Nintendo Wii U priced, dated

Nintendo’s successor to the Wii, the aptly named Wii U, was detailed during a press conference last week.

The new game console, which was announced last year, will initially be boxed in two bundles in North America. The white “basic” set will retail for $299 and come with eight gigabytes of memory. The black “deluxe” edition will come with 32 gigabytes of memory and costs slightly more at $349 when it launches.

That extra $50 goes a surprisingly long way when you look at what’s included with the deluxe bundle.

While the Basic set includes an AC power cord, an HDMI cable and a single GamePad, the Deluxe edition will include all of that as well as a GamePad stand, a console stand, a charging dock for the GamePad, a sensor bar, a subscription to Nintendo Network Premium and, finally, a copy of “Nintendoland.” There are also rumors of a “premium” set for Europe that includes a copy of “ZombiU,” a console skin and a Pro Controller.

Several game-related announcements were also made during the Wii U centered press conference.

It was revealed that Rayman Legends will be a launch title for the console in Europe, as well as that Bayonetta 2, the sequel to Platinum Games’ action adventure title, will be a Wii U exclusive. Furthermore, the next installment in the massively popular (in Japan, anyway) “Monster Hunter franchise,” “Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate,” will be available on both the Wii U and Nintendo’s 3DS handheld in March of 2013 in Europe and North America.

Unsurprisingly though, perhaps more importantly for American audiences, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” was confirmed to be available on the Wii U as well. Considering the game’s massive proliferation and the glut of current generation ports coming to the Wii U, this wasn’t totally unexpected. Still, this does explain rumors from earlier this year surrounding a Treyarch QA tester mentioning the Wii U on his LinkedIn profile.

Returning to the subject of hardware, some media outlets are concerned over the new system’s price. Even with all of the extras included with the Deluxe Wii U, many are still saying that the new console is too expensive.

The Nintendo Wii was $250 at launch and has a current, suggested retail price of $140. It’s also worth noting that neither console bundle includes any Wii remotes or Nunchuks. That means that anyone buying a Wii U that doesn’t already have the controllers from the previous console will have to purchase them separately. Not only that, but both versions only include one GamePad tablet, so any game or software requiring two or more of those will also require an extra purchase. Considering that the tablet controllers will likely cost significantly more than the average accessories on other systems, this could make for quite a hefty investment.

As of the writing of this article, there is still no announced price for the Wii U GamePad as a separate item.

You will be able to decide for yourself whether or not the Wii U is worth the money on Nov. 30, when the console officially launches in North America.