Nintendo has finally announced the release of the WiiU, said to be “20 times” more powerful than the Wii but suspected to be less powerful than the PS3, with it getting a Japanese release on December 8th and prices starting at some $340 for the normal model, with the controller alone costing $175.
Japanese prices are set at ¥26,250 for the “basic” model (¥25,000 excluding consumption tax), and ¥31,500 for the “premium” model.
The basic model has 8GB of storage and a white pad indicating poverty, whilst the premium model has 32GB, a black pad signifying eliteness, a stand, dock and voucher for Nintendo’s premium network, although in performance terms they are apparently identical with both sporting 1080p HDMI.
The WiiU GamePad costs ¥13,440 when sold separately. Initial games including Super Mario Bros. U are set at the usual massively inflated Japanese prices of ¥5,000-6,000, and so will presumably be priced normally elsewhere.
Nintendo has not yet announced international pricing and release details (a US announcement is due shortly), but given the gaming industry tradition of offering bargain US prices whilst overcharging everyone else, US prices starting at $299 do not seem unlikely.
Patiently waiting for Love plus on this damn console.
provided, not another FOREVER ARONE korean guy marries his Wii U Love plus GF.
Sankaku users with their typical foresight and intelligence are already bashing a console WHICH HASN’T been released yet. Also, criticising graphics is very mature.
I’m excited by some of these titles and might buy it at launch.
175 for the controller? I’m sorry but I bet you hard money that a 10″ tablet you can buy for 175 by year’s end will probably have more horsepower than this total piece of crap, and additionally should be able to accept a nice usb gamepad and have hdmi out to shoehorn into a game console.
I certainly hope this all goes down in flames. Majorly expensive for subpar very locked down hardware. Those days are over, or should be.
>sees pricing
More like the WiiFU in the ass, mouth & c♥♥t.
It won’t be region-free = hackers will tear it apart.
Nintendo is just too stupid to realize that simple steps like region freedom are actually much more helpful than any nifty anti-piracy architecture.
It’s not Nintendo; it’s Japan.
All they care about is limiting reverse importing, regional sales figures & licensing fees.
Oh, that’s why the PS3, PSP and PSVita are regionfree and XBox 360 isn’t! :O
Oh wait, Sony is a japanese company and Microsoft american *gasp*
shows how much you know dip s♥♥t. this day and age the consoles aren’t region coded, its the game its self that prevents the OS on the console from working. Hence, why when i bought max anarchy for my AMERICAN xbox 360 it booted up like a dream and on top of that i still got achievements. its the maker of the games that create the region code. none of the consoles currently out have region coding on it. you just have to find the games that aren’t region coded. but good luck with that.