Nintendo’s next home console, the Wii, will be released on Nov. 19th and sell for $250. This release date is shaping up with stiff competition as the PS3 is scheduled to launch on Nov. 17th while [i]Gears of Wars[/i], Xbox 360’s highly anticipated game, is scheduled to ship on Nov. 7th. [p]The big “N” plans to ship over 4 million systems worldwide by the end of the year, 2 million less than Sony’s PS3. Although the exact number is still unconfirmed, some analysts believe that retailers will be able to sell about 400,000 PS3s and a little over 1 million Wii’s at their launch dates. [p]Buyers of the Wii will be pleased to know that Nintendo is including a game with the system, [i]Wii Sports[/i]. This game will be a compilation of sorts with tennis, golf, basketball, and bowling games that will all use the unique Wii controller.
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"We think all the other initiatives in the home console space have been much too hardcore-gamer-focused. We want consumers to be able to pick up (the Wii controller) and play," says Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. [p]Besides this Sports title, users will also be able to download NES, SNES, N64, and TurboGrafx games right to their console. Most of these downloadable games will cost about $5 to $10 dollars and will be saved on SD Memory cards. There will be about 30 games available for download when the system launches including the classic NES hit [i]The Legend of Zelda[/i].[p]Thanks to the Wii’s high-speed connectivity, users can access news, stream real time weather updates, and message other Wii users.