checking your Web mail while playing Mario Kart."

The second half of that sentence is probably the dumbest thing I've read this week. By all means include a web browser, but don't act like it's anything other than a cute addition to the system. There's something wrong with you if you want to be able to check your email in the middle of playing a game.

Edit: Oh shit, I lie ... NEW CONTENDER! Here comes game design guru ... Bill Gates to tell us all about motion sensing pads! http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65169

[-MaSQuE-]

An internet access that is always on and that I can check on my TV? That's quite handy.

Not really perfect but it's better than waiting the regular three minutes to access the web on a PC and then finding the page that interests you.

[BigJKO]

People aren't that good at totally standing still. Even pilots actually sit in a chair when they do their flying.

And the Wii controller does not allow you to sit in a chair?

[MrHoatzin]

You can sit behind a chair, as that awful metroid demo made apparent, but chairs are out of the question. Mr. Gates obviously doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

[SpiderMonkey]

Not really perfect but it's better than waiting the regular three minutes to access the web on a PC and then finding the page that interests you.

I guess I should be more specific. I don't see there being anything wrong with that. It's the concept of pausing your Mario Kart game to check your emails, doing a few laps, then pausing and checking again, etc that I found pretty silly.

[-MaSQuE-]

I guess I should be more specific. I don't see there being anything wrong with that. It's the concept of pausing your Mario Kart game to check your emails, doing a few laps, then pausing and checking again, etc that I found pretty silly.

Ah yes, in that light it's not just pretty silly.

It's fucking silly ('scuse me french). Especially if you're right in the middle of some sort of multiplayer match.

Or it could be implemented like a power-up of some sort?!

[Nappi]

For once it could be that 250$ ≠ 250€ ...

[netmonkey]

good deal!

[miffy495]

I'm tempted to import one myself, as $250 US normally means us Canadians get charged somewhere between $300 and $350, despite the fact that the exchange rate would put it at around $275 Canadian. And since the US price is already a bit inflated over the price in yuen, it's looking substantially cheaper to order from Japan than to buy from the EB up the hill.

[Nappi]

Will Wii be region-free btw?

[Moosferatu]

Will Wii be region-free btw?

Is it possible for a console like that to be region free due to PAL and NTSC?

[Thrik]

The web browser is actually a feature with quite some potential, assuming that it can be tied into specific games. For example, games could have an in-game forum, much along the lines of those that initially existed within Tribes 2 and were pretty great.

Having in-game forums is good as it means that everybody who owns the game can get involved with 0 effort, and while they lasted in Tribes 2 they were fairly excellent for sharing tips and generally just being all communal. You could even get over the typing issue if the wiimote turns out to have a built-in mic as rumoured and some voice-to-text technology. Or perhaps just a virtual keyboard like on the DS.

The browser could also be used for having a web-based update page in games for patches and such, like you see in Steam, and various other things. In short, it has potential as something that can be integrated with Wii software, but I can't see it being much use as a standalone application for most.

[-MaSQuE-]

Is it possible for a console like that to be region free due to PAL and NTSC?

Well the PS3 allegedly does it.

(And I do mean that the same hardware seems to be able to output on those two different standards).

[nsps]

PAL and NTSC are formats, whereas region restrictions are, um, restrictions. PAL and NTSC use different framerates, whereas Japan and the US—both of which use NTSC—are in different regions. The former is a technical compatibility issue, the latter is a sales-and-copyright-protecting limit.

As I understand it, it's not that hard to find NTSC-compatable TVs in Europe, so it wouldn't be difficult to buy a region-free Japanese console that MIGHT even be able to play PAL games on a non-NTSC TV.

(PAL-compatible devices are hard-to-find in the U.S.)

For example, one of my DVD players can play PAL DVDs if they aren't region-restricted, but without a PAL-compatible TV, the image is in black and white. So a console would have to include a converter (in the US and Japan anyway) to assure proper picture.

[Nappi]

Completely forgot about PAL and NTSC. Well, at least I don't have to worry about whether or not I should import the console from Japan before the European release.