Nintendo is days away from announcing the long awaited details for the Wii's release date and pricing info for all three major territories.  Draw a line in the sand, put your rep on the line and make a statement.

The facts:
-4th quarter 2006 release for all major territories
-Price not to exceed $250 in the U.S. or ¥25,000 in Japan
-Broadway chips finished and shipping to Nintendo from IBM
-NOA hiring warehouse staff to handle Wii logistics
-Nintendo claims the ability to distribute a minimum of 4 million units worldwide by the end of calendar 2006
-Nintendo (NOA) helping select gamers hold Wii parties in their homes to show off the system to family and friends

The rumors:
-Vibe magazine quotes a $150 U.S. price
-MCVUK quotes a £149 price and an 11/24/06 UK launch with no supply shortgages
-Japanese analysts predict a ¥19,800 price

So, what do you all think?  I'm not afraid to be proven wrong in a few days, so here goes: I'm going with an early November U.S. release at $200.  I'm not sure if Nintendo will hit Japan or the U.S. first, but I would lean towards Japan since it will want to build off the DS Lite's unstoppable momentum in the Nihon and beat PS3 to market.  I'm sure Nintendo picked its Japanese launch date a while ago, but if I was Iwata, I would change whatever date they picked to November 11 just to shit in Sony's cereal.  Can you imagine?  There will only be 100,000 PS3s for the Japanese launch (10% of what the Japanese PS2 launched with) and Sony's shortages are Nintendo's opportunity.  I doubt it would happen, but man would it be hilarious.

I agree that when Sony fails to meet the market's demand, the market will turn to competitors.  If Nintendo can ship more units, they'll sell more.  And with the price being so much more attractive, I think that once a gamer has the Wii, it's unlikely that buying another next-gen will be a pressing matter.  $200 would look good compared to MS and Sony, but the lower Nintendo goes, the more consoles they'll sell.  And that means increased sales of the more-profitable game discs.  The price and backwards compatibility have sold me on the idea, so it'll be on my "to get" list for the future.

I'll stick with the ¥19,800 in Japan and say $180 for the U.S.  Wii has enough buzz going for it that they can charge more than $150 over the holiday season, while $180 would take a bit of the sting off of the next price point up at $200 for many consumers.

Only about two days left until the the short series of Wii events in all three big markets after which we likely know a little more.

I think it will launch for $200, though $150 would be nice. Sony's killing themselves, so Nintendo could probably do it for $250 and still make out well enough. But like you said: The cheaper the system, the more games people buy. I'd like to see something like...$150 for the system, $180-$190 for the Wii with a copy of Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3 (their biggest launch titles). But my official statement is $200.

I think one key thing to remember is when PS2 launched, nothing else was coming out and Dreamcast wasn't going to be able to weather the storm. When Sony plays their "artificial shortage" card, Nintendo will be there to call their hand this year (and Microsoft can respond by dropping prices and bundling in games).

Five years ago, I never thought I'd see Sony this vulnerable...Or at least their next-gen efforts. PS2 will probably be the best thing on the market for several years to come.

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My guess is $199.99.

If the Wii goes for $150, I WILL be buying two - one Japanese and one American (this is assuming that there will be a region lock again).

Theres a couple of stores in the UK that have advertised online as a launch price of £149 (approx $275) in November here.

Am slightly interested but as with previous (GC and SNES), there never seems to be as much of a catalogue as elsewhere. Although the downloadable facility of older systems' games that has been previously mentioned (PC Engine, Sega, NES), does hold an added extra for me to maybe spend in that direction!

Every Nintendo home console to date has debuted at $199.99 (in the US at least), so that's where my guess is. Here's hoping this takes off with the general public like it has the gaming community.