RUMOR: November 18th a Very Likely Wii U Release Date

Today at the Gamestop manager’s convention, the Wii U’s release date may have been inadvertently leaked. While this isn’t official by any means, all signs indicate the 18th of November is a very likely date for the Wii U to come out, and that was reinforced by the gaming accessory making company, PDP.

While discussing when the public would start seeing peripherals for the Wii U on shelves, a PDP rep said that we could expect them shortly before the Wii U’s November 18th release date. Shortly after realizing what he said, the rep changed the subject, and no more was said on the matter. In response to the slip up, PDP had this to say:

“At this time we can’t confirm Nintendo’s dates and we don’t know exactly what was heard, but we simply do not know that this point. We are launching accessories, but the date for the accessories doesn’t mean a confirmation on the hardware. If you seek confirmation on the date that is something that is going to need to go specifically though Nintendo, but we can’t confirm or deny dates on any of their hardware.”

November 18th is a Sunday, and if we go by the release dates for the 3DS XL (8/19/12), Wii (11/14/06), and Gamecube (11/18/01), Nintendo enjoys sending their consoles out on Sundays. The 18th is also the last Sunday in November before Black Friday, which Nintendo is definitely paying attention to if they want the Wii U to blast off the shelves. In comparison with Sony and Microsoft, this would put the Wii U after November marketing pushes for Halo 4 and Call of Duty Black Ops II.

Is this enough to guarantee that we will be seeing the Wii U in stores on the 18th? Unfortunately, no. As PDP said, the only people we can get a completely trustworthy and official release date from is Nintendo themselves, and they are not going to let go of that information until they are ready to.