US Wii vs UK Wii

[emissary]

Hi All,

I know the price of games can be cheaper in the US when buying Wii games, but is there any other advantage to getting a US Wii, apart from price?

Do the games in the UK run at the same speed and display as the US/Jap ones?

Thanks for any responses.

[Pavey]

AFAIK the Wii games run exactly the same, however the Virtual Console games run at 50hz with borders on the UK Wii.

[Skull Commander]

however the Virtual Console games run at 50hz with borders on the UK Wii.

Apart from Turbografx games (pc engine)

[Mayhem]

As a quick guide, standard US Wii games fall into one of four price brackets:

$20 - usually the shovelware, but there is the odd gem to be had (eg. Mercury Meltdown).
$30 - most licensed cheap budget releases or rereleases from previous gen (RE4 Wii was $30 for example, ditto Metal Slug Anthology).
$40 - generally the price of established third party publisher titles.
$50 - almost all of Nintendo's own published games and a few others.

Anything else is almost certainly packed with a controller (Guitar Hero 3, Wii Fit etc) and over $50.

Usually the US gets titles before the UK... although there are exceptions such as Mario Kart.

[Link83]

As almost all UK Wii games support 480p 60hz (same as US Wii) there were only two key reasons I decided on a UK Wii in the end:-

1) 12 month warranty. The Wii has had a few problems with the drives/lasers used in the console (eg Super Msash Bros Brawl Dual Layer problem) if you buy a UK console and anything goes wrong you can just return it to Nintendo UK to be repaired for free as long as you are within the 12 months warranty (or even after the 12 months if its a manufacturing problem - like with Super Smash Bros Brawl) but if you buy a US console you could be in for alot more hassle....

2) The US Wii doesnt support RGB Scart, and since my TV is an older (2004) CRT it doesnt have Component sockets. This was abit of a key issue for me, as otherwise I would have had to use Composite/S-Video connections which I didnt fancy

If it wasnt for these two points I probably would have gone for a US Wii - just for full speed Virtual Console games (Although to be honest any games I am interested in I still own on their original platform) and to be sure all my games were 480p (even though I cant enjoy 480p yet, I like knowing the option is there for when I upgrade my TV)

Hope that helps

[Roddie]

Also worth bearing in mind is that the Hombrew Channel will allow you to run American games on a PAL Wii and UK games on an NTSC-U Wii.

[egparadigm]

Regarding price: buying Wii points is also cheaper thanks to the exchange rate. I got 4000 for about ?15 last year.

[charlesr]

For backwards compatability with GC games, perhaps US version, for the GC games that had prog scan (480p).

[MattyD]

If you're ever likely to use the Virtual Console, get a USA machine. All games are in 60hz and it's a hell of a lot cheaper. New titles are cheaper too. I've never paid more than £30 including shipping for an American Wii game and every game I have came out earlier in the USA by between a few weeks and three or four months.

Even if you're going to use it with a CRT it's still worth it as I had my US machine hooked up to my old CRT with S-Video and it looked incredible. It actually looked better on that setup than it looks now through component on my LCD.

[emissary]

Thanks everyone, I am currently in Texas on business at the moment and the Wii works out to $270.60 with taxes, so its quite tempting to buy one again...if I can find one! They are like hens teeth out here, and the stores wont hold one for you, its simply potluck that you walk in and find one.