Well, Nintendo held press conferences today so that we could all really find out about the Wii, that is, we found out when it was coming how, how much it would cost, and some other fun stuff. As to the initial information, the will will be coming out in North America on November 19th and in Japan on December 2nd. It’s going to cost $250 in the United States and 25,000 yen in Japan. Pretty standard. They also announced a point system that will allow you to buy the older games and such. They are as follows NES 500yen/$5, SNES 800yen/$8, N64 1000yen/$10. Of course, these correspond to the Wii points at a 1-1 ratio for yen and pennies in Japan and America respectively.

Probably the most bothersome thing to me, however, was the announcement that, while the Wii comes with a controller and nunchuck (Not nunchaku, that would be WEIRD), the cost of a full extra controller ends up being $60/5600yen. That’s right. The controller itself costs $39.99/3800yen and the nunchuck attachment is $19.99/1800yen. Wow. Talk about fucking you in the ass. Oh and if you want the ‘classic controller’ adaptor, that costs another $19.99/1800yen. Awesome. So two extra controllers puts me $180 into a $250 system. I don’t feel so good about that.

Here’s some photos of the Wii casing and stuff. And to end off, I’ll throw down a list of Japanese launch titles, since that’s the only one I’ve seen so far. So here it is, for your viewing pleasure. Please to enjoy.

• Trauma Center (Atlus)
• Elebits (Konami)
• Machikuru Domino (Success)
• Necro-Nesia (Spike)
• Super Monkey Ball Uki-Uki Party Shuugoh (Sega)
• Swing Golf Panya (Tecmo)
• Wing Island (Hudson)
• Kororinpa (Hudson)
• SD Gundam REVOLUTION (Bandai Namco)
• Ennichi no Tatsujin (Bandai Namco)
• Tamagotchi no Pika Pika Daito-ryo-! (Bandai Namco)
• Red Steel (Ubisoft)
• Wii Sports (Nintendo)
• Odoru Made In Wario (Nintendo)
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo)
• Hajimete no Wii (Nintendo)

Oh, and just now, Joystiq did a big round up of all sorts of shit that I’m not going to reformat and repost. So look at it if you want.

Update: Looks like first party games will be region free, but Nintendo is allowing companies to lock down their games to a region if they want, much like the Xbox 360. This makes me sad, seriously, because it means it’s a gamble whether or not a given game or company will lock their games, and the only way to know will be through online lists and shit like that. PS3, I still love you most.

Will the Wii be region-free? Yes. Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction. Kaplan implied there might be a region lock that publishers would be able to flip on, but it doesn’t sound like the first-party titles from Nintendo will be restricted.