Dear Reader:
Nintendo to announce Wii launch date/price by September *UPDATE* Virtual Console pricing included
Nintendo held a press conference today where they released some information about their company operations, the Wii, and DS as well. A few key points Mr. Iwata made were…
The Wii’s official price and launch date will be announced by September
Nintendo plans to supply 2 million DS units per month worldwide
Nintendo expects to sell through 16 million DS units by the end of the fiscal year, March 2007
“Although I will not call a certain sales goal for the Wii console, I can promise that we will reach sales clearly over those of the Gamecube.” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata (loose translation)
Mr. Iwata also stated that even if the Wii meets Nintendo’s sales projections, it will have little impact on Nintendo’s profit…as far as short term is concerned.
Summary of other info from Neo-Gaf post
Stats (for Japan):
32% of DS owners bought Animal Crossing
23% Mario Kart
14% Tetris
20% New Super Mario Bros
10 titles have shipped a million units
Opera will be delayed a month… coming out in July now.
The Oneseg TV tuner will go on sale in Autumn and will cost “approximately half the price of the DS hardware” = ~8400 yen.
Nintendo aims to continue the Touch Generations series, with the balance between “non-games” and games being very important to them.
Pokemon will have wi-fi worldwide voicechat.
Shipping 4 million by the end of the calendar year (worldwide)
Pokemon Battle Revolution will be out a few months after Pearl/Diamond and will link with the DS game.
New games (not just the emulated stuff) on Virtual Console could also be 500-1000 yen.
Main DS-Wii connectivity will be:
- touch-screen controller
- Wii = DS station, like the shop kiosks
- DS games can be expanded via Wii
For a video feed and slideshow of the presentation, you can click HERE. N128 says to fast forward to 01:23:35 to see the Pokemon Battle Revolution clip.
Huge thanks to everyone who emailed me about the Pokemon info! That’s what I get for going to bed at 6:00 in the morn!