Yep, what everyone has been saying is true. Gamestop will be starting to take pre-orders tomorrow for the Nintendo Wii. I have personally confirmed this with a few managers that I’ve been staying in contact with.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll be there early in the morning with a friend waiting for my pre-order.
Gamestop is accepting pre-orders for the PS3 as of today. Still no word on the date of when the Wii pre-orders will be available, but you know I’ll have info on it that moring if not the night before. 
New close-up images of the Wii. w00t!
In other news, Nintendo will be releasing an ethernet adapter for the Wii. We were simply waiting for confirmation. No clue as to the details though. Question though, why in the world would you buy something like that for $20-40 when you could just buy a wireless router for the same amount and have the ability for the other devices in your home?
As many of you know, I have been following Fantasy Flight Games for a few years now. They make incredibly high quality products (not that the games are always affordable) and produce some well-known titles such as the Warcraft and World of Warcraft board games.
After speaking with their web developer regarding an expired “coming in september” message on the World of Warcraft : Shadows of War (expansion) page, I was informed that the “upcoming” portion of the site is the one they update. So I have been looking at this page for a few weeks now. Just today I noticed an upcoming product about which I am very excited.
This is yet another title by Blizzard Entertainment which has taken the gaming world by storm in it’s time. This PC/Mac game can still be found on shelves in most game stores despite it’s April of 1998 launch date.
Sadly, they have released no further information save for that of the anticipated release date of Summer of 2007. I’m sort of curious as to what “Expected at FFG” means too. Does this mean that it will be completed by this date but not in stores until later, or is this just a poor choice of words?
Doing a search for “Wii” on GameStop’s website provided a plethera of Wii items already, 33 in total in fact. Two items in particular caught my eye. Skins for the Wii. Yeah, that threw me off a little as well. What could this be? I’m sure someone out there knows, but I have no idea.
The two things that come into my mind immediately are a UI (user interface) skin to mod the interface or a mod for the physical console itself. Either way, they are $12.99 each! Seems to cheap (sadly) for a physical mod and way too expensive for a UI mod! Further confusing is the release dates of these items, 11/01/06. 18 days before the release of the actual console itself!! Now, admittedly, they have Mario Galaxy being released on 11/15/06 which does not sound right either which makes me think this is just information from before the official announcement of the Wii release date. Why am I still speculating even after this obvious possibility? Well, the page for Mario Galaxy at least has a disclaimer on it: “Content based on the best available information. Price, release date, content and title are subject to change and/or cancellation by vendor.”, whereas the skins do not. Bah, who knows… I’m sure we’ll be well-informed soon enough.
Originally, Nintendo announced that the Wii browser (Opera) would be an additional cost but free in Japan. Apparently this offer is also valid in the United States for a limited time. I’m terribly glad for that as there is no way I would have purchased it.
“Go here to access the Opera internet browser. In addition to supporting flash (making this a step up from the DS browser), the browser uses the Wiimote to zoom in and out. The browser will normally cost money, but Nintendo will make it available for free download until June of 2006.”
This is just sick… I don’t make $25/hr!
“A shy 8-year-old Long Island boy wonder is making money hand over fist by teaching grownups how to master Halo. … His students hail from as far away as Australia. He’s even given some free pointers to New Jersey Net star Richard Jefferson.”
Nintendo has finally officially announced the launch date and price for the Wii. Surprisingly, for once, the United States will see the hardware before Japan does!
Release Date: Nov 19th, 2006
Price: $249.99
In other news, wii.com has opened the US portion of the site.
Nintendo just launched the Japanese portion of wii.com. Considering it was during the Japanese Wii conference, it can safely be assumed that the United States portion will be opened after the US Wii conference.
A pretty decent looking site. I’m pretty sure it will be there for hype and promo only, meaning not much actual information. More to come after the US conference…
If rumors can be believed,
It appears as though someone leaked a press release which seems to have been pulled soon after which contained information about the Wii’s price and release date.
The document alluded to a $250 price point to be released on November 19th. Many other bloggers of notable reputation have added their own two bits about this since.
edit [9/14/06 @ 11:12pm]: Well, well. It looks as though they’ve placed this article online again, now that the conference has revealed this information, of course.
