Wii U comes in 8GB and 32GB models, starts at $340 in Japan

Today's the day Nintendo starts actually confirming solid Wii U launch details, and it kicked off in the wee small hours of the morning with Japan. Nintendo revealed that its new console will launch over there on December 8 and come in both 8GB and 32GB models, starting at around $340--more than a 4GB Xbox 360 or 160GB PlayStation 3 costs there.

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Today's the day Nintendo starts actually confirming solid Wii U launch details, and it kicked off in the wee small hours of the morning with Japan. Nintendo revealed that its new console will launch over there on December 8 and come in both 8GB and 32GB models, starting at around $340--more than a 4GB Xbox 360 or 160GB PlayStation 3 costs there.

The white Wii U Basic Set with 8GB of storage has a suggested price of ¥26,250 ($337.76 US right now), while the black Premium Set with 32GB is to cost ¥31,500 ($405.32). Both include the tablet-y GamePad, along with an HDMI cable and AC adaptors for the tablet and console.

The Premium Kit also contains two years of Nintendo Network Premium membership, which offers a 10% discount on digital games and gives you bonus points too. Also packed into the box are a console stand, and a dock and stand for the GamePad.

The Wii U has 1GB of system memory and 1GB of game memory, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said on the stream. Wii U discs have a 25GB capacity--read at 22.5MB/s--and the whole shebang will use up to 75W watts of power.

New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land are confirmed as launch day releases, but neither is bundled with the console in Japan. That may be different in the rest of the world, as Japan was the only place not to bundle Wii Sports with the original Wii, and the two do seem likely pack-in candidates.

Nintendo will be streaming a Wii U presentation for North America at 7am Pacific today, so keep your peepers peeled for more information about the launch over here. Here's what some of your favourite Shackstaff predict.

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  • reply
    September 13, 2012 4:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Wii U comes in 8GB and 32GB models, starts at $340 in Japan.

    Today's the day Nintendo starts actually confirming solid Wii U launch details, and it kicked off in the wee small hours of the morning with Japan. Nintendo revealed that its new console will launch over there on December 8 and come in both 8GB and 32GB models, starting at around $340--more than a 4GB Xbox 360 or 160GB PlayStation 3 costs there.

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      September 13, 2012 4:35 AM

      [deleted]

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      September 13, 2012 4:38 AM

      Either they're completely out of touch or they want to fail.

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      September 13, 2012 4:40 AM

      Wait for us announcement. I bet 299.

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      September 13, 2012 4:40 AM

      Only a tiny bit more. The base wii-u is ¥26,250, the base ps3 is ¥24,980. So the wii-u will probably be $250 - $300 usd.

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      September 13, 2012 5:10 AM

      Japan <-> US pricing isn't usually the same, It will likely be $299 in the US if I had to guess based on that.

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      September 13, 2012 5:12 AM

      cool they come with SSDs! right?

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        September 13, 2012 5:16 AM

        That's all flash storage that will probably be better than standard usb drives.

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      September 13, 2012 6:08 AM

      I think he meant 1GB system, 1GB video, since 1GB game memory doesn't really make any sense. Lost in translation probably.

      While I'm probably not going to buy a Wii U, this is good news for PS4/720 because those systems will definitely exceed the Wii in specs, guessing at minimum 3GB, hopefully 4.

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        September 13, 2012 6:27 AM

        I'm really surprised they're not using a dynamic memory approach, doesn't make much sense to have all that RAM and not being able to use 1/4 to 1/2 of it most of the time.

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          September 13, 2012 6:56 AM

          [deleted]

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            September 13, 2012 7:49 AM

            Thing is 256/256 is pretty close to how it would be split anyway - the real problem with the PS3, imo, is it's videocard - it really underperforms compared to 360, and while ps3 exclusives look brilliant, they rely on the PPEs on the cell processor to manage that, so a typical port will underperform compared to 360 since it would rely solely on the videocard.

            Also apparently transferring memory between PPE's is a huge pain in the ass.

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          September 13, 2012 7:22 AM

          Eh, you'd be surprised how easily you can fill up both pools - having one large pool has it's faults as well, including speed and overhead to manage it.

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        September 13, 2012 6:32 AM

        the console has 2GB of ram in total. 1GB is sectioned off for the OS. Probably so that future OS updates can add new functionality and still be as fast as it was on day 1. 1GB is for software use so just like the 360, game makers can decide how to use it.

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          September 13, 2012 6:36 AM

          1GB for the OS seems really weird, especially for a Nintendo OS.

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            September 13, 2012 6:37 AM

            yah that is a lot just for the OS

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              September 13, 2012 6:39 AM

              Unless, as others have mentioned, there are GPGPU capabilities inherent in the system which allow the GPU to use the OS partitioned RAM for certain things, what exactly I don't know but it's possible I suppose.

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                September 13, 2012 6:52 AM

                One of the articles mentions EPG display on the tablet, perhaps they are hoping people will use the wii-u as a PVR of some sort? That would need a lot of mem set aside for buffering and stuff.

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            September 13, 2012 6:44 AM

            It does but I'm thinking their miiverse features might make up a big chunk of that. Time will tell if they actually did the right thing here or if they'd be better served by cutting some of those features and giving devs another 512MB to work with. Especially for down ports of durango/orbis games.

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            September 13, 2012 6:54 AM

            [deleted]

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          September 13, 2012 6:50 AM

          The 360 and PS3 only have 512 btw. Xbox has 512 pool total and the PS3 is 256 GPU dedicated and 256 main pool.

          The WiiU has way more mem than both systems, just looking at its mem setup it will be way faster(or rather have more mem to play with) than the 360 and PS3. Not sure what exactly the CPU and GPU are but still.

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          September 13, 2012 7:20 AM

          If that is true I would eat my socks - They definitely don't need 1GB of ram for the OS..

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      September 13, 2012 6:31 AM

      I'm just here to watch the car crash.

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      September 13, 2012 6:39 AM

      .........

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      September 13, 2012 6:40 AM

      25GB discs? So I guess it's using Bluray discs.

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      September 13, 2012 6:42 AM

      I really curious to see if they are able to capture the casual market again to stay alive or if this will be the last home console they release.

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      September 13, 2012 7:26 AM

      CNBC just said it's $299 for the 8GB or "basic" and $349 for the upgraded model.

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