Popular online retailer Amazon is currently listing Wii U games at $49.99. That’s roughly ten dollars cheaper than rival games on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which generally appear to retail for $59.99. It would be extremely interesting if Nintendo decided to price Wii U games ten dollars cheaper than the same games on rival formats. I’m sure more will be revealed at E3 next month.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has informed investors that the company has no plans to announce either the release date or the pricing for Wii U at this years E3 event. This will come as surprise to many who fully expected Nintendo to make these announcements in June. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long after the event to find out.
“We will showcase the final format, and discuss the details and the software line-up for this year at E3 2012, which will be held in Los Angeles in the United States in June this year.”
“Also, in the week after the E3 show, we would like to organise an opportunity where we can showcase the same to the Japanese wholesalers and financial analysts who cannot attend the E3 show. The people in our appropriate sections will let you know as soon as we have settled on further details.”
“Please also be advised that, as we did for previous platforms that were launched in the year-end sales season, we will announce the launch date and price in each market sometime after E3.”
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime briefly spoke to All Things Digital about what consumers should expect from Wii U. One of the things Fils-Aime did mention is that pricing for console will be priced substantially higher than Wii and that Wii U will mainly interest consumers who want to have the latest gadgets and have a higher disposable income.
The market is going to continue to differentiate based on the types of experiences that consumers want. As an example, if I’m the head of a household of a family of four, and my disposable income is $50,000 to $60,000, I’m going to continue to look at the Wii because of the software, and it’s a great entertainment device. For consumers who want to have the latest gadgets and have a higher disposable income, that’s for the Wii U.
We haven’t announced pricing or availability or any other details, but given the current pricing of the Wii, it’s not going to be there.
We’ve been very clear, the market is going to decide how long these products will coexist side by side. Our goal is to launch the Wii U and drive it into the marketplace, but it will speak to a different consumer than the one that is buying the Wii today during the holidays.
Contracting what Nintendo or America president Reggie Fils-Aime said earlier this week, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has told the London Evening Standard that the Wii U ‘is not going to be cheap.’ Previously Reggie Fils-Aime told Gametrailers that the Wii U will be priced competitively against Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. How much would you be willing to pay?
Two recent surveys conducted in Japan show that the vast majority of Japanese consumers are unaware of the Nintendo 3DS and that the participants who are aware of the device believe the pricing to be too expensive.
Nikkei Shimbun and online research firm Macromill conducted the first survey which shows that out of a sample of 1,000 people the majority of 55.9 percent said that they did not know about the existence of the Nintendo 3DS.
A similar number also said that they are not interested in the handheld console while 36.9% said they had a little information about it with a minority of 7.2 percent saying that they “knew all about it”.
Another survey, from Getnews.jp, has found that close to 80 percent of those questioned considered the announced price for the system “a little expensive”, “expensive” and “exceedingly expensive”.
Only 16.4% of the respondents have said that the 25,000 Yen price, which translates to about 300 dollars, is reasonable.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has told investors that Nintendo 3DS games will follow a similar pricing structure to Nintendo DS games.
“We don’t believe that the world is in a state where high priced software will sell well, so we don’t believe it will be in a price range too far off from current DS software.”
- Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata
Play.com a popular online retailer in the United Kingdom have seen fit to price the forthcoming Nintendo 3DS for £199.99.
Whilst this could simply be a place-holder price tag it seems likely that the machine will retail for around this price when it launches in the United Kingdom at the end of this year or early next year.
Nintendo have stated that they’re going to officially announce the release date and the pricing for their forthcoming 3D handheld, the Nintendo 3DS, on September 29th.
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has stated that he expects the forthcoming Nintendo 3DS to completely revolutionise the video gaming market.
“We view the 3DS as a revolutionary device, and expect its launch to spur hardware and software sales.”
Patcher also believes that Nintendo will re-look at its pricing model for handheld titles and expects them to retail for $29 rather than that typical $25 consumers are paying at the moment.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has spoken honestly to online gaming publications about the price point for the 3DS.
Whilst Nintendo have yet to give a specific price point or release date for the 3DS, Iwata did confirm that the technology residing within the machine inevitably costs more to produce than the technology powering the DSi.
“I have to refrain from talking specifically about the price point. What I can confirm is that, in terms of the production costs, it will cost more than the costs for the Nintendo DS today. Having said that, we believe we will produce enough value worthy of the production cost. We do not think we have to sell the products below cost.”
- Satoru Iwata
