Retailers demanded higher than expected price. Also, Dvd playback.

The last few months have seen it all. Gamers cried with both joy and disappointment regarding features such as Wii channels and dvd playback. It is also true that many of you out there felt a bit 'cheated' with the higher than expected price tag. Edge have recently commented on some new and interesting bits of information regarding the Wii.

-CNN has signed up with Nintendo as the provider of news content on tne News Channel in American and Japan. News will be presented by category, but another way of getting to it is by spinning the weather globe to find stories in different countries

-Sega has moved a significant number of development staff from PS3 to Wii over the Summer

-Although Nintendo has removed DVD movie playback from the Wii, it plans to launch in Japan next year an enhanced Wii capable of such a feature

-Nintendo intended to bring Wii to shop shelves in the UK and US for �150 and $200, but became influenced by pressure from the larger retail chains, which raised concerns over margins and low so-called 'basket value' (ie, the amount of revenue generated from a customer's overall purchases at the till)

-There are plenty of Wii Channel slots remaining to be filled

-Edge says that Wii Sports will be to Wii what Mario 64 was to the N64. Says golf has the best single player mode (no surprise) and boxing is their favourite overall.

-Laurent Fischer doesn't expect the whole of society to immediately jump onto the Wii train, but this will gradually come with advertising, word of mouth etc.

-He says in Europe the DS has done a wonderful job of capturing the female gamer and the casual gamer, but getting the non-gamers still has some way to go yet. NOE's goal is to get the DS selling as fast as it is in Japan where on a weekly basis they're still not able to fulfil the demand, becaue they're attracting such a broad audience.

-In Japan they were surprised by the strength of Animal Crossing's sales and every week NOE says "WOW" at the sales. He said on the GameCube it only sold 150,000 in Europe but the DS game has already passed 850,000.

Very, very interesting bits of information there, especially regarding the price of the console in Europe and about the Dvd playback. The situation regarding the playback sounds remarkably similar to a Japan-only product, the Panasonic Q, which was a Gamecube that could also play Dvds. Let's hope we get more information on this really soon.