Wii U Price to Drop $50 in September

[Guest]

The Wii U will be dropping by $50 come September.

Wii U Price to Drop $50 in September : Read more

 

[kinggraves]

It had to happen, it's just that Iwata is not going to come out and say "We will drop the price in Sept, but please buy one in June." Makes me wonder if they're getting the gamepads at a price cheap enough to sell them separately yet. And no, Nintendo will not beat the new consoles this year, their holiday lineup isn't strong enough. Wii U will start moving next year after big titles like the new Zelda and Smash Bros come out.

 

[shikamaru31789]

I'll wait for it to drop to $200. Only a handful of Wii U exclusives that I'm interested in.

 

[joaompp]

I can totally see a Linux box running an emulator using an android phone and a moga controller, with today's high end hardware it shouldn't be too taxing on a system to run a WiiU game

 

[nevilence]

wii u really doesnt seem to be doing well >< I would hate to see the wii u kill nintendo

 

[unksol]

Damn. I read it as "wii u price drops to $50" for $50 why not. "$300 are you insane? "

 

[Bloob]

If these prices come to europe soon, I'll probably get one.

 

[bustapr]

@joaommp not a chance any time soon. xbox 360 and ps3 emulators still run like utter poo on todays best rigs. hardware-wise, the wiiu is similar to these consoles, so an emulator for it(if there is one any time soon) would also run like poo. not to mention the emulator would have to also be compatible with most android phones. its going to be quite a few years until we see something decent on a high end rig.

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

Why are they announcing a future price cut so early? Watch the sales figures of Wii U dive to nothing until then.

 

[tgsa]

I think the Wii U is still struggling to compete with the XB 360 and the PS 3. It'll continue to struggle to compete once you add the XBone and PS 4 to the mix.

 

[bigpoppastuke]

Why would you announce a price drop a month in advance? Sales of the system will effectively drop until September 20th. Price drops should be announced the day before or day of. This is just poor business sense!

 

[belardo]

Nintendo... like many companies... sometimes don't know what they are doing and wonder why they are losing millions. "We're going to reduce the cost of an over-price system next month" - is very very stupid. Do they THINK they are competing with the PS4? The WiiU is a 7th gen console. Its on par with the 360/PS4 - nothing more and at $300 (32GB), its still $100 more than the bottom end PS3 with 16GB Flash memory. Some other differences:

PS3: $200
- Plays Blu-Ray and DVD movie discs! Plays CD-Audio discs too.
- up-gradable to 500GB HD (Or simply buy the $250 PS3)
- 80 Million PS3s in the world (maybe 70m operational) vs 3.7m WiiUs. Ouch! Why would developers bother with the WiiU (they aren't).

WiiU: $300
- Is almost half the size of the PS3.
- Has a tablet controller (but its bulky and has a 3hr battery life)
- It came out 6 years after the PS3, but isn't more powerful.

The ONLY way to make the WiiU survive is to bring down the pricing. The Wii is a $130 console... for little kids, its fine. The U should have been a $200 product, LAST year on launch and not have the tablet controller. Considering that the U cannot play any media content is plain stupid. IMHO, if the value of the PS3 is $200 with MORE features and support, the value of the U is $150, at best. At that price, its a loss to Nintendo. And worse, even at $150 - it would never catch up to the PS3/360 (combined 140m+ operational units) in market share.
The U will never be considered a console for serious players (age 16 and up).

The Wii is stagnate at 100m units. Its technology is 12 years old. It will out-live the U, especially when its priced under $100. Nothing wrong with it being a kiddie console for 3~9 year olds.

The failure of Nintendo was NOT aiming for their core market users, little kids. Parents are not likely to buy a $300~400 console for their 5yr old, vs $100~200.

Nintendo has two choices:
A) End the WiiU in Feb 2014 (after horrible sales). Start making their games for the PS4 (which will hit 2-3 million units by then) and PS3 (70m). Make the Wii a $99 console. Nintendo will make MORE money selling 20+ million Mario games for the PS3 than 2million for their own dying WiiU. Keep selling the Wii until less than 1m units are sold per year or whatever.

A2) * Nintendo has released the Wii-Mini for China, Europe and Canadian markets. Its $100 and doesn't include any games. It has a single USB connector. It doesn't play GC games, no HDTV connections, no SD-slot, no WiFi or internet functions. Its actually slightly smaller than the WIi. Should be called the WiiC (Cheap) as its a top-loading black and read device. Its ugly.

B) Kill the Wii. Sell the Wii-U for $130, without the tablet-controller. Call it the Wii2 maybe... and target the system for kiddies. Its a mess. Besides most Wii games were made by Nintendo anyway... so if they lose more 3rd party support, would anyone care? Maybe they'll gain smaller studios?

 

[drwho1]

even if it dropped to $50 minus $49.99 REBATE.... I still won't care.

 

[Guest]

still DGAF. You can build an entry level PC or buy the PS4 for 100$ more.