Late Night Consoling

Nintendo today revealed launch date and pricing information for the remaining major gaming territories, following this week's earlier announcements of the system's North and South American and Japanese launch details. After launching in the Americas on November 19 and Japan on December 2, the system will reach Australia on December 7 for a retail price of AU$399.95 (US$301.32). Europe will follow on December 8 for GBP 179 (US$336.73) and 249 Euros (US$316.33). Nintendo also revealed the system's Canadian launch price of CA$279.95 (US$250.40). Interestingly, this actually puts the machine at an initial price of CA$20 less than its predecessor GameCube, which launched in Canada at CA$299.95 (US$268.29).

Shacknews has also received official comment from Nintendo in regards to certain Wii details that have seen various conflicting reports in recent days, thanks to inconsistent statements by Nintendo executives. A Nintendo representative stated that, contrary to a report from CNet, Wii will not be bundled with component video cables but rather will include composite cables. Component cables will be available separately. Nintendo also clarified that, contrary to statements made by Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan, first party software will indeed be region encoded.

One odd bit of news regarding Wii is that the system's Opera-developed web browser will be a free download via the system's Wii Shop Channel--but only until June 2007. At that point, the software must be purchased. No price was revealed.

Nintendo's official site now lists the full slate of Wii Channels:

- Mii Channel, used to create and store caricatured models of the system owner and his or her friends, which can also be loaded onto a Wii remote for transportation.
- Photo Channel, used to view, sort, and edit digital photos, and create slideshows.
- Forecast Channel, which reports global weather forecastsusing a Google Earth-like interface.
- News Channel, with up to date global news broken into various categories.
- Wii Shop Channel, where users purchase Virtual Console games and can download software such as the Opera web browser.
- Virtual Console Channel, from which Virtual Console games are launched.
- Internet Channel, used to browse the internet with the Opera software; Nintendo was sure to note that the browser supports Flash and Ajax, in case you were wondering.
- Wii Message Board, from which users can send messages and photos to other Wii users, as well as to cell phones. Users can also leave local messages to those within their own household, essentially serving as an electronic corkboard or refrigerator door. This is also the channel through which the always-on WiiConnect24 service can seamlessly deliver downloadable content to games while the system is powered off.
- Disc Channel, simply used to launch the Wii or GameCube game inserted into the system's disc drive.

Nintendo has provided a list of 50 Wii games--41 of which are from third parties--known to be hitting North America by March 31, 2007, which also happens to be the date by which the company plans to have shipped 6 million consoles worldwide. Of these games, 21 are currently expected to launch with the system. Obviously, both lists are still subject to change as developers announce more titles and others inevitably delay some. Launch titles are as follows, prefaced by developer and followed by publisher; no developer is listed when that information has not been released:

- Monster Games' Excite Truck (Nintendo)
- Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo)
- Nintendo's Wii Sports (Nintendo)
- Treyarch's Call of Duty 3 (Activision)
- Raven Software and Vicarious Visions' Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Activision)
- Rapala Tournament Fishing (Activision)
- Toys for Bob's Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (Activision)
- World Series of Poker (Activision)
- Atlus' Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Atlus)
- EA Canada's Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports)
- EA Black Box's Need for Speed Carbon (EA Black Box)
- Konami's Elebits (Konami)
- Amusement Vision's Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz (Sega)
- Ubisoft Romania's Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII (Ubisoft)
- Ubisoft Montreal's Far Cry Vengeance (Ubisoft)
- MTO's GT Pro Series (Ubisoft)
- Monster 4x4 World Circuit (Ubisoft)
- Ubisoft Montreal's Open Season (Ubisoft)
- Ubisoft Montpellier's Rayman Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft)
- Ubisoft Paris' Red Steel (Ubisoft)
- Ubisoft Montreal's Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (Ubisoft)

Microsoft and developer Blueside today announced that Blueside's previously-announced Kingdom Under Fire game for Xbox 360 and PC is now an Xbox 360 exclusive. Kingdom of Fire: Circle of Doom, expected to release worldwide in early 2007. Blueside is largely comprised of core team members from Phantagram's epic RTS franchise Kingdom Under Fire, and most recently developed Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes (Xbox). This game deviates somewhat from the series' established conventions, spinning off the KUF universe into an action RPG containing randomly generated environments and dungeon crawling, as well as online cooperative play. The trademark enormous masses of enemies will, however, carry over. "Finally, the world will be able to see what to expect of Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom," said Blueside VP S.D. Kim. "I think its innovative use of technology and new features that we kept up our sleeves will be pleasant surprises for all the gamers out there."

Seaman (DC, PS2) developer Vivarium has officially announced details on its upcoming Seaman 2 (PS2). Surprisingly, the upcoming incarnation of the bizarre backtalking life sim features a substantially different creature than the original game. Rather than a grumpy human-faced fish, Seaman 2 features a caveman, of all things. Publisher Sega is expected to show the game at next week's Tokyo Game Show.

Former Square Enix designer Yasumi Matsuno is known for his directorial roles on Ogre Battle (NES, PS1, SAT), Tactics Ogre (SNES, PS1, SAT), Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1), and Vagrant Story (PS1). More recently, he was directing Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII (PS2) but left Square Enix and the project before its completion, and apparently disappeared from public view. Matsuno resurfaced this week in a video interview shown at Nintendo's Japanese press event. 1UP has translations of statements made by the developer, indicating that he is currently working on a Wii project. "The Wii controller makes total sense when you think about FPS-like games, but my question was, will the controls fit other existing games?" he noted. "However, when I first tried Mario Galaxy, I realized that the controller fit the game almost scarily well. It allows you to intuitively feel the game and its atmosphere." Given his extensive history as a director of roleplaying games, it seems likely that Matsuna's Wii game is an RPG, but no details were given. It is unknown what studio is developing the title.

Developer Hudson Soft today announced that it is currently developing eight games for Wii. The titles have only been officially confirmed for Japanese release, though given that the announcement was also parotted by the company's US division, it seems likely that some of the games will find their way to North American shores. Hudson's lineup ranges from simple puzzle games, to more fully fleshed titles, to games with no English description. The full list is as follows (all dates currently pertain only to Japan):

- Batinda (Feb. 2007)
- Bomberman Land (working title) (Mar. 2007)
- Crossword (Mar. 2007)
- Fishing Master (working title) (launch)
- Jigsaw Puzzle (Mar. 2007)
- Korinpa (TBA): A Marble Madness-like game with world-tilt control similar to Monkey Ball
- Sudoku (launch)
- Wing Island (working title) (TBA): Hudson's "Flight Game" first announced just prior to E3

Hudson has also stated that it is currently planning at least 30 TurboGrafx-16 games for Wii's Virtual Console, with multiple titles coming at launch.