Features & News

Wii U Price, Date, Premium/Home models and more finally confirmed

September 13, 2012, Author: Ray Willmott

Nintendo have certainly made us wait, but after this morning’s conference, we finally have concrete details about their latest machine.

Wii U launches in Japan on December 8th and will retail for 31,500 Yen for Premium and 26,250 Basic. If conversion rate is what it is, that makes the Wii U console roughly £250 for the top flight, premium model and around £210 for the home. Bear in mind, though, international prices do vary. The White Console will be the Home System and Black will be Premium. It is possible to connect external hard drives via USB.

The conference began with Iwata telling us Wii U will support full 1080p (this may surprise some after the Mass Effect 3 / 720p news). The main memory is 1gb and the system 1gb. Nintendo also confirmed that discs will hold 25gig of memory.

Wii U is apparently 20 times more powerful than Wii. Iwata confirmed that Wii will also see a significant price drop (around $125)

Iwata reconfirmed that all Wii pads (such as Nunchuk, Wii Remotes and Balance Board) are compatible with Wii U. He also assured us that Virtual Console and Wii Ware titles are all transferrable.

Iwata explained that there will be very little latency between controlling a game on the gamepad and for the actions to happen on your TV. After playing Rayman Legends at Gamescom, I can totally endorse this.

Iwata next talked up the social element, explaining how families will come together with the gamepad and using all your pre-existing Wii peripherals. Providing you had a Wii at some point, then at Wii U launch you’ll be able to get all the family involved with Wii U without having to buy additional accessories. However, a Sensor Bar will not be bundled in with Wii U. So, you’re either going to have to use your pre-existing one with Wii, or fork out for a new one.

NintendoLand is not being bundled (In Japan at least) but will be a launch title alongside New Super Mario Brothers U!

Seperate gamepads are expected to retail for around £107, and a gamepad charge and play stand will also be sold seperately at launch.

There will be two types of Wii U systems at launch. A home system for 8GB and a Premium for 32GB. The Premium set will include the machine, pad, HDMI cable, power cables, adapator and 32gb Flash Memory. This is four times the basic home set.

Nintendo Network was also briefly touched upon. By purchasing the Premium system, it will be possible to get 10% discounts for games.

Lots to talk about, then. Even though Nintendo still manage to surround everything in such mystery.

What do you think? Is this too expensive?

EU prices are announced at 3PM today so feel free to check back later.

Apologies for any changes, Japanese translation is difficult. Some things had previously been misquoted and we want to make sure all the information you see here is correct.

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