Nintendo has been quiet on launch and pricing details of the Wii — only saying that it will come out in the fall, and cost less than $250 — but CNN seems to think they at least know the release date plans:

While Nintendo has not made any formal announcements about the launch date for the Wii, most of the industry has expected the machine to hit retail at approximately the same time as Sony’s PlayStation 3 (which is set for November 17). Now, industry observers - and insiders - say they expect the system to be available in October, with late September a dark horse candidate.

An early launch is definitely possible, considering that internally, the Wii is more or less a glorified Gamecube; Nintendo won’t have to worry about chip shortages, Blu-Ray problems, etc. This would be semi-bad news for Sony, as an already available $250 Wii could steal a lot of holiday-buzz from a coming-soon $600 PS3, and even better news for Microsoft, who only stand to gain from Sony losing business and market share.

Read the rest of the CNN article here.

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