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Nintendo Announces Japanese Wii Price
Wowzer writes "Nintendo has revealed to Famitsu.com, at the company's recent press conference unveiling its financial results, that Wii would arrive in Japanese stores with a maximum price tag of 25,000 yen. After taking in account various factors, the conversion to other currencies comes down to a launch price of: 225 dollars, 225 euros, and 150 pounds." Update: 05/25 13:45 GMT by Z : GamesIndustry.biz points out they hope to ship 6 million units by next March, and an Opera exec has said you can browse the internets with the wiimote.
All this negative press about Sony, and you come out a true champ.
This is one I'll be getting myself for Christmas. I don't see them changing the price much, if at all when it comes overseas.
The next question is, how much of a profit are they making on that? IIRC, Nintendo doesn't have a history of taking losses on their consoles, someone correct me if I'm wrong. At this low price, is it possible they've taken a turn on this one?
Either way, even if Sony has a killer launch lineup, I don't see them making the family Christmas market given the steep price difference. Unless the 360's price has a Christmas price drop, I doubt they'll be much in the match, since they got their head start last year.
if it's 225 dollars, then here in the UK it will be 225 pounds. FACT.
still a good price in absolute terms though.
I can't say the announcement of the price has swayed me in any way. Price was never what held me back on newer systems. I havn't bought a system since the Nintendo 64 because most games are nothing more than recreations of games that have been available for years. The thing that does swing me to the Wii is the innovation and "Road Less Traveled" feel of the entire system. It no longer feels like a Gamecube V.2, nor does it feel like they are slapping some new hardware inside the old shell to make games prettier. I feel that is all the PS3 and 360 have going for it, they have more power than their earlier versions. SO WHAT! If you simply do updates and resell as brand new their is nothing innovative and exciting. It seems that Nintendo caught on to this and decided to try things a little differently. I saw that simply reshaping the wheel wasn't enough for most people and decided reinvert at least a small part of the wheel. Now I'm not saying that Nintendo is doing something that is 100% brand new, no, but I do say that Nintendo is doing something in a totally new way and they stand to reap the benefits of it. Sometimes, even a small diversion from the path will lead you to a whole new place.
-tgpo
£150?
;)
I'm buying one. End of discussion.
For the price of a 360, I can get something original and interesting, plus 3 games, and waste away hours being entertained. Seriously, why do I need a 360 or a PS3, when this thing looks like it might actually manage to be a games console, instead of a glorified media centre?
Money conversions are not static.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Exactly. Anyway, I'm much more inclined to believe the Wii will launch for $200, considering that's the price every previous Nintendo console launched at.
Nintendo probably prefers to make money instead of selling many consoles.
That's pointless, even if Nintendo RAISES their launch price to lets say $250USD, 50 more than they every have before, they're still blowing the competition OUT OF THE WATER on price, what kind of message would selling themselves short send? This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Nintendo has very sound, and more importantly, PROVEN business practices in the gaming industry. Why would they screw with what works? The only real reason Nintendo has lost some ground is that there is now so much more ground out there, and there are 3 MAJOR other competitors out there these days: xbox, playstation, and PC.
Nintendo will continue to relegate all major changes and innovation to their actual products, not to their business practices. Just as it has always been with Nintendo, and as long as they are viable, will likely continue to be.
No Comment.
"Until we get official numbers, though, this is all speculation."
Yes, I believe the original article said that.
In other news, water is wet, the sun is hot, and lawyers are not always ethical (you can take these little ideas and run with them, tiger).
The fact that people have marked you as "insightful" says two things: (a) in general people are stupid (b) since people do the moderating, we've got primarily stupid moderators.
200 or 225, does it matter :) The news is the confirmation it'll not be $400 nor $600 :)
Maybe they are taking VAT into account...
If it ends up coming out at $199 and they can have it out before the holidays they will sell a ton. But they need to have enough for everyone to buy. At the $199 price point it will be a no brainer purchase for many folks.
From the Nintendo magazine link
When the X-box released before x-mas, they sold every single one. Heck, my little bro had his pre-paid at EB in November. We received it in February. If they're going to sell out, why don't they just make more before they start selling? MS doesn't make more money from people re-selling the unit on e-bay, but MS lost a lot of goodwill by failing to deliver a unit in reasonable time.
MS just became a running joke b/c so many people had ordered systems and not received them. I'm sure that this hurt them. I heard rumours of supply-chain issues and given ATI's own supply-chain problems, this may have been true. But, truth or no, it didn't get more systems in more houses, it actually gave potential buyers less exposure, b/c nobody had a system.
I would've bought an XBox 360 in December, I was hyped about them, the marketing blitz was on and I was keen on owning one. But hey, I couldn't buy one! My buddy with the 50" hi-def TV, he couldn't buy one! Nobody could buy one, so we all just moved on. I spent $600 playing Magic instead and now I still don't own a 360 (nor does my buddy :).
But now I hear that Nintendo will have only 6 million units at launch and it's like these marketing guys know something that we don't. I mean, at $250 each, they're going to sell out. And last I heard, sold out products meant lost potential profits! If people want my product and they can't buy it, then I'm giving them the opportunity to just spend their money elsewhere.
This Nintendo Wii is going to spread like wildfire. Casual gamers are going to come out of the cracks, people will marvel at the interactive gaming, just like people who stare at the DDR machines in the movie theatre arcades. But if I have to tell all of my jealous friends (& family) that they cannot have the instant gratification of owning their own system (b/c Nintendo didn't make enough systems) then they're going to move on the Next Big Thing.
Having a limited number of consoles makes the console a highly-valued item, it does not put more consoles in households, it does not increase the system's exposure, it does not sell more games, it just makes people angry that they can't own one of their own.
In the 4 years from 2001-2005 Nintendo sold around 20million units *total* of gamecube. You are insane to think that in less than a years time that they will sell out half of that number to a single country.
Assuming Wii launches in October, that's about a million a month, which is above the Xbox 360's pace (which in turn, is selling faster than PS2 at launch).
6 million would be over 25% of the total number of Gamecubes sold (about 21mil). It would be about 10% of the total number of NES's sold (around 60mil). It seems like a very reasonable target, especially for launch when production has not yet ramped up.
Nintendo has a lot more family oriented games, or so I hear.
Maybe in percentage of all games sold, but not in sheer numbers. PS2 has 1.2 jillion gamesa out and a ton of them are family-friendly. I just bought a used PS2 a few weeks ago (my first console since N64) and I adore it. It's a very polished, mature, professional system that feels and plays great. Pick one up while you wait for Wii. The used and cheap games make it well worth the investment.
For Iwata's sake, the Gamecube optical drive is just a FRIGGIN DVD READER! The disc DOES NOT SPIN BACKWARDS, i have a gc without the case in front of me right now, i'm SEEING THE DISC SPINNING, so please, STOP THIS RUMOR.