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GameCube Dropped To $99 At Online Retailer
JFMulder writes "Retail partners Amazon.com and Toys 'R Us announced today that they were dropping the Gamecube console price down to $99. Even though Nintendo is probably losing money now on the GameCube, this is the move that Nintendo may be hoping will close the little gap between Xbox and GameCube in worldwide sales, and help it gain a solid lead over Microsoft in the coming months." A Reuters story mentions further indications that an official announcement is on its way, and all on Nintendo's 114th birthday, too.
Nintendo started as a playing card company, and slowly evolved into a video game company as the technology came into being.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Actually, I doubt Nintendo is losing money on the Gamecube. Most sources will say that Nintendo was turning a very small profit on the Cube when it launched at $199, and that was a couple of years ago - the prices on the components have fallen off considerably since then, as electronics tend to do, and production efficiency has increased. I'd guess that if Nintendo is taking any kind of loss on the GC, it's only since the price cut to $99, and it's very, very slight.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Now, if in fact the $99 price still includes either a game or a GBP then this is a significant deal. Honestly, with the GBP the Cube becomes a great little system to have. I recently finished Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow entirely on the GBP and that was a GREAT experience. Other GameBoy, GameBoy Color, and GameBoy Advance games also benefit from the big screen format, although you may finally realize how awful some of that 8-bit sound was on your older games. Those older games are relatively cheap to get used, so you can get by inexpensively on those. Add in Animal Crossing and other great games on the Player's Choice list and then you're talking a good time. Heck, you can even play Soul Calibur II, if you want.
Sure, you won't be playing Halo 2 or the next Grand Theft Auto, but there is still some good gaming to be had on that cheap Cube.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
It's really too bad, but Nintendo really did a bang-up job of making the system very difficult to hack.
It's too bad, because the system itself is a great little system - standard PowerPC-based processor, ATI graphics - well suited to simple programming.
However the disc format being 'backwards' - the disc spins in the normal way but is read from the outside-in instead of the inside-out like other discs - makes it difficult to even read and write a disc.
However software exists which makes a good effort at reading the discs, so it is only a matter of time before we'll see Linux or NetBSD running on the thing.
But it's really too bad that it is so difficult, because Nintendo could have sold the devices at $199 for a nice profit, including a Linux disk or something, making it a simple browse the web from the set-top solution, etc.
MORTAR COMBAT!
... doesn't mean it wasn't successful. How much cash did Nintendo rake in?
Now I'd be worried if Nintendo was shaking up its executives...
"Derp de derp."
I don't know if that perceived value will make up completly for the deficiencies, real or imagined, of the Gamecube vs. the Xbox, but it will certainly help.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
"Even though Nintendo is probably losing money now on the GameCube, this is the move that Nintendo may be hoping will close the little gap between Xbox and GameCube in worldwide sales, and help it gain a solid lead over Microsoft in the coming months."
Actually, Nintendo doesn't want to close the gap between XBox and Gamecube in worldwide sales... because that would make their lead smaller. I get my facts from this GameSpy article which Slashdot linked to less than a week ago.
GameCube worldwide sales: 9,550,000
XBox worldwide sales: 9,400,000
Granted this is not a "solid lead," but it is a lead, and one that Nintendo would want to extend, not close. If you're talking about Europe or America, Nintendo is in third, but in Japan, they're in a commanding second. Any comments about worldwide sales should reflect this.
-Kyle Orland
The Video Game Ombudsman
" I know all sorts of stuff has been done to PS2 and X-box, but what about GameCube?"
:)
<FLAMEBAIT>
You see, unlike those other two consoles, the Cube is fun right out of the box.
</FLAMEBAIT>
Let's look at it this way
1) M$ just got done in an interview proclaiming that Nintendo wasn't an issue anymore. If Nintendo wants to beat out the Xbox they're going to have to do it by pushing more boxes out than XBox. This will guve them what... a $100 advantage to the XB, which M$ probably can't afford to drop any lower since they're already losing money on each console manufactured
2) Nintendo has already cut production of new units and are trying to clear out the warehouses. Simple supply and demand here.
