Has Amazon been too hasty yet again?
Amazon.de, the German sector of Amazon, recently priced and dated the Wii U. According to the site, the Wii U will be released on December 21st, 2012 for €399.
Nintendo’s shied away from revealing any hard numbers for the Wii U all year, so the number that Amazon’s released may be pure speculation on the company’s part. Earlier this week, Amazon UK issued out refunds and apologies to customers who pre-ordered the Wii U after the site released pricing and dating details too early. It’s unlikely that Amazon would make the same mistake twice, although it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. However, a December 21st release date is far more believable than the July one that Amazon UK posted.
There’s been no official word from Nintendo. Until then, the release date and price point remain a rumor.
Ha, yeah I think so. Guess it'll never get released then!
It'll just give people in the U.S. another reason to trample and fight trying to get into the store causing unnecessary damage and harm in a greedy effort to get there hands on it in the holiday madness.
its possible, nintendo has shown many times that they do not like losing mioney on the console sales, prices dropped on the Wii awhen they started to be cheaper to make not when the market would say it was a good move to increase sales and move games.
on the other end of the spectrum m$ and $ony will sell at a discount losing money on the console expecting to make back th emoney on games apps and services over the life of the console. both are valid buisness models but hopefully nintendo won't kneecap sales by makign the console priced out of the reach of the consumers who would want it
Thats hardly accurate though. Nintendo was willing to sell 3DS at a loss while Sony was not willing to do the same for the Vita.
sorry i should have specified this is on their home consoles. with handhelds they have a pretty well cornered market and do in fact sell at a loss where they recoup after a few games sales.
and @ captaincharisma the reason it is supposed to cost alot is they are increasing the power in the machine is they are supposedly trying to compete with m$ and $ony on performance which i am all for, the more competition the better i say, but am also sceptical that they will bridge the gap in power under the hood.
The dollar has become weaker since 2005 and prices in the Eurozone include about 20% VAT (depending on country). So the real price is about 330€ or 420USD. Not unreasonable.
btw: xbox360 was launched at 400€ in europe.
And I thought they learned their own pricing lesson with the 3DS.
Like you said, the dollar was stronger then. It seems very reasonable that the wii u will be $450-500 based on that euro price.
After all, you can get a decent basic Laptop or PC for that money.
Several sites have the games up for preorder for $99.00. I'm pretty sure they're using placeholder prices and there's no real price given to them yet since doubling the price of games would be strange and uncalled for. Getting a solid release date is much easier for them since stores will have to know when to stock such an important seller and are given that info sooner than pricing. They set the price far higher than expected so they won't have to deal with customers if the price goes higher later. People complain about being charged more, not when charged less. Do you really think the first place they'd give a price to is Amazon Germany and not Japan or US sellers?
But hey, don't take my word for it. Actually find someone that actually can read German and visit the page itself. There's a disclaimer that states that it isn't the official price and will likely be lower. Bothering to fact check a site in a foreign language is apparently a step most journalists don't take these days. Good going.