Wii U Japanese Release Set For December 8th

Later today Nintendo will officially announce North American and European release dates and pricing for the upcoming home entertainment console, the Wii U. For now, gamers can do a little bit of price measuring between regions as Nintendo has already announced that the Wii U will arrive in Japanese territories starting December 8th, in two different versions. A basic version will be available for 25,000 Yen and a more core version will be available for 30,000 Yen.

The system will launch day and date alongside New Super Mario Bros. U. The Premium Set and the Basic Set will also be available at launch and you can see the breakdown of what each will include below.

Wii U Premium Set:

Suggested retail price31,500 yen (including tax) 30,000 yen (excluding tax)

Wii U Console (Black) (32 GB memory)

Wii U GamePad (Black)

Wii U GamePad Stylus (Black)

Wii U GamePad Cradle

Wii U GamePad Stand

HDMI Cable

Wii U AC Adapter

Wii U GamePad AC Adapter

Wii U Console Stand

Wii U Basic Set:

Suggested retail price26,250 yen (including tax) 25,000 yen (excluding tax)

Wii U Console (White) (8 GB memory)

Wii U GamePad (White)

Wii U GamePad Stylus (White)

HDMI Cable

Wii U AC Adapter

Wii U GamePad AC Adapter

Now the real question on everyone's mind will be what the pricing will be for the Wii U in North America and Europe? Well, using basic conversion we can guess that the 25,000 Yen version will retail in North America for about $249.99, the same price that the Wii launched at back in November, 2006. The Premium Set, however, will cost a bit more and will be about $299.99.

The only thing that still boggles my mind is whether the release date will still be December 8th for the other territories. It's very unlikely that North America and Europe will receive the Wii U anytime before then, but who knows...this is Nintendo.

We'll do an update on when the Big 'N' drops the pricing and release details for the Wii U's release in other territories as soon as it becomes available. You can check out some of the official specs for the Wii U courtesy of Nintendo Everything below.

Official Wii U Specs:

- Supports full 1080p

- “GPGPU” used

- Main memory: 1GB

- System memory: 1GB

- Total memory is 2GB

- Games only use 1GB of main memory

- System memory is for the OS

- Can use the browser while playing

- Game discs are 25GB

- Discs run at 22.5 MB/s

- Uses up to 75 watts of electricity

- Typical power usage is 45 watts

- Reconfirmed: import Wii VC and WiiWare games