RUMOR: Retailers to start taking Wii U preorders this week, price and launch date possibly leaked

Posted By: Michael Lacerna In: Console News, Gaming News, Wii On: 11 Sep

Nintendo announced awhile back that they’re going to be holding a big press conference in New York on September 13th, and most people have assumed that Nintendo is going to finally give us some concrete info about the Wii U’s launch date, price, and line-up of games. Some new info from Gamestop employees apparently backs up that assumption, as sources state that the specialty chain will start taking preorders for the system as early as Thursday.

According to GoNintendo, Gamestop employees have apparently jumped the gun and have already started talking to their customers about the information they’ve received about Nintendo’s next console.

If the info is to be believed, the Wii U will launch the week before Thanksgiving, and will come out as three different SKU’s, starting out at $250 and peaking at $350. It’s still unclear why the Wii U is being sold at 3 different price points; some have speculated that the higher priced packages are merely bundles with games or extra controllers, or perhaps, like the Xbox 360 and PS3, Wii U’s will be packaged with harddrives of different sizes. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to take a chance on Nintendo’s new system, Gamestop will require a $50 minimum deposit on preorders.

While this news is still a rumor, it sounds pretty legit: the 3 separate SKU’s lines up with a previously leaked distributor listing, and Nintendo consoles have traditionally launched around the same time that the rumor suggests. The $250 price point is also what most analysts had previously predicted, and again, it’s a comparable price to what most other Nintendo consoles have launched at. Again, rumors should be taken with a grain of salt, but a lot of the info “leaked” today all seems plausible.

I’ll suppose we’ll find out for sure when Nintendo finally unveils the details regarding the Wii U’s launch (with hopefully more info on upcoming games) on September 13th, just two days from now.