The dust is settling and the soldiers are returning home after the onslaught of information Nintendo dished out today. In fact, its no over yet, Europe still has its own event coming, but lets pretend it is over. Its now time to reflect a little bit on what we know.

One price, one config, one color

Oh this is really great, we dont get a low-end/high-end situation where the few who end up buying the lower system regret it after a couple of weeks. Then again… only one color? Come on! I’ve been drooling over the black Wii every since Iwata pulled it out of his jacket and now you tell me I’m getting stuck with white? If I had a monocle I’d say its preposterous, but I dont, so I say it sucks! I cant say I’m surprised that there will only be one color at launch, its the Nintendo way after all. But I was really looking forward to black. No biggie though.

No DVD playback

It happened with the Gamecube but they never made any promises. This time we had been promised this and then it gets dropped. And with exactly the same excuse as the last time: To keep costs down. The DVD drive is already there, how much would it reduce their profit margins if they included DVD playback? DVD video is already on its way out, its not like we’re asking for HD-DVD. Frankly, I think this was a bad call, I like to have as few things plugged to my TV setup and the Wii as a DVD player was a sexy option.

Wii sports bundled

This is great, its been since the SNES that we had a game bundled with a Nintendo console. Back in the day when I got a N64 I was disappointed it didn’t have a game out of the box. Sad little kid had to beg for a game the morning after. This increases value for the consumer, specially in the holiday season. Good call Nintendo!

Channel system

This was rather unexpected, every Wii application divided into channels, with channels as diverse as the photo channel and weather channel. Its very casual gamer oriented. Sony and Msoft have been trying to become the digital center of the home and Nintendo might have just silently one-upped them. I could see non gamers approaching the Wii for these features.

And finally… the price

Well they proved their promise, less than $250. That penny is sure to buy me a piece of pie and a warm bed after I travel to 1870. Frankly a $200 price tag seemed like a better choice, low enough to buy in an impulse and be substantively lower than the core Xbox 360. On the other hand the Wii will be profitable from day 1, and its not $599!

All in all its been pretty good, seems like the Wii will enjoy a strong launch. Now lets all get some rest, its been a Wii bit hectic around this parts.