<via Gizmodo & GenDigital>

Expect to play Nintendo Wii in time for Turkey Day. The Date? November 19th. The price? $250.

To come with Wii Sports, which includes golf, bowling, baseball and tennis games controlled by swinging the wii-mote. 25 titles available by end of year. 30 classic games, including Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.

The info was accidentally leaked by the Seattle PI by some trigger happy web admin, likely. Your party foul, our news.

At $250, the new system is about half the cost of a juiced up Xbox 360 and less than half the cost of the yet-to-be-released Sony PlayStation3 (who just announced another delay this week which will effect European customers).  The unique selling point of the Wii will be its intuitive wireless “Wii-mote” that, when tilted by the user will produce movement and actions on screen.  If the media campaign promoting the Wii comes off flawlessly Nintendo will have positioned a less costly “fun” and “easy” alternative to the technologically advanced, considerably more expensive Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

I think Nintendo will be more successful than most people think.  Here’s why:

  • Sony PS3s are going to be extremely hard to get unless you pay outrageous prices on e-bay. 
  • Early indications have teens and college students pushing for upgraded portable digital music players (the $300 video iPod), premium jeans (Seven for All Mankinds can cost more than $200), and other luxury goods (i.e. competition for limited dollars)
  • Gift-givers might not be willing to spend $500+ on a console system.
  • Wii will come pre-loaded with a series of sports games touting the functionality of the wireless controller.  Games typically do not come bundled with the consoles, so this represents a real ”value add”. 

Given these points, I think Nintendo’s Wii will be the sleeper hit of this year’s holiday season.

Wii Dated And Priced For North America [Kotaku]