I love how at the end it says: Which basically means don't bother reading or paying attention to this article in any way.
Even if they could sell it for 170, they won't. Judging from reaction in the previous thread, Nintendo could make like bandits with a $250 launch price.
The article is worth reading due to the fact that Nintendo will be able to get the Wii CPU for cheaper than expected. How that impacts the price of the Wii is just speculation I guess.
ROFL. Like the consumer will see ANY of that savings. Money, meet pocket. Pocket, meet balance sheet and statement of cash flows.
Knowing Nintendo, that's probably what would happen. If this does impact things, I wish they would reduce the price to $200 (assuming the $230 rumor was accurate). At least keep it at the price every other Nintendo console has launched at.
quick question i didnt want to start a thread for, is nba live 07 coming to the wii? ign says so but ea's site doesnt list it, any info?
Eh? When does Nintendo have a history of gouging consumers? Just because they never fell into the trap of selling consoles for a loss means that they have a history of gouging, unless I'm missing something or misreading your comment.
I would be surprised if it didn't come to the Wii. Only reason for not doing so would be if they couldn't come up with the control scheme, but they could always just use standard controls instead. Depends on what you mean by gouging customers (although I didn't say they were). I really don't like the idea of a video game company selling their system for a profit at launch, which, in a way, could qualify as gouging customers (especially when your first-party studios make up the vast majority of the game sales). They don't have to lose money on it for years like MS in order to still make a sizeable profit (on software and eventually hardware). Plus there are things like selling the GB Micro at the same price as the Gamecube (which also included an extra controller and a game at the time).
Failing to pass on the savings (and padding margin instead) does not constitute price gouging, especially at the Wii's already-low price point. And besides, lowering the price of a new console (once again, especially one as low as the Wii) before the price inelastic consumers (i.e fanboys) snap them up is a terrible value-maximization strategy. You're leaving money on the table. Rack up the revenue from the die-hards and then pass on the savings (i.e. price drop) to bring in the mainstream buyers.
You seem to know your consoles, so you do realize that until Sony there was no such thing as a console sold at a loss, right? Nintendo doesn't have the budget that either MS or Sony have to lose money selling consoles. After all, how much money has the home entertainment business lost MS? I know they have a large net loss, I don't know about Sony. I guess I am just confused at your negative reaction to Nintendo's efforts to not lose money. Not everything Sony does is the best way, you know. Another thing to consider is Ninendo has already said they will not charge at all for their online services with Wii, another reason for them to perhaps want to make money at the front end.
I agree completely. Perhaps I was reading too much from RC Cola, and I tend to be a Nintendo fanboy, but it seemed like he was being extremely dismissive of Nintendo not losing money, and I don't quite understand that.
Nintendo tended to dominate the industry (shortly) before Sony, so that's not surprising. Not sure if Sega ever lost money on their systems though (probably not since the market wouldn't support it). Now that the market supports sales of 150+M consoles (in ~5 years) in 3 different major regions (one of which is steadily growing), losing money on hardware is a more viable option than it was in the past. They don't have to lose hundreds per console like MS and Sony. But it wouldn't be bad to lose maybe $25-$75 per console initially, especially if they put out a bunch of Nintendo games at launch to offset the costs. Those losses would probably go away in 6-12 months anyway, assuming Nintendo was smart about things. At this point, if Nintendo lost as much money as Sony or MS, they'd probably be giving away Wiis for free (or even giving us $50 to take them). I'm not asking for that to happen (though it would be great ). MS screwed up on a number of things with the Xbox that caused them to lose so much money. They didn't lose billions on it just because they decided to take a loss on the console. It wouldn't surprise me if the 360 ended up being profitable for them, assuming things don't blow up for them. Sony has made almost as much as Nintendo in the last 10 years or so, and that's counting Nintendo's handhelds as well as their non-gaming businesses (Pokemon merchandise). MS is the only company, at the moment, charging for their online service. That probably isn't all that unusual. If it would help things out, I wouldn't mind paying $4-$5 a month to Sony or Nintendo for their online services (assuming they were decent) if it meant a (much) cheaper pricetag. $150 Wii and $400-$450 PS3!
Can you explain a little bit more why you think a company making money on their consoles is such a bad thing? Seems like smart business to me, you can make money AND be within the normal console launch price of 200-300... you set something too low and you start to look like the "cheap" alternative to me. I understand you think the technology is barely above the Gamecube but should that necessarily be the determining factor of the price? GHz and Megabytes? Is that all that guages the "worth" of a system? Just becasue I have two products that will make me money (consoles and first party games) doesn't mean I should take a hit on one of them just becasue I can...
the closer the WII gets to its release date the more i think im not gonna get it....the gimmick posibility is high from wat ive read...Red Steel was supposed to blow people away and it got lackluster reviews from egm and game informer...i just happy with my 360
It is a smart business move, but I don't like it from a gamer's POV. If a company is making money on their console at $200-$300, while another company is losing money at $200-$300 (or even more), then it is obvious that one company is trying hard to give me more for my money. Besides, as Invisible Fan pointed out in the other thread, if the Wii is a failure, Nintendo will have no problem releasing yet another console a few years from now. If this were to occur to MS or Sony, they probably wouldn't be able to do that (MS probably could, but not due to their console business). Seems like that would be rewarding a company for putting out a failure. The technology in the system should determine the price, more or less. "Worth" is too subjective. What is worth ~$200 for me may not be worth ~$200 to you. However, a XGHz/MHz CPU, a XXXMHz GPU, XXXMB of RAM, etc, costs $XXX to make. And what it costs to make should be the most it should retail for (IMO) due to the profits gained from game sales as well as profits from hardware when the costs drop. Taking a hit on one can often increase the money made on the other (perhaps by more than the hit you took).
Making money on consoles is not a bad thing, but not getting as great as a userbase as they possibley can is a bad thing. How do they get a big userbase? 1. great games(the more and the cheaper, the better) 2. cheap console imo, with the mediocre-ness of the last 2 consoles, they should be trying to reel in as many customers as possible with what is the major attraction of the Wii right now ... the lower price. The software is where the big profit is at, not the hardware. Looking at all the ultra successful game systems proves that.
I'm at work now so can't respond as much as I would like but one more quick note re: price. Xbox 360 games are selling for $60 each, I assume PS3 will at the same price. I seem to recall reading that Wii games will sell for less, but can't be sure and don't have to look. Assuming that is correct it means Nintendo is making less per game, again leading to their current plan of making more per console. Assuming the 10 bucks difference per game is correct and the average gamer buys 10 or so games a year, it doesn't take long at all for the consumer to come out ahead in this plan.
IIRC, Nintendo just said that their games won't be more than $50, although 3rd-parties are free to price their games at whatever price they want. 1st-party 360 games have retailed at $50 as well (PGR3, Kameo, and PZ0 IIRC...not Gears of War though for some reason). I doubt/hope 3rd-parties would charge more though since the costs to make a Wii game would be more in line with current-gen consoles than next-gen consoles (though Red Steel costs like $10+M to make IIRC). Since most games sales for Nintendo are from Nintendo-developed games, while most game sales for Sony and Microsoft are from 3rd-parties, they'd probably end up getting more money with $50 games than Sony/MS would with $60 games (though the rest of the industry would be doing very well). If gamers don't want to spend the extra $10 for a next-gen game, they could either go with a Wii and its games or stick with the games coming out on their PS2/XBX/GC (which might start retailing for $30-$40). *Minor note, but the average gamer most likely doesn't buy 10 games a year. More like 10 games per generation, though obviously you'll have some gamers with 20+ games in their library.*
