Nintendo's big Wii U announcement from New York starts is on the way. Hosted by Nintendo of American's President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, the announcement will teach consumers, "more about how the Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment."
While no one's sure quite what that means is exactly, it's a good wager that among other things, we'll finally learn the release date and maybe even the price of Nintendo's next console. Last time Fils-Aime took the stage at a New York event, he revealed the launch date and price of Nintendo's newest handheld, the 3DS. Prior to that, he spilled the beans on the Nintendo Wii. So while nothing's written in stone, it seems logical enough to assume we'll get at least that much info about the Wii U.
Nintendo has already announced that it will be making two versions of the Wii U available in Japan in December, a basic, and a premium edition. The main difference between the two is storage space, the basic coming with 8GB of storage, and the premium with 32GB.
In Japan, the basic edition will cost 26,250 yen, and the premium version will cost 31,500 yen. Adjust that to USD, and you get $337 and $405 respectively, both a bit higher than the $250 "benchmark" that was being thrown around. At this year's E3, Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata had said "This is not going to be cheap." He got that much right.
Still, the figure is keeping with some analysts who predicted that in order to be profitable by normal Nintendo standards, the Wii U would require just that price point.
If you're the kind who'd rather watch an event live then read about it later, Nintendo is doing a live broadcast of the event, which you can watch here.