Attack of the Wii Clones, Starring Acer?

— -- I'm not sure what to make of Spong's riff on a Turkish website's claim that computer manufacturer Acer is teaming up with Nvidia and Intel to manufacture their very own Wii.

Not exactly Nintendo's Wii, but something rather like it. Check out the clumsy-looking "leaked" image above and judge for yourself. There's the micro-tower-y box shellacked with a trendy electric purple veneer. Someone appears to have snuck a promotional Nintendo snap into the slide for comparative emphasis. And what Wii-clone would be complete without your very own wireless, err, "Acer-mote"?

Tom's Guide teases the following about what it claims is dubbed the "Acer Hornet":

The device harnesses the power of Intel's Atom chip and Nvidia's Ion chipset with an HDMI output and visuals capable of 1080p playback. Apparently, the device will be capable of playing PC games, but due to the Ion limitations (16 stream processors), the resolutions may be limited as well. Selling for a 'couple hundreds of dollars', the Hornet uses full-size peripherals and works silently.

The Inquirer gets in on the action with tittle-tattle about an April release date, and intimations about multi-SKU offerings priced in the $200-$400 range.

Acer's saying nothing either way, but given April's right around the corner and you'd typically want to emblazon this sort of product in neon lights months if not years out, I'm pretty skeptical. As in "Hey guys, you know today's March 2nd, not April 1st, right?"

Matt Peckham knows as well as you that without significant developer support, it's as corporeal as Infinium Labs' Phantom. You can follow him at twitter.com/game_on.