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Thursdayton pre-show speculation

Over the next 48 hrs, Nintendo has three press events of substantial size taking place. First in Japan, tonight (???) at 8pm EDT. Then in New York, tomorrow at 9am EDT. Then in Europe, Friday at 7am EDT. Hopefully we should really be getting some serious information in the near future regarding Nintendo's worldwide plans for the Wii release.

Highly Likely News:

• Wii Release Date - Current predictions are October/November. Earliest I've seen is October 2, latest is mid-November.
• Wii Price - Current estimates range from $175 - $250, my personal guess is somewhere in the middle.
• Related Launch Plans - Back with the Gamecube release, Nintendo had the "Cube Club" tour, which was a set of events where prior to release, Nintendo would cruise around the country and hold extended public demo sessions. The Wii almost has to have this kind of thing to get people used to the new system. Apart from some kind of demo tour, we might also get details on in-store demo kiosks.

Somewhat Likely News:

• For the American press conference, the release date of Opera DS is still up in the air, and we have heard absolutely nothing on the subject. If they're going to announce it soon, it might as well be tomorrow. First week of October sounds nice. It'd also dovetail nicely into a possible October 2 Wii release.

Unlikely News:

• Pulling an Apple, and going "OH BY THE WAY GUYS THE WII IS AVAILABLE TODAY!"
• Any of the other ridiculous rumors flying around. Seriously, the Nintendo rumor mill is almost as bad as the Apple rumor mill.

Good thing I didn't have anything planned to do tonight!

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