Nov. 19th

November 19th & $250USD is the release info for the Wii.

Really quite boring videos here; http://wii.com/en_US/

I would say that those videos show what could be a really interesting interface. However, they are certainly not the most exciting way to introduce a new video game system to the world. I'm assuming that the site will change rapidly over the coming weeks, and, you know, show games.

Anyway: my thoughts on the Wii announcement:

$250: a bit higher than I would have liked, but that is in part due to the Wii Sports pack-in, so it is not too bad.

Nov 19th: Whatever. I can wait.

$40 for a remote and $20 for the nunchuck attachment: A little high for my tastes, but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.

The "Wii Channels:" I'm not sold on the internet browsing or the photo channel, and I can see the News Channel being moderately useful. The Mii channel looks like a fun addition to games like Wii Sports. Imagine making a Zenko model to box with. The Weather Channel seems useless at first, but there is already talk of linking it to certain games. Ideas thrown about are Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon games where the in-game waether matches the weather of the city you live in. The Messanging Channel will be a better way to link with other people online than what currently exists on the DS.

Virtual Console game pricing ($5 for NES $8 for SNES and $10 for N64 games): high enough to make me choose old games a little more carefully. Fewer impulse buys for me. They are going to capitalize on my desire to play games on my TV rather on through ROMs on my computer.

Also, when I get one, I hope I don't turn into this guy.