The Nintendo Wii is set to have 62 games available by year’s end, with 32 new titles, and 30 classic titles from Nintendo’s massive archive of older games.

Brand new Wii titles due for release Zelda, Need for Speed: Carbon, Call of Duty 3, Rampage: Total Destruction, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Creature from Krusty Krab, Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam and many more.

The Wii to be released in Japan is also slated to come with DVD playback capabilities, although this is said to be a Japan-only feature at this stage, as adding DVD playback lifts the price of the console, and DVD players are inexpensive and already in wide use in homes.

Quite why the Japanese need their Wii to play DVDs is questionable, as Japan is one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth and would have massive DVD player penetration.

HD DVD recorders are already on sale in Japan, so the Wii/DVD/Japan connection is definitely an odd one, especially considering it adds to the manufacturing cost at a time when console makers dearly wish they could make more profit on every sale of console hardware.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 7:05 am under Technology.

Read more entries by Alex Zaharov-Reutt.
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