Wii Hits Stores November, Mario Ecstatic

Nintendo’s much talked about video game console finally has a release date — it will be launched in the Americas on November 19th with a price tag of $249.99 or seventeen gold coins. The system, called Wii (pronounced “wee” but the name is bad enough for fans to consider, “why” instead) is set to break all video gaming standards with a new kind of controller that will detect 3-D space. The long-awaited console can break or make Nintendo — competing with Microsoft’s and Sony’s more adult-oriented systems — but it’s a gamble that the company that made italian plumbers famous is willing to take.

The new controller will allow users to not only fully immerse themselves in the beauty of the many worlds Nintendo has created — from the green forests and beautiful landscapes of Zelda, to the dramatic famous Nintendo icon battles that is Smash Brothers — but will also be an experiment for the gaming world as a whole. If Nintendo’s new nunchuk-meets-Virtual Reality controller setup is successful, it’s going to change the way we play video games.

The console will include five sports games, called Wii Sports, and thirty more games will be available for the Wii by the end of the year.

Furthermore, every Wii console will include an on-screen “channel” system, called, quite cleverly, the Wii Channel Menu. The channels will allow users to get news or weather, pick games to play, view and send photos, and even make your own playable caricatures to use within the games themselves.

Everyone is watching Nintendo closely and the company itself stands on a very precarious edge between gimmicky/ridiculous and edgy/groundbreaking. We’ll decide which it is when November 19th rolls around.

For more information on the Wii check out the Nintendo website.