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Merrill Lynch Predicts $200 Wii
Burlap writes "In a story at Forbes, Merrill Lynch predicts that Nintendo will severely undercut the competition with a $200 price point on the Wii." From the article: "An executive from SEGA, one of Nintendo's largest publishers, told Forbes.com on Tuesday that he expects the Wii to sell for less than $200. Post said the Nintendo machine, which features a wireless controller that responds to players' body movements, 'will appeal to a broad demographic of both hard-core and casual gamers.'"
I disagree with Merril Lynch analysis on this, Nintendo has always had a profit on all the consoles they've sold. To compete with the others, I expect around a $300 retail price around Thanksgiving, which will be dropped around President's Day or Memorial Day to somewhere around $250.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Is there a constructive reason for such prediction? Will Merrill Lynch get a prize or something if the prediction is correct?
We already have Google popping up in every 3rd article, now we have Wii.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
Well, the XBox 360 core launched at $299. MS will probably drop the price at some point before PS3 launches, possibly to $250. Nintendo has stated that the Wii will be priced below the 360 and PS3... does that mean it will cost $250 or less?
Console itself will be $200 isnt too far stretched, just still don't expect to get out the door without spending upwards of $200 MORE on games and accessories.
The raw console will be $200 with your standard one controller, but you'll not have everything you want for far more.
Duh? there'd be no fucking point in doing that. Consider the followings:
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Analysts may be really unreliable people, but it's pretty hard to jack this up. If we look at the link from the PS3 article (clicky), we notice that every Nintendo console ever has launched at $200.
It's kind of a no brainer.
As long as Moore's Law significantly outpaces inflation, you should see the cost of most consumer electronics continue to decrease, while their capability increases.
If $200 buys you X transistors this year, and 1.5X transistors in 2008, then as long as inflation doesn't exceed 22% a year, you'll be getting more capability for less money each time.
Or at least that's true as long as the cost of the chips needed for an acceptable game machine make up a significant portion of the cost of the machine. When the chips are (much) less expensive than the rest of the components, the relative cost curve will flatten out.
-Mark
Wii is hardly more powerful than gamecube.
If by "hardly" you mean "two to three times" then yes.
They should have just bundled the controller with whatever handful of games they plan to have it work with and called it a day.
Yeah, like the CD-I. That worked really well, right? No console add-on with fundamentally different capabilities from the base console has ever gained wide acceptance. Nintendo would be shooting itself in the foot if it did that, even if the Wii's capabilities were the same as the Gamecube's.
FTFA:
TRANSLATION: "Lower-cot publishing environment" == "lower licensing fees" + "fewer resources to develop each title"
If they're able to cut the price of a game down to $20-$25 bucks (
... they'll do 5 things:
- take a huge bite out of the underground market for chip mods/pirate games
- beat the crap out of the competition
- get rid of game rentals - why rent when for $20 you can own?
- more than make up the $$$ on volume
- developers/publishers also get a much larger market, as the games become impulse buys. At $20, every game becomes a million-unit seller.
After all, with a console at $150, and games at $20-$30 a pop, it's the no-brainer buying decision.At $50 - $70 a game, people think twice, 3, 10 times before they buy ... at $20, they'll buy one a week.
Highly unlikely. The Gamecube was easier to develop for (using your criterion, anyways), and games for that went at the same price as everyone else's.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I think it's a lot more likely that the 360 Core will be discontinued and the Premium will go down to $350. The 360 doesn't need a lower price to compete with the PS3 and can't compete on price with the Wii. Microsoft is probably best off by leaving the price alone for a good long while.
Why are you fretting so much about the Wii?
Its CPU is basically a G5 from what I've read. And from personal experience, a 970 FX can easilly destroys the P3/Celeorn-hybrid found in the XBox and the Custom G3 found in the GC. Your "hardly comment" only goes to show how ignorant you are about these things. The Wii's GPU is at least 4 or 5 generations ahead of its predecessor, so that's going to make a big difference in performance. It's also pretty much guaranteed that the Wii will have a PPU. If this is the case, it will make a substantial difference in performance for 3D games, and free up the CPU to do other tasks. A dedicated PPU would be much faster than the software route the X360 and PS3 have taken.
I found most of what you sated to be more inflammatory than instightful. But it's good that you pointed out the backwards compatibily. I know you were trying to use that to state your case, but it's one of the Wii's strengths and it's just another reason for me to buy one.
The Wiimote isn't an afterthought like Sony's hack-job as an example, so all Wii games that can benefit from it, will support it. This is why the Wii is going to be great and you honestly can't deny you would love this sort of thing on your favorite console. You're only "trying" to spread "misinformation" by stating things like a "handfull of games." Like that's going to change anything, since Nintendo has a huge line up of Wii games, which are wiimote-friendly, which will be ready for launch. A bundled "main" controller won't have problems getting support from developers; Get real!
Anway, most of your points can easilly be applied to the other consoles, since they're basically upgrades. They haven't changed gaming, they've only moved consoles up to the level of mid-ranged PCs when it comes to visual eye-candy. Nintendo's Wii is the only console that has brought something new to the plate and it has all the potentional to evovle gaming beyond the current state of same, which MS and Sony are moving forward with. An upgrade is better graphics and more power, not a whole new way to game, which only the Wii can offer.
<]=)
After all, with a console at $150, and games at $20-$30 a pop, it's the no-brainer buying decision.
Or better yet! Why don't they give out the console for free! And pay you to take the games off retailers shelves!
[/sarcasm]
I'm looking forward to the launch of the Wii too, but let's not get carried away here. Nintendo has to adjust for inflation eventually, so consoles aren't going to launch under $200 anymore. And you fail to take into consideration the fact that the dollar is weak against the yen.
All this speculation is just setting up Nintendo for a fall. $250 is a reasonable price point. $200 is overly optimistic. $150 is foolish. What's going to happen when Nintendo announces a $250 launch price is that everyone who convinced themselves that it was going to launch for $150 is going to disappoint themselves - even though it will still be $50 - $100 less than the XBox 360!
Let's try to keep grounded in reality here.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.