Two whole years after they should have, Nintendo is finally bringing the Wii to India--or more accurately, allowing Samurai India and HCL to bring it to India--on the 30th of this month. There have been rumours circulating over this through the Indian distributors for months now, and note that there is no official confirmation of this news yet. However, the ANGRY pixel seems certain and breaks news that the Nintendo Wii is Indian-bound, and soon. The DS, that dual-touchscreened handheld of joy, will come along with the Wii as well. The Wii will be priced at Rs 19,990 (about $450!), and the DS for at 7,990. And here we were, thinking that the grey market prices were ridiculous.We wonder if this move comes a little too late--people who really wanted a Wii gave up waiting a long time ago, and were content with dropping Rs 15,000 on a console that should really cost Rs 11,000 ($250, remember?). We'd expected the launch price to take a swipe at the grey market price, but it looks like this is not to be. The DS, however, is a more reasonable Rs 7,990, and should compete with the PSP rather well. It too, however, has adorned the shelves of stores that took to importing the little handheld themselves.

What might win people over could be clever marketing and retail store presence. Few can resist the waggle-wand that the house of Mario built. But we do believe that a price closer to Rs. 12,000 would have done wonders for the little white console in India.

There's also the question of whether the Wii will come in its NTSC or in its PAL avatar. When rumours first trickled over HCL bringing the unit to India, NTSC was being touted as the unit incoming. Indeed, the few retail titles that are officially available in India are NTSC games. For gamers, NTSC would be great news -- PAL releases, especially for titles under the Nintendo banner, are ridiculously delayed. It would do us well to be aligned with US release dates. We'll know better when the console finally launches.

For now, after two years of waiting for an official launch, wii're not that impressed with the launch price.