Nintendo has announced that the Wii will be available in Canada (and elsewhere in North America) on November 19th for $279.95 CDN. I haven’t been an avid console gamer since the days of the SNES, but I’m definitely interested in the Wii, and I’m rooting for Nintendo to inform Microsoft and (especially) Sony what the 5 fingers said to the face…SLAP!
While the Wii will be priced lower than both the XBox 360 and the PS3, I’m still not sure if I’m willing to jump back into the console gaming world. I definitely like Nintendo’s stance of game play over glitter, which has always been their mantra. Perhaps it’s more apparent as more and more “pretty” yet sub-standard games ship for Microsoft’s and Sony’s consoles. But I’ve been planted in the PC gaming world for a while now, and I’m not in the financial position (yet) that would allow me to support both PC and console gaming habits. Even then, I’m still only finding that a handful of games hold my attention anymore; Unreal Tournament and EA Sports titles being the only ones, and I’m still not that into gaming much lately. Since Dena and I have been in the market for a house, the amount I’m willing to spend for extra entertainment is dwindling. I’ve considered other avenues such as NAS for media storage and media centre computers for media playback and management; I’m certain that a NAS device is a definite need. The amount of ideas I have kicking around in my head is bound to drive me nuts. Do I need a gaming PC? What if the Wii will get ports of the (few) PC games that I’m interested in? If I get media centre PCs, what operating system will they run; Windows, Ubuntu? Are Macs even in the running for this? If I go all Ubuntu and keep a Windows virtual machine for the few apps that I need (Visual Studio, IIS and SQL Server and iTunes), will the Wii handle the games in interested in, so that I don’t need a kick-ass Windows gaming rig? Perhaps once the dust settles from the Wii’s launch, it’ll be worth re-evaluating. Unless, of course, Epic is planning a Wii port of UT2K7 – then it’ll be a no-brainer 😀
