Slashdot Mirror
Wii Gets Price Cut To $199
After watching Microsoft and Sony drop the prices on the Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo has decided to jump in with a price cut as well. Starting September 27th, the Wii will cost $199 in North America, a $50 drop from the previous price. Japan will be getting a slightly smaller price cut, but Europe seems to be left out of this change. Nintendo is hoping this reduction and the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus in the coming months will boost slipping sales rates.
And the fact that xmas sales are coming soon.
But what actually gave Wii some boost and made me pick it up again was the Motion Plus extension - it feels a lot better than the regular controller without it. Sadly, theres still not many games for it.
Also like was discussed a few days ago, Wii might be on end of its lifecycle soon and Nintendo might go a little different route with next console, which I actually find a little sad. The control scheme is a nice change and it could be utilized really well with some types of games. Nintendo should have pushed indie game developing a lot more, since thats where some great ideas could had been coming from and because of Wii's limited graphic powers, indie game developers could had concentrate on the control and gameplay a lot more.
The Wii when it was sold a couple years ago was already behind the time in terms of graphics and performance. Today it is that much further behind. It is in really need for an upgrade. Granted I am not a hardcore gammer and I don't think graphics are the most important part to good gaming. However its graphics are a bit early 2000 compared to what the other guys have.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just bought a Wii two weeks ago. So of course the price would drop...
Same with Apple and iPhone apps. You pay $100 and off you go.
Plus $600 for Xcode if you don't already have an Intel Mac, but your point is still valid.
But Nintendo...$2000 for the SDK? Ick.
That's peanuts compared to the cost of doing an internship in another state and then leasing an office. Nintendo requires developers to have a dedicated office and experience in the mainstream video game industry.
Almost down to that $100 price they said it was going to be originally.
Actually to get the last great push for sales... enable the DVD drive to play movies!!! I mean come on! And upgrade the flash player!
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
Its funny how the most profitable console maker doesn't follow that business model.
Actually to get the last great push for sales... enable the DVD drive to play movies!!!
That would presumably cost more to build. There is a DVD-Video player for the jailbroken Wii, but it makes the drive wear out faster.
And upgrade the flash player!
Nintendo upgraded Internet Channel to Flash 9 a few weeks ago. See Slashdot coverage.
They need to drop the game prices. It's hard to justify the $50 for a game like Punch-Out. For casual gamers, that's a high price tag.
As others have said, the motion-plus is badly needed. Sadly it may be too late since so many games have already been produced without it. Star Wars Unleashed would be so much better if the light saber truly followed your motion. I don't think I want to pay the extra $50 for Star Wars Unleashed Motion Plus. How about a downloadable upgrade?
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
As opposed to the rumbling surge in sales for the XBox360 and PS3 coming up right around the corner, well after their initial break-in to the market?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
"It offers a lot more."
like a 50% failure rate.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Depends what you mean by "good games".
My son and I played Mario Super Sluggers all last winter. For the last 3 months or so we have at least an hour every night of the whole family playing Mario Kart Wii.
My 6 year old daughter loves Disney Enchanted Princesses, and both kids are enjoying Disney Think Fast.
So I would say yes.
Nintendo needs bundle a lot more with the Wii for it to be a value. It is meant for multiplayer non-online gaming. A wii + 2 additional controllers + 2 nunchunks + motion plus + a balance board is a good gaming system. But a very expensive one.
The other problem is that the Wii really just never worked right. Wii + motion plus is closer to what Nintendo originally promised. I love physically interactive games (DDR, Police 911, etc.) but the Wii is really a pretty weak platform for them. Wii Tennis just detected if you swung the controller randomly. Punch Out can't tell uppercuts from high punches from low punches without relying on buttons. The balance board can't really tell if you dodge - people have figured out things like standing on one foot that makes it think you dodged, but that takes the fun away (and doesn't work on the later levels).
I am more excited about the next generation of interactive gaming than what the Wii does now.
It is about time that Nintendo decided to do this. The gaming quality and high definition produced by PS3 and XBox 360 already give incentive to buyers to purchase those consoles over Wii. Hopefully the cheaper price tag will attract more consumers. Also, most consumers will purchase the new Wii Motion Plus for more accurate gameplay. Still Nintendo needs to do more to appeal to a mroe variety of gamers.
What kind of games do you like? Your question is fairly worthless without that info.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
I still won't be getting one for 2 reasons.
1. I happen to like my HDTV a little too much to put a wiimote through it.
2. It's horribly lacking in 3rd party games which stinks. Wii Sports, Mario, Zelda and Metroid will only carry you so far.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
I guess Nintendo heard Apple talk about the magical 199$ price tag (warning: lots of photos). Look at around 1:51 PM ~ 1:52 PM:
1:51 PM: Greg Kumparak âoeWe learned something very important a few years back.â
1:51 PM: Greg Kumparak "Essentially, $199 is a magic spot."
1:52 PM: Greg Kumparak "When they dropped from $249 to $199, sales of the past iPod models almost doubled."
So if the same thing happens to Nintendo and the Wii, sales should double from now on until at least Christmas.
I'd be interested if EITHER of you could support EITHER of those figures. Note: A gaming magazine survey isn't sufficient support, nor is counting up your friends.
Parent was referring to the Wii which is basically a Gamecube on steroids. The price of manufacturing as Wii vs. the sale price meant that the Big N made a profit on the Wii Console from day one.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
No, he's completely serious. Nintendo sells their hardware for a profit, always have and always will. When you bought your GC for $100 that was late in the console's life and it cost less than $100 to make. When the GC was launched at $200, it cost less than $200 to make. All they do is games -- they can't afford to subsidize their gaming business with money from other sectors like Sony and MS.
In fact, it's only recently that selling hardware at a loss became popular. For most of its life, the PS2 was sold at a profit. Xbox was the exception last time, as Sony/Big N hilariously revealed.
Of course Nintendo also likes game royalties, and thus charges what the market will bear for games. But no, selling hardware at a loss and making it up with games isn't their business model. Profiting off of hardware, then profiting off of games is their business model.
The enemies of Democracy are
The Twilight Hack has been obsoleted by System Updates; if the Homebrew channel or other loader was installed then updates didn't remove it. Nonetheless, the Twilight Hack won't work on a Wii that is patched up current. The current exploit du jour is Bannerbomb; it doesn't require a copy of Twilight Princess and works even on current versions of the System Menu.
I will say this for a well exploited Wii. I can select any title that I own from a menu and play it without getting up to change discs as all the titles I own have been ripped to a USB hard drive. Nintendo and the other consoles should have enabled something like that from the get go. I have no problem with serializing such a scheme so that your rips won't work on another console. It should also be possible to do something to distinguish rental titles so that one can't compile a library super cheap from GameFly.
I haven't touched physical media for years for music. This will soon be true of my video as well. And I would like that to continue to be true of any console gaming I do as well. If the console makers don't step up, I'll go with the thoroughly pwned consoles where homebrewers have.