Unfortunately, none of the Wii Fanboy staff reside in or speak the language of Japan. As such, we've committed ourselves to hitting the refresh key a whole crapload of times and scouring numerous chatrooms until we find out what the hell is going on over there. Check back constantly for any new developments!For the full story of the Seattle-PI/New York Times article, see here.
Check after the break for the latest!
1:16 AM EDT: Japanese gaming mag Famitsu is posting some live coverage of the event. Thanks to Joystiq's efforts to procure a translator, we should have some news for you soon. Word!
1:26 AM EDT: Iwata-san is on-stage, talking about how the DS has shifted the market in Japan. Well, duh.
1:36 AM EDT: Virtual Console pricing revealed! 500 yen for NES games (around 4 USD), 800 yen for SNES (around 7 USD) and 1000 yen for N64 (around 8.5 USD). You can pay via credit card or a "Wii points card". Stay tuned!
1:42 AM EDT: Nintendo plans to have 30 Nintendo games and 30 Sega/TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console by year's end. Ten new VC games will be released each month!
1:54 AM EDT: It's here! Famitsu is reporting that the Wii will debut in Japan on December 2nd, 2006 for 25,000 yen (212.51 USD). Late much?
1:59 AM EDT: Nintendo will be posting a Japanese press release momentarily and will have full text of Iwata's speech in about an hour. Also, wii.com will go live in Japan in about an hour.
2:03 AM EDT: According the press release, the Wii will not come with Wii Sports. The full contents of the package are as follows: Wii console, Wii remote (w/ strap) Nunchuck attachment, Wii AC adaptor, Wii A/V cable, Wii console stand, sensor bar, sensor bar stand and two AA batteries.
2:11 AM EDT: The Wiimote will apparently sell for 3,800 yen (32.30 USD), not including the nunchuck attachment. The classic controller and the nunchuck will each retail for 1,800 yen (15.30 USD).
2:14 AM EDT: Iwata is reporting that there will be 16 games from 10 different publishers at launch. Game prices will range from 4,800 yen (40.80 USD) to 6,800 yen (57.80 USD), with Twilight Princess being at the upper-end 6,800 mark.
2:17 AM EDT: Wii Sports will be a stand-alone title, retailing at the aforementioned 4,800 yen price point. It will contain five games. Apparently, Shigeru Miyamoto just beat Japanese tennis star Sugiyama at Wii Tennis.
2:34 AM EDT: Well, that's pretty much it, folks. Wii.com is up and running, so expect a post on that soon...the contents of the site seem to verify the NYT Article posted earlier today. If so, we can expect the American launch to be quite different (and earlier) than Japan's. Stay tuned, and have a good night!
For fun: We here at the Fanboy have made this YTMND, to commemorate the occasion.
