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Nintendo's Wii U Will Be Sold At a Loss

Posted by Soulskill on from the super-mario-loss-leader dept.

another random user tips news that Nintendo will be selling its upcoming Wii U console at a loss in the hopes that spurring earlier adoption will work out for the company in the long run. This differs from the Wii, which made money from the start, but it's a similar strategy to those used with the Xbox 360 and PS3, which both lost money for their companies at release. "The Japanese firm's president revealed the news after the firm cut its profit forecast. It marks a change in the company's business strategy. The decision to abandon the prospect of immediate profits in order to maximize later earnings is part of a growing trend in the tech world. Nintendo might have altered course to take advantage of the fact that neither Microsoft nor Sony have announced their next-generation consoles yet. Its pursuit of the more casual gamer means it has also had to take account of the keenly priced tablet market which attracts a similar consumer."

1 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why aren't people more hyped about the Wii U? by trdrstv · · Score: 5, Informative

    People aren't more hyped because the console is as powerful as current gen consoles but costs more.

    Then why are 3rd party games running at 1080p60 instead of 720p30 like they are on the PS3 / 360 ?

    The special controller is crazy expensive and you are only going to get one per system.

    And it's being designed so you only have to use 1 to play the games.

    Online play is poorly supported, you can't go out and purchase all of the old school Nintendo games through an online market for the system (like literally everyone who games wants to),

    ?? The Wii-shop from the Wii carries over to the Wii U and you can port over all your downloaded games from the Wii to the Wii U. Seriously there's hundreds of games (including most old school nintendo games) that you can download.

    and the system itself doesn't have as rich a supported application set as the PS3 and the Xbox360.

    Probably not right away, but they are launching with: Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Universal remote control, and a browser. What other applications are on PS3 / 360 that you feel you'd miss ?