Nintendo unveils black-coloured Wii in Japan

[wraggster]

http://wii.com/jp/articles/wii-color-kuro/images/kuro.jpg

A black-coloured Wii and peripherals have been confirmed for launch in Japan, on the official Japanese Nintendo website.

The black Wii is pictured alongside a black-coloured Wii remote, nunchuck and Classic Controller Pro (the redesigned version of the existing Classic Controller, which has never been confirmed for released outside of Japan). All the hardware is priced at the same as the existing white versions and is due to go on sale on August 1.

Although white, red, green, black and silver-coloured Wiis were shown in the very earliest Wii promotional images only the white model was ever released to market while the other colours have never been referred to again.

At the same time the official website has also announced a red-coloured Nintendo DSi. As with the Wii the new model will be sold at the same price as existing versions and is in all other ways identical. It goes on sale on July 11.

Five colours are already available in Japan (black, white, pink, lime green and metallic blue), as well as limited edition models for games such as Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. In Europe the only available colours are black and white and in North America black and blue.

New hardware colours have consistently proven a useful drive for sales in Japan, with both Sony and Nintendo regularly using them to boost sales - often proving just as effective as a major new software release.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/nintendo-unveils-black-coloured-wii-in-japan

[weaselboy246]

It's a shame these won't really sell, since everyone and their mother already owns the white Wii. Better late than never I guess.

[Pilot_51]

About time! When Satoru Iwata unveiled the "Revolution" at E3 2005, it was black. The blue glow with the black case also made it look very cool. How can it take 4 years for something as simple as a color to make it to the shelves?

It's a shame that they didn't do what they did with the Gameboy Micro (also unveiled at E3 2005) and allow the covers to be replaced with different colors/designs. It's far more efficient and consumer-friendly to offer swappable covers than to permanently fix it to the system, especially when there are extra peripherals that also come in different colors. How many people are stuck with a decision of either buying a color they don't want or waiting for the color they want to come back in stock? That is especially a problem when the system is flying off the shelves. Granted, there are stickers or services that will design it how you want, but typically those are either more expensive, lower quality, and/or slower than if the covers were designed to be swapped.

I don't have a problem with white, but I would've much preferred black.

[ChaoticanarchyX]

Then again, you can wait, do some digging around the web, and get a case of the same or diffrent color and pay WAY less for a replacement case for it......