Many of you are probably wondering why we haven’t had a Wii U price cut in recent times due to the relatively sluggish sales of the console. Well, you will be interested to know that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata blames exchange rates as the reason why there has been a lack of official discounts on the Nintendo’s latest home console.
“I think, to be honest, we were in a difficult situation,” said Iwata. “Because for the home console our biggest market opportunity was in the overseas markets in the U.S. and Europe, but because of the valuation of the yen and the exchange rates into dollars and euro, it made it a difficult proposition for us to capitalize on that, because of the cost that we were forced to sell the system at.”
Thanks, JapanGamer
How low can you go?
I regret my stupid comment. In any case, I remember something similar being the reason they pulled out of Brazil. Stinks to be them. Personally, the 3DS is looking to be the most awkward position to be in with all the differences. On one hand, they’re pushing forward for a better console experience, but they don’t want to make it TOO good or the older 3ds users are gonna be jealous, Personally, if you’re gonna make exclusive games, you might as well go the whole way with exlcusive features. It’s like the Wii U backwards.
Brazil has the most expensive consoles/games of the world and still has too much piracy. They pulled off from the country because of the rising of exchange rates, hyper extensive bureaucracy, and heavy taxes/tools, that made their products reach prices too high for the average consumer in that market, decreasing the prospect of sales.
$250 really isn’t that bad though, but ‘d live a price cut
Hopefully, the new console “NX” would be cheap at its launch date.
I wouldn’t want another Wii U even if it was cheaper, but I do want the white regular New3DS, you can capitalize on that!
i dont understand
Please understand.
It’s not like a price cut will do anything. Unless the Wii U goes so low as like $50, people still won’t buy it.
Why not?
It doesn’t need a price cut it just need more then one game a month on the platform
No, that’s not what it needs, it’s the lack of casuals, that’s why the Wii sold so well. Casuals want nothing to do with ANY consoles right now. PS4 and Xbox One have most of the cough, “hardcore” cough gamers which leaves the Wii U with basically only Nintendo’s most loyal fans. There is nobody left to buy the Wii U who WANTS a Wii U. If games like Smash, Mario Kart 8, Starfox, Zelda and such don’t make people want a Wii U, then nothing will. Nintendo will just have to hope that next generation goes better.
MMBN 3-6 plz
Japan’s economy is going to fail anyway with the rate their economy and population decline is going.
And high unemployment rate and slave work condition
I live in Australia and outright refuse to buy one because of the price. Its $400 bucks which is a joke. Technically, the system isn’t much more powerful than a PS3, by now they could make the console cheaper and surely make the gamepad cheaper. It would totally make sense for them to sell the machine at a loss in order to sell more games. If people purchase a WiiU, it will be to play Nintendo titles as third party is pretty much non existent. And lets face it. 3rd Party titles are much more enjoyable on the other systems
you are comparing a cell processors with IBM and AMD chips that is like compering an ARM processor with a Pentium processor. that is not taking into account the ram and how the cpu and the gpu work to gather.
the new processor outstrips the processing power of the PS3, you have three cores in the in the wii u compared to the ps3 singal core. also the wiiu gpu has Wii U has 3x as much eDRAM on the GPU compared to the ps3. also the ps3 and the 360 never used the full 500mb on their GPU’s.
as well as the this programming is different to that of the last gen consoles as well the Wii U on maximum output would completely trash the the ps3.
processor and chache in the wii u is a lot faster and more efficient you are completely clueless.
Thanks dude. You’ve just cured my insomnia
Yeah that’s the problem they just focused on making it a little bit more powerful than PS3. That’s nothing to brag about. Now Nintendo thought about PS4 back in 2008 it would have sold better. You claim wii u is 3x.more.powerful than PS3 so why can’t I play Brawl with the Gamepad? why can’t it work more than 25ft away. Where is this “secret power” people been talking about for the last 2 years?If m it’s 3x more powerful why can’t the Wii U OS handle Wii OS? WHY 2 SELERATE OS’. Only thing Nintendo proved was it can graphic ly be on par with PS4 if they wanted to. But where is this 3x more powerful.than PS3 going to if the console needs AAA battaries to stay on? Why can’t thw power handle 4 gamepads or have one gamepad play Netflix while the other plays smashbros?
to be honest it is nothing to with power of the console it is the gaming software industry that has done this to the Wii U not the power of the console. also the snobbery of gamer’s as well, there is nothing inherently wrong with the hardware and will work miles better than the ps3 and 360. the problem is Nintendo never speak specs we really don’t know 100% the actual capability of the chip sets only what has come from third hand sources.
another problem is that a lot of people don’t understand truly computer component specs and don’t really wish to learn, so you have a lot of self opinionated people mainly gaming journalist who really don’t know what the fuck they are talking about half the time.
i will take you back to the late 70’s early 80’s where you had the Atari 2600 and the intellivision console. the the intellivision was way more superior to the Atari 2600 but because the Atari had a big install base they could write the programs quicker and cheap out they did then came the 1983 gaming crash and burst their bubble.
if the industry is not careful it will crash again and things like free to play, half finish games and companies excluding platforms and not giving DLC to all platforms will result in a gaming crash before to long if they are not careful.
the wii u uses similar programming to pc games which means they could knock them out to kingdom come if they wanted and make them look loads better than the last gen consoles the problem is they don’t want to. and this is starting to happen to the Xbox one due to its small install base as well. the gaming industry needs to get their act together and stop supporting the older consoles the problem is they thing every game should have the budget of a blockbuster film for it to sell millions of copies and have become lacks with quality.
then you have tits coming onto forums and comments sections saying i wont buy this console because its crap just to wind up people it is all fucking pathetic holding onto companies like it is a bloody religion. what ever happened to people playing games because they where fun. Microsoft is not the only god and bill gates is not the prophet of gaming.
i wish at time the gaming industry would start acting professional and also stop releasing broken games because they know the patching can save their asses it is all getting beyond a fucking joke
What are those 3 cores claiming are more powerful than a single PS 4 core doing to the console when it comes to power? They can’t get it to play Brawl on Wii mode on an update. Too weak I suppose. if Wii u is so powerful when was the last time Wii U hand an update that was actually noticable? Why can’t they put arena stages on DLC for MK8? Too weak. That’s why splatoons graphics suck. It can’t handle both better graphics and voice chat at the same time. And it’s too weak to operate GameCube tittles and N64 tittles. it’s too weak.
no one has said the wii u cpu it better than the ps4 to be honest the wii u works pretty well for the price and the ps4 and xbox one are also very capable consoles. the problem is with the software companies not utilizing the power of the individual architecture’s and dictating the market by shady business practices like with holding DLC for certain platforms is one i can name.
consoles can have games fine tuned to suit their hardware unlike pc where you need to accommodate multiple settings not that games over the past 5 or 6 years show any quality when it comes to build and some broken beyond repair like alien colonial marines this is an industry problem and the consumers need to complain more.
you can still make money on a 10 million install base if your game is good and people want it.
the gaming industry needs to get its act together and listen to its customers
Why no Aus price cut then…?
Economy
Just do a price cut. The Wii U already broke even in last year’s sales as Nintendo announced, so doing so now will still be a profit. Not as big, but if it will mprove the install base why not?
i agree that would be a good strategy
Economy