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Nintendo unveils black-coloured Wii in Japan

First alternative colour for Wii hits market, plus new red DSi

A black-coloured Wii and peripherals have been confirmed for launch in Japan, on the official Japanese Nintendo website.

The black Wii is pictured alongside a black-coloured Wii remote, nunchuck and Classic Controller Pro (the redesigned version of the existing Classic Controller, which has never been confirmed for released outside of Japan). All the hardware is priced at the same as the existing white versions and is due to go on sale on August 1.

Although white, red, green, black and silver-coloured Wiis were shown in the very earliest Wii promotional images only the white model was ever released to market while the other colours have never been referred to again.

At the same time the official website has also announced a red-coloured Nintendo DSi. As with the Wii the new model will be sold at the same price as existing versions and is in all other ways identical. It goes on sale on July 11.

Five colours are already available in Japan (black, white, pink, lime green and metallic blue), as well as limited edition models for games such as Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. In Europe the only available colours are black and white and in North America black and blue.

New hardware colours have consistently proven a useful drive for sales in Japan, with both Sony and Nintendo regularly using them to boost sales - often proving just as effective as a major new software release.