The Wii stand-alone machine, which also lets users surf the Internet, will be released in Japan on December 2 at a price of 25,000 yen ($212), said Satoru Iwata, president of Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. Ltd.
The launch will come three weeks after Sony puts out its next-generation PlayStation 3 on November 11 at a much heftier price of 62,790 yen for a 20-gigabyte machine or 75,000 yen for a 60-gigabyte console.
Nintendo leads the global market in portable game machines and has been taking aim at Sony's lead in stand-alone consoles, as has US software giant Microsoft.
Nintendo said it would hope to crack open the market by promoting the Wii as a family-friendly machine, which has functions for everyone within a household such as leaving messages.
"We present to you a new lifestyle with Wii," Iwata said as he showed the slender white box and its remote control, which is sensitive to users' hand and arm movements.
"We are taking a new step to expand the game-playing population by proposing a lifestyle where everyone at home would regularly touch the household game console."
He acknowledged that stand-alone machines were a more difficult segment than portable consoles, as people who played games at home tended to take the hobby more seriously.
Iwata said Nintendo needed a different marketing approach than for its portable games such as Gameboy, whose fan base expanded as users showed their toys to their friends.
"We are aiming to expand the number of Wii players within individual households that own the game console," Iwata said.
To attract non-game players, Wii will let users view various media content, such as news and weather information, to look at digital photos, to browse the Internet and to post messages to other members of the household.
"If more people touch Wii remote controls everyday, we believe they will come to try the game function of Wii," Iwata said.
Nintendo's entry into the market comes as technical glitches haunt Sony, which has delayed the global launch of its next-generation PS3 console by about six months until November, giving US giant Microsoft a one-year head start with its next-generation Xbox 360.
Sony said earlier this month that it will delay the PS3 again in Europe from November to March, sparking a fall in its share price.
Microsoft has also been aiming to unlock the Japanese gamemakers' stranglehold in their home market with its Xbox 360.
Microsoft last week announced it would sell a cheaper, basic version of its next-generation Xbox from November 2 at 29,800 yen ($255) in Japan, about 25 percent less than the standard version.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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