[bargnonions]

Originally Posted by Hamton

It's worse still, cause only expats and tourists by the US games, so lots of shop owners are out to rip-off such people.

Nope, there are many local HK people who have the US version of Wii. I would think it's half and half with the JPN version. Most HK people read English better than Japanese anyways.

Tourists don't buy legit Wii stuff in HK because it is the same price if not more than their regions.

Originally Posted by Hamton

$600 seems a bit over the top for the board alone considering that's almost the full price of the game + board in Europe. This is one of those weird situations where people in HK are being ripped off and paying over the odds, thanks to sellers changing their prices willy nilly based on supply and demand, instead of sticking to the RRP as they do in the EU.

HK doesn't follow MSRP because they aren't even suppose to sell this stuff outside the regions. Only NA, EU, AUS, Korea, JP are officially supplied Wii.

HK sellers are just following the supply/demand like eBay. They're just capitalizing on the market, just business.

Hopefully the price goes down soon. Nintendo knew this would happen so I hope they are pumping out as many boards as possible. I've been waiting for Wii Fit for so long now more waiting...

[Hamton]

Originally Posted by bargnonions

Nope, there are many local HK people who have the US version of Wii.

Not strictly true. Actually, most HK Wii owners have chipped Japanese Wiis with the 'Wii Key'. They play US and Japanese games, but they buy... well, they probably don't buy much of either, because with the Wii Key you just download and burn your games to DVD-R.

That's just casual observation from most people I know and work with, as 99% (actually, everyone) have their Wii chipped, but still. It's just like the DS - it's so pirated, it's hard to buy a DS here without an R4 cartridge, in the same way that most shops already sell the Wii with the Wii Key preinstalled. By 'most' that doesn't include HMV or that type of place obviously...

Originally Posted by bargnonions

HK doesn't follow MSRP because they aren't even suppose to sell this stuff outside the regions. Only NA, EU, AUS, Korea, JP are officially supplied Wii.

HK sellers are just following the supply/demand like eBay. They're just capitalizing on the market, just business.

I know that's the case, it doesn't mean it's a good situation though. Such retailers are greedy money grabbing b*stards. eBay is a terrible example to use too, that's an auction system...

[bargnonions]

Anyone swing by any stores and see how much US version of Wii Fit is now?

I would hate to see lots of people buying it for $1100 and then HK stores not lower the price even when supply evens out.

[rani]

We saw the Japanese WiFit in SSP for $610 today.

[nefior]

bought mine a week ago at 188 wanchai (US Wii modded), $2780 at the last shop on the very left of 1st floor, including the US power transformer. 2nd set of controllers for $400 and wii fit jap for 630$.

Hint: Wii Fit japanese version board can be used with US Wii Fit Software.

No idea what chip they put into those modded wii's, but it works with the latest games (super mario galaxy), probably not updatable in the future though.

do NOT run updates of JAP/PAL games on your US wii! it might brick your console!

before you do anything with your new wii I recommend to setup the network settings and let it update online to the latest us firmware (3.2u currently). this will prevent a brick in case you still accidently run updates of JAP/PAL games, at least for the moment there is no newer firmware than 3.2 so games will not update your firmware, however some games might install some less critical update files of their region, so you might end up with duplicates of news/weather channels in japanese etc, at least that doesn't brick your wii.

I also turned off the connect24 service in the settings menu (you will not be able to use news/weather channels anymore) since it connects and updates from internet even when wii is turned off which I didn't really want. (and might eventually get you into troubles with the modchip according to some forums, allthough that might be speculation only).

[bargnonions]

Originally Posted by rani

We saw the Japanese WiFit in SSP for $610 today.

Yea, Japanese Wii Fit is down to around $600-700 in most places now. With the US Wii Fit out, there will be less people buying the Japanese version now.

Still, US Wii Fit is sold out everywhere and still $1100 when I checked this weekend.

Looks like it might be a while until the US version goes down to $600-700.

[jaetee]

So is 188 Wanchai the place to go for the Wii newbies like myself? And is the price quoted above the best for a "package" at this point?

Would it make more sense to pick one up in the US and then have it moded when in HK?

Sorry for the newbie questions.

Thanks.