As reported in Australian IT, Nintendo has officially announced that the Wii will cost $399AUD and be avaliable for purchase on the 7th December. For your money you'll get the console itself, a 'Wiimote,' a 'Nunchuck' and a copy of Nintendo Sports.
Nintendo have also announced details of their much-vaunted Virtual Console service. According to PalGN:
Nintendo Australia have finally confirmed the Australian Virtual Console details. Virtual Console games will be available to download using Wii Points. For the titles available in 2006, NES games will be available for 500 Wii Points (approximately $7.50), Super NES games will available for 800 Wii Points (approximately $12.00) and N64 games will be available for 1000 Wii Points, (approximately $15.00). Sega Mega Drive games will be available for 800 Wii points. Wii points required for titles available in 2007 may vary. Wii Points Cards will be available to buy in retail stores and are estimated to retail at around $30.00 for 2000 Wii Points.
The list of titles that will be avaliable from the service is slightly different to the recently-announced US one, too, including such titles as Donkey Kong Country and Ristar.
The only one which looks like good value for money is the N64 titles. NES and SNES games for $7.5 and $12 just seems way over priced to me.
I'm really disappointed at the Virtual Console. :(
When it was first announced I thought it'd be awesome, but I was expecting entire game libraries for each system. And at $1USD for NES, $3USD for SNES, $5USD N64 at most. It's also region specific, which mean no Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Seiken Denetsu 3 for us here in PAL land... Some of the best SNES games wont be available. :( TG16/MSX weren't released here, so we might not get games from those, even. Went from awesome feature to craptastic add-on. :(
Extra frowny faces to show how sad it makes me: :( :( :( :(
Definitely a little pricey. I recommend anyone interested in a Wii check out ToysRUs - the pre-order deal comes with a free game (no idea which games qualify though).
The controllers are **way** to expensive though. $100 for a Nunchuck + Wiimote is just too much. I hope the prices drop in the future.
As for the virtual console game list - there had better be a good reason for it (i.e. release extra titles next year). Maybe they can only release games that were previously released here (for some reason - such as ratings...).
C'mon Nintendo - you can do better than this!
Hmm, console at $399 plus a extra controller $100, still only $499 compared to $600 of XBox 360 base price and god knows what price for PS3
Roughly $1000 for the non-gimped version of the PS3.