Armchair Theorists Pinpoint Wii Date

Can a game release list really tell us when the console will launch? Some people think so.

The higher-ups at Nintendo must be loving it. The months since Sony announced the launch date of the PlayStation 3 have been saturated with speculation about when Nintendo would release the Wii. The official line is that it will arrive this autumn, but amateur sleuths have looked beyond the line. Now they've got a theory.

Iwata unveiled the Wii remote at TGS in 2005

Nintendo recently revealed the release dates of its in-house Game Boy Advance, GameCube and DS games for the rest of the year, and while most Tuesdays (the day games come out in the US) toward the end of the year have something coming out, one does not: 2 October.

The idea is that Nintendo wouldn't release one of its own games on the same day as the Wii, which means the Wii release date must be 2 October.

Say what you will about the logic used in deriving the date, but the date agrees with rumours from earlier in the year that said the Wii would be out in late September or October.

Don't expect Nintendo to give away any hints. The company said the talk of a 2 October launch was based on rumour and speculation.

Nintendo has said that it would reveal the final launch date and price for the Wii by September. Some take this as confirmation that the news will come at this year's Tokyo Game Show, which runs at the end of September.

Though it doesn't normally show its wares at the show, Nintendo did use it as a platform last year to show off the Wii controller for the first time. But as of now, Nintendo is not scheduled to be at TGS in any official way.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games