Pokémon GB Micro planned

Nintendo's planning to release a Game Boy Micro with a Pokémon design on November 17th in Japan, priced 12,000 yen. That's about the same amount of money you'd normally spend on electricity if you forgot to turn off your PC when you went to Japan. [EUR 87 / £60 - Ed]

There are two surprising things about this. The first, obviously, is that it wasn't released the first time around. Perhaps the demand for the Micro, which Nintendo's already said was aimed at people besides those who owned DS and GBA SP systems, is now so great that it just makes sense. After all, the Famicom version sold out more or less instantly, and Famitsu's claiming it's topped 200,000 Japanese sales so far.

The other surprise is that it isn't just a faceplate - it's a red-bodied Micro with a black faceplate sporting a while Pikachu silhouette. Nice. Expect importers and shady eBay wheeler-dealers to pick up on it pretty soon after release. Japanese folks will be able to pick it up from Pokémon Centres and online.

As for us - we're still waiting for the Micro itself, which is set to launch in Europe on November 4th priced £69.99 or thereabouts. It'll be available in Silver, Green, Blue and Pink, which probably don't deserve capitals, but have been awarded them all the same. If you're curious as to what we thought of the Micro, check out our recent review, which came to the conclusion that it's not really meant for most of us, but that rather like increasingly small and shiny Apple MP3 players and prestige versions of consoles like the Panasonic Q GameCube and the Crystal Xbox, it's still really rather tempting.