Nintendo Wii to Launch November 19

The Nintendo Wii will be hitting stores on November 19, at the cheap price of $249.99 (US). The bundle includes the wireless Wii Remote controller, the Nunchuk Controller, and the compilation of the five sports games, Wii Sports (Baseball, Bowling, Boxing, Tennis, and Golf). Not only is this a good deal, Nintendo spilled some new info about some new features that have been hidden to the public up until now. The following was taken from IGN:

"In a surprise announcement, Nintendo said that it wanted to make Wii a living room centerpiece by shipping the system with features outside of the videogame realm. Wii will include a photo channel, enabling users to display their digital photos through the console. It will also boast regularly updated news and weather channels. In addition, the Opera browser will be available for the system, enabling users to access the web with the console."

If your interested in seeing this interface in action, click on the following LINK. Those videos were posted up on Nintendo JP recently, and they showcase all the following features in action.

Also another interesting tidbit, is that first-party Nintendo Wii titles will be completely region-free. Although third-party developers are not completely expected to hold this feature in there games; however, hopefully they will follow the good example that is Nintendo. Wired got the chance to squeeze this and some more useful information out of Nintendo Vice-President -- Perrin Kaplan. The following was extracting from a post over at Wired:

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.

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On the negative side of the spectrum, the Wii will not contain support for DVD playback. It really doesn't bother me, at all, and I barly see it worth even mentioning, but I guess others are concerned about it. Yip, no DVD playback, so guess you'll have to use another device for playing your DVD's.

Well, thats generally what I have found to be the most important info concerning the Wii, that has released recently.