Topic: The Price...

[UncleBob]

I keep reading on many forums that the Wii "will be $199 or less".

However, Nintendo never said any such thing.  The closest they came was saying it'd be "under $300" - which could easily mean "$299.99".

So, if the Will launches at any price above $200, do you think this will have a huge negative impact on the initial sales?

[Dasmos]

Why would it? It's still less than the competition.

[UncleBob]

$299 = XBox 360 Core Unit.  And, strangly enough, there are people who buy the core over the bundle...

Aside from that, it seems a lot of people are interested in it because of the low price ($199 or under).  A good example is over on CheapAssGamer.com, I posted a thread about the possible pending GCN Price drop to which there were multiple replies about just waiting for the Wii, since it'll play GCN Games and "with the Wii likely to be $200, the price difference isn't substantial enough to bother getting the budget console."

[Ceric]

Yeah.  Nintendo has taught me that when they say less than X.  Most of the time what there really saying is a Penny less than X.   Still $249.99 feels about right so far.  Everyone would love a $199.99 launch but $249.99 still intuitively feels like the right price.  High enough to have a viable price drop and moderate the demand at launch but, low enough that a few good words could overcome the difference.  I know it's about 9.something tanks of gas but I'm pretty sure that most people will get more use out of it in the long run.

I move for a $249.99 launch.  Especially with all the R&D they need to make up.

[Spak-Spang]

I think Nintendo was shooting for a price point similar to that of the Gamecube, or a little higher.

I predict at most the Wii will be $249.99  and if that is the case, I want more than one controller...and I want the shell packed in.  The reason being is that the system is being advertised as a system to play with your friends.

If the system is under $200.00  Like $199.99 then I believe I would be fine with no extras at all just the system like most systems are released as.

[BranDonk Kong]

If they can sell a Gamecube for $99, and soon that price is going to drop even more, and still profit off of the hardware, then there's no reason to sell the new console for over $200.

[Ceric]

2 Wiimotes and Nunchuku
No shell.  

I think that bundling the shell would be a worse move then the name Wii was.  Totally defeat the point.  It be like mixing regular fries with fries that are good for you.  Net result no benefit and you pay more, plus you get some bland fries with your good fries.

[Louieturkey]

If you can use GC controllers to play the Virtual Console games, I see no point in bundling the shell with the system.  Drop the GC controllers to $15 and make sure to have the retailers tell the consumers about using a GC controller for the VC.

[The Omen]

Quote
If you can use GC controllers to play the Virtual Console games, I see no point in bundling the shell with the system. Drop the GC controllers to $15 and make sure to have the retailers tell the consumers about using a GC controller for the VC.

There may be some new games that use the shell, but still keep some motion sensitivity.

[Ian Sane]

There's a fine line between looking like a bargain and looking inferior.  The Cube was cheaper but not that much cheaper.  It was a missing the DVD functionality so people just assumed that that is why is was cheaper.  So the price made no difference.

The Wii if it's just a bit cheaper than the other consoles but has weaker graphics and no HD it will just look like the inferior console that's cheaper for a reason.  It has to be at a price point where people will think "who cares if it's missing this, at that price it's a steal."  If they want the price to attract sales it needs to look like a bargain and not just the cheaper model.

[Fro]

Considering the Cube is going to be sold at $80 and still will make a profit for Nintendo and retailers, and knowing what we know about the Wii not being an exponential increase in specs, I'd be very disappointed if the console was over $200, unless the final secret was something really mindblowing.  Especially considering the 360 premium system is supposed to drop to $300 this winter to counter the PS3's launch.

I assume the console will be around $100 max for Nintendo to produce + $30 max for the controller (assuming $50 is the max they could viably market extra controllers at).  Their costs may be even less than that.  

[Ceric]

R&D.  Nintendo needs to make that back.  Looking at the specs that we know we can all go "Yeah I could make that for around $150 easy"  but, then you got to take into account R&D expenses.  I'm sure just having Miyamoto on a committee committing man hours is a great expense.  He could be working on something like Mario.  The hardware itselfs might not be that expensive to make but the Manhours put into the R&D I'm sure that's quiet expensive.  Nintendo has to have time frame of when they want to make that up.  I don't think it's really reasonable just on principle to expect consoles to never go up from $199.99.  Inflation just won't allow it.  I think it's time to migrate to a new price point for the next few gens.  (That being $249.99)

[trip1eX]

It all depends on what's in the REv.  WE don't know the hardware specs for sure.  WE don't know how the controller will play out for sure.  WE don't know the secret. WE don't know what they include as far as controllers go.  WE don't know if they'll pack in a game.  etc.  So you can't really say at this point is anything over $200 would be too much.

[stevey]

Their a rumor going aroungd about a tha the Wii will be free with when you buy of 4 Wii games or 3 Wii games and a Wiimote/nunchuck attachment and the bundle is $199.

[AnyoneEB]

I can't see Nintendo going for a price that low. Just $199 with 2 controllers (and 2 of whatever attachments) would be pretty cheap. I agree with trip1eX: we expect the console to be cheap and something will be bundled with it (or not?), but price estimations don't mean much when we have no idea what will be bundled.

[jasonditz]

Unless IGN's "Specs" are totally off base or there's some other amazing addition, $299 would be a simply outrageous launch price.

I said before, I really don't care about insanely high end graphics, and I honestly don't... but that doesn't mean I'm going to get willingly hosed on a launch price for the sake of a unique controller and legal ROMs. The core 360 sells for $299... a $299 Wii better be at least in the ballpark spec-wise.

[Jensen]

According to IGN we are getting a Gamecube 1.5. (CPU , GPU and RAM)
512mb of flash memory will be built in, so Nintendo won't be getting an extra $20 on a high margin memory card.
It will have built in wifi.
The controller will be more expensive.

I don't see all that adding more than $99 to the cost.

[Athrun Zala]

Quote
Originally posted by: Jensen
According to IGN we are getting a Gamecube 1.5. (CPU , GPU and RAM)
512mb of flash memory will be built in, so Nintendo won't be getting an extra $20 on a high margin memory card.
It will have built in wifi.
The controller will be more expensive.

I don't see all that adding more than $99 to the cost.

R&D!!

and ign's specs aren't based on final hardware, so we don't know how accurate those are

[jasonditz]

R&D is their problem: I'm not willing to pay $300 for a $200 system to pay for their past research expenses anymore than I'm willing to pay an extra $20 for a game that gets more TV commercials.

The IGN specs are still definitely in doubt, but if they turn out to be accurate, that is not in my estimation a $299 system.  

[odifiend]

Quote
Originally posted by: Athrun Zala

Quote
Originally posted by: Jensen
According to IGN we are getting a Gamecube 1.5. (CPU , GPU and RAM)
512mb of flash memory will be built in, so Nintendo won't be getting an extra $20 on a high margin memory card.
It will have built in wifi.
The controller will be more expensive.

I don't see all that adding more than $99 to the cost.

R&D!!

and ign's specs