3) Nintendo has a lot of hot stuff coming in November. A lot of people aren't really in the know but this is probably a pre-emptive shot in the upcoming Xmas console battle.
4) This also puts the GC on the same value as the GBA, which should prevent Nintendo from "shooting themselves in the foot" (not really happening though) with the price difference between GC and GBA SP. (My next guess is a buy one get one half off deal if this doesn't work.)
5) If Nintendo is still doing the free game with purchase deal then microsoft is seriously going to be in a lot of hot water. You're talking a $150 difference in the setup fee for a GC vs. Xbox.
Insert Sig Here
isn't lowering a console's price point below $100 a death knell?
While Dreamcast's $50 price was bad publicity, the Genesis, NES and SNES all went for below $100 during the middle part of their generations.
Two things immediately pop into my mind with this news...
#1 I remember someone at Nintendo taunting Microsoft for their Sega GT/JSRF bundle deal saying that bundles and price drops are an insult to early adopters. Well, insult on then.
#2 I think of the fast food industry. They also did the price war thing. Then prices hit like $0.49 and customers realized that if they can sell it for so cheap it must be a piece of crap. The consoles might run into that soon. Hmmm, these consoles are $149 and this one is only $99. Whats wrong with this one that it is so cheap?
Nes, Snes, N64 and gamecube all launched at $200. Games have always cost about 40-50 bucks too.
The real profits are made by the software, not the hardware. Even if Nintendo is now losing money on the GCs (not bloody likely), they'll still be selling plenty of games to keep the GC owners entertained. Since Nintendo still has some A-List titles to release (such as Mario Kart and Mario Golf), they won't be suffering anytime soon.
Goo goo g'joob.
Microsoft seems to be competing more with PS2 then with Gamecube.
How is Microsoft competing more with PS2 than with GameCube when the XBox sales are much closer to the GameCube's sales than to the PS2's sales?
The simple fact is that Microsoft is #3 worldwide, and if Nintendo can get a decent increase in sales in the US, Microsoft will be #3 here, as well. Microsoft set their system up to compete with the PS2 (DVD playback, online capability, etc), but that's not what they are currently doing.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
the original NES was $99 if I remember correctly.
It depends on when you got it. If you were a very early NES owner and got the package with the robot (the only one available at the start), it could have been as much as $400. My parents bought the bundle with the light gun (not the orange one) and Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. cart. for $115, about 3-5 years after the system was released.
How much were NES games back in the day? I don't remember them being $50 each, the way GameCube games are now.
It depended on the game and when you bought it, just like it does today, except that some cartridges cost more to produce, and were therefore more expensive. Ultima:Exodus, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior were each around $60 when they were first released. Most games started at $50. In the last 3 years before the SNES was released, games in the $20-35 range became much more common, though rarely for new games.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Just wondering where the hell the price difference comes from. And please don't say thing like sales tax or wages. The tax difference ain't that big and the damn things are produced in china.
VAT and import duties can be something like 15-25%. The price difference, after currency exchange, between a GBA-SP on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.com is ~50%. I'd imagine there's also a difference in cost associated with producing 220 power adapters for the rechargable battery pack (and the batteries themselves may be different), if that is needed for units sold in the EU (since Japanese and US consoles sell with 110V power adapters). There may also be associated costs with getting the device approved for the EU, which would of course be passed on to the consumers in that area.
All of that being said, the device is priced based on the combination of costs for building the device and getting it approved and shipped to the location, as well as what the market would bear. Even if the exchange rates changed drastically, Nintendo's prices wouldn't react very quickly, which could work for or against you. (in fact, if Nintendo's prices did fluctuate with the exchange rates it would probably look bad to most consumers, though it would happen if the market could manage a more direct path from the producer to the consumer, especially since even the US price is subject to exchange rates and possibly import taxes).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I remember when gas use to cost 75cents a gallon. Videogames are actually getting cheaper when you think about it. As inflation goes up videogame prices don't. Consoles are deffinately cheaper. Finally now with this price drop I will have all 3 consoles. Not that I don't have too many games to play right now already.
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