Wii is out in US.

The last of the "next-gen" games console have hit the streets of US on 17th Nov 2006. Reports were that the console's launch was smooth, with none of the PS3 launch problems (muggings of PS3, robberies and even BB gun drive by shooting.... haha).

The system is shipped with the Wii, a Wii-mote, a Nunchuk attachement, standard AV cables, power cables, and one game, Wii Sports. This allows you to unpack, hook the unit up, and play games immediately (without getting buying any extra games). Wii Sports contains 5 games, all designed to utilise the Wii-mote fully. Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Bowling and Boxing are featured and all require you to swing or move yr Wii-mote to play them. Boxing requires the Nunchuk attachement too to simulate 2 handed boxing. Cool and extremely useful way to learn how to use the motion sensitive Wii-mote and the Nunchuk.

The biggest issue of the Wii is of the updating of the firmware, with some report that the Wii "bricked" (literally meaning it turned into a brick, coz the console died due the upgrade), which is the worse any gamers want to find their spanking new console to be. Allowing to run the initial WiiConnect 24 update on the Wii have created an error code when you boot up the system. The most common codes reported are 110213 and 32002, but there seems to be some other codes as well. Worse case, the units will be unusable and needs to be returned to Nintendo for repair (if u wan to keep the data saved in yr Wii), or you can opt for a swap.

Thats for the US only. So if you do land yrself a Wii, and updated the Wii via online, cross yr fingers that it will not "brick" itself. If it does, then you are totally screwed.

Other smaller matters, some units fail to load games (!!), the Wii-mote not registering motion detection, and cases of the Wii-mote flying off sweaty palms and crashing into the TVs in front of them. Hahaha..... that will be very costly.