Nintendo Wii to launch on 19 November for $250

Chicago (IL) - At a widely anticipated press event in New York City today, Nintendo announced release details of its next video game console, the Wii. The system will launch on November 19 and will carry a retail price of $250.

See the Nintendo Wii slide show here (5 pictures)

This news is somewhat surprising, since it had been widely expected that the Wii would launch earlier than Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3), which will be released in the U.S. on 17 November. Last week, Sony announced that they would be unable to meet production demand for their PS3 at launch, scaling back to a 500,000 unit launch. Nintendo officials said that the company plans to ship 4 million Wii consoles worldwide at launch.

Nintendo also announced that games for the Wii will cost $50, which is the standard price of games for the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube. Most games for the Xbox 360 are $60, and PS3 titles are expected to cost even more than that. The next generation of video games is going to be expensive, and Nintendo is trying to capture the market segment of people who cannot afford to spend a ton of money on gaming.

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