Joystiq posters play pre-conference prognosticators

In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki argues that large groups of people are better at predicting the future than any single guesser. With that in mind, we here at Joystiq have decided to pool our predictive abilities together to get a jump on tomorrow's likely official announcement of the Wii's U.S. price and street date.

Below the jump are our best guesses based on gut feelings, experience covering other console launches, and a careful reading of the endless rumors that have circulated around the launch. The blogger with the closest guesses will live on in eternal glory around the Joystiq "offices" -- the worst guesser will be mocked mercilessly until our fingers can dish out no more IM taunts. We've also thrown in our totally ludicrous predictions for potential MEGATON announcements that could come out of the conference, just for fun.

Remember, we're trained, professional bloggers, so don't try this kind of wild guessing at home. Try it in the comment thread instead! We'll compile averages for all the guesses filed before the official announcement (probably sometime between 9 and 10 a.m EST tomorrow) and see how smart our crowd of commenters actually is.

Price guesses:

• Alan: $179

• Ludwig: $199

• Kyle: $199

• Ross: $199.82 (or $379.99 for the premium model Premium model includes gold hardware, a "Grow Your Own Pikmin!" kit, and Duck Hunt for the NES)

• Chris: $200 (even though "$229 is the cool price to guess")

• Vlad: $219.99

• James: $229.99

• Jennie: $249 (or "about half what it will cost in Europe")

• Blake: $249

Mean: $213.87
Median: $200 (Chris)

Release date guesses:

• Ross: Oct. 11 ("Think about it: Wednesday the 11th : W 11")

• Chris: Oct. 16

• James: Oct. 29

• Kyle: Nov. 2

• Jennie: Nov. 3 (or "a month before it gets to Europe")

• Vlad: Nov. 9

• Alan: Nov. 9

• Blake: Nov. 12

• Ludwig: Nov. 12

Mean: Approx. 2:40 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 1.
Median: Nov. 3 (Jennie)

Megaton announcement guesses: (in approximate increasing order of likelihood)

• Blake: No idea, but something tells me all the hype of "secrets" will leave me feeling disappointed

• James: There are no more hardware secrets.

• Kyle: Virtual console can also play Neo Geo titles.

• Vlad: Will run iTunes.

• Ludwig: An $899 Wii will be revealed, one that supports playback of Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and a third format still in the process of being invented.

• Ross: "The first 100 customers who purchase a Wii will be personally licked by Miyamoto," according to Reggie. "The second 100 customers will get a kick in the nuts by me."

• Chris: HOLOGRAPHIC RETINAL IMPLANTS!