Wii U Europe dates and prices announced

Having slated the release of the Wii U in its native Japan for the 8th of December just yesterday, Nintendo was expected to announce a closer-to-Christmas date for the rest of the world. However those fears have proved false, with Nintendo announcing today that its next-generation console would land in Europe on the 30th November – though the US will get it 12 days earlier on the 18th.

Despite the concrete nature of the announced dates however, the pricing structure for the two versions, Basic and Premium, was anything but nailed down. However retailers have been speculating, changing list prices and shuffling things around enough that we have a fairly good picture of what you'll be paying on launch day. So far it looks like the cheapest package will be the Basic Pack, coming in at £205. The Premium pack will be around £245, and will add to the standard gamepad and console bundle: a console stand, HDMI cable and a charging dock for the gamepad. The Premium console will also come in black, to let your friends know who spent that extra £40 and who didn't.

There is also said to be a ZombiU Premium package, that will be around £270 and will come with everything above, plus a copy of launch title zombie shooter, ZombiU.

One difference between the EU Premium bundle when compared with its Japanese counterpart, is that it'll also come with a free copy of mini-game extravaganza, Nintendoland. A few games and some extra accessories seems quite good for just a £40 jump.

KitGuru Says: Perhaps the biggest thing to take away from this though, is that despite the internal hardware not looking particularly powerful, with Gamepads priced at around £100, this means the full Wii U console is only costing around £100 itself. Considering Nintendo's history of making a profit on its console hardware, it shows either very impressive budgeting by the Japanese gaming firm, or underpowered internals. We'll need to wait and see to be sure.

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