Wii-stravaganza!

Nintendo had their big Wii blowout in New York, Europe and Japan, today. Pretty much all the unanswered Wii questions were put to rest. For example: we now know that it will be released Nov. 19 for $250. Also, it has a sports compilation packaged in which contains simple versions of tennis, baseball, bowling, boxing, and golf. This is really good news for anyone who wants a Wii right away but can't afford a lot of games. One of the really interesting features of the game (and the system in general) is the Mii. Video here. Miis are basically avatars that you create for yourself on the Wii console. In a game like Wii Sports, you actually use your avatar as the character. Stats are recorded and your avatar can actually improve over time. And you can save your avatar to one of your controllers (they have built-in memory, as if they didn't do enough already) so you can take it to a friend's house to play. Miis are accessed through the Wii's main menu interface which is called Wii Channel.
One of the features I'm most excited about is the fact that the Wii is region-free. Meaning if there's a game in Japan that won't see the light of day in America, I can now import it and play it without having to mod my system or buy an extra boot disc, which have been the only options for any system in the past. I think this is a fantastic move, and it's always been a thorn in my side. There have been some sweet games I would have imported in the past, except for the fear of having to bust open my system and fiddle with it's insides, thus voiding any warranty it might have had. Not that I've ever had to make use of a Nintendo warranty at any point, since they seem to be the only company left on Earth that makes a product that works great forever.
Finally, I'm posting a link to a new video from the brand new Japanese Wii site. Why the Japanese site? Well, because they haven't posted it on the American yet. It's probably because it's chock full of gameplay footage for games that aren't necessarily coming out here. Still, it's the most comprehensive video of Wii gameplay footage yet (including games that were just announced today), and if it weren't so frustratingly poor in image quality it just might have been my favorite online video ever. Alas, it looks like it was created on a five-year-old version of Realplayer. It's still worth checking out if you're the least bit interested in Wii. The first game shown in the video, which I just realized I still haven't linked to, is Wii Sports. There's also footage of the new Sonic game, Super Mario Galaxy (sadly, not a launch game because it looks really good), a collection of Miini games (that's my nickname for them, let it be known that I was the first), a Dragon Quest game, a Resident Evil game, a Fire Emblem game, some kind of cooking game, a fishing game, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (a launch title, since it was actually designed as a Gamecube game). And that's not all of the games shown. Unless you've been following Wii news for a while you probably won't be able to pick out what some of these games actually are, although some of them are obvious. Some of them I've never heard of before, and some of them are probably way too strange to be released in America. Oh, there's also a music conducting game which I'm looking forward to.
And since I'm coining original phrases here, let it also be known that I've come up with Wii-Fii for the Wii's wireless online capabilities (you see what I did there?). I should probably get that copy-righted before Nintendo snatches it up.
So anyway, that's all the great Wii news for now. I'm sure I'll be posting about it again in the not-too-distant future. I'm just glad that the Wii is getting the mainstream hype it deserves. The overall vibe is that Wii is awsome, XBox 360 is pretty great, and PS3 is a friggin joke ($600? Really?). Nintendo has been shafted by the media for far too long now. Gamecube is a great system and still gets a lot of derision. I think the current battle between the DS and the PSP is a pretty good forecast of what will happen between the Wii and PS3.
Speaking of forecast, did I mention that one of the Wii Channels is a world-wide weather forecaster? Okay, that's enough. I have carpal tunnel syndrome now.

Addendum: The Wii is apparently not region-free. Perrin Kaplan screwed the pooch when she said otherwise. Aw hell, I think I'll still buy one.