Currently I'm in the United States, as an exchange student. Originally I'm from Australia, and I'll be back in Australia in about 5 months. I just wanted to hear some thoughts about how compatiable the Wii would be if I bought it here and brought it back to Australia. Some of the things that have crossed my mind are:

Power - Not a problem, I have a transformer to drop the voltage coming out of my outlet at home to a safe, Wii friendly 110 volts.

PAL/NTSC - My biggest problem. It will be NTSC if I buy it here, right? And Australian TVs are PAL standard, so it won't be compatiable. However, I'll mostly be playing it through the TV card on my computer, which can be switched to either PAL/NTSC mode. Still, even if it worked on there, it would not be compatiable with any other TV in Australia. Also, if the Wii happens to have a VGA output that'll solve the problem entirely.

Games - Unless the whole project is multiregion, I'll have to buy all my games from America and have them shipped to Australia. Expensive...

Controllers - One of my Wii friends was suspicious at how compatiable the controllers would be between US/Australian systems. Could be another hiccup.

Internet - It would be a real laggy issue if all my multiplayer games forced me onto American servers, since I bought it in America. All the content would be American too.

So it might seem like too much effort to buy it here and bring it back with me... the only advantage would be is that I get to have my Wii earlier. But if someone (aka Nintendo, hurry up already) lets out some more specifics maybe it would be possible.

I will probably just end up ordering an Australian version over the internet so it's sitting at my doorstep by the time I get back home. Actually just spilling my thoughts about this has made me almost decide just to buy an all natural home grown Australian Wii. But... thoughts anyway?

your PAL/NTSC tv problem may be fixed by a lot of newer TV's (at least in the UK supporting both)

controllers the bluetooth tech etc used in the controllers wont be different for each country... as that would be a waste...

games that will be a problem if its not region free

I assume it will be some sort of direct connect/one machine hosts it sort of thing... the lag will be dependant on whoever is hosting... so you could get a host in japan us/uk or they may limit the players to a specific area... e.g. North America/Europe etc... what would be cool would be the option to choose which area you would like to play although that could mean someone choosing to play in Aus. from US could cause lag...

I heard somewhere that is was region free. It's probs just a rumour though, sorry.

then stay here wit us!

with the gamecube cheat discs they hada freeloader on them basically you put the cheat disc in and select which country you want to change it to and stick the game in and it works. They will probably make a freeloader for wii.

lol they sure will