Nintendo presents Wii controller

Nintendo joined the E3 press conference parade on Tuesday morning with an event high on bright lights and suspense but low on news.

Many who attended the event, which was held in the same Kodak Theater where the Academy Awards take place, anticipated that Nintendo would unveil specific pricing and availability information for its forthcoming next-generation console, the puzzlingly named Wii.

That expectation was especially true after Sony said for the first time at its press conference Monday evening that its PlayStation 3 would hit store shelves on 17 November in Europe and North America, and would come in two models, a €599 (£410) version with a 60GB hard drive and a €499 (£340) model with a 20GB hard drive.

Instead, the highlight of Nintendo's press event was the first detailed demonstration of the Wii controller, a two-handed motion-sensitive system that allows players to mimic actions on-screen with the movement of their hands. Thus, for example, users playing a tennis game will be able to serve by raising their controller above their head and swinging down. Similarly, fighting games will allow players to swing swords or shoot bows and arrows with movement of their hands.

(See photos of the Nintendo Wii and its controllers, and watch News.com's video of the press conference.)

Asked why Nintendo didn't release pricing and availability information for the Wii, (the company only said that the product will be available in the fourth quarter of 2006) Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo executive vice president for sales and marketing, told CNET.co.uk's sister site News.com that the company isn't interested in diverting attention from the roster of 27 Wii games and controller system it is showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo this week.

"We want [E3] to be about the gaming experience," Fils-Aime said. "Price and availability information becomes a distraction from the playing experience."

Meanwhile, Nintendo briefly addressed the tepid reaction it has got for the console's new name, Wii (it was previously known as the 'Revolution').

"We want to thank everyone who wrote good things about it the day you heard about it," Fils-Aime said during his presentation. "Both of you."

But he told News.com that new names always take some getting used to and that Nintendo feels the name (pronounced 'we') is very appropriate because it infers inclusion and approachability.

In any case, while Nintendo isn't saying how much Wii will cost, it seems clear it will cost less than both the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. That's partly because Nintendo is targeting both hardcore gamers and the mass audience of potential players who want simple, fun games that don't require deep game-playing experience.

Nintendo also said it would soon launch the Nintendo DS Lite in the US, a smaller version of its popular DS dual-screen handheld console, which it said had sold 16 million units since launch in late 2004.

And while the company wouldn't say how many Wii titles would be available on launch -- which it promised would be in the fourth quarter of 2006. It did say that there are 27 titles on display at E3 from publishers like Electronic Arts, Activision, Ubisoft, THQ, Square Enix and others. And those titles include formidable franchises like EA's Madden NFL, Square Enix's Final Fantasy and others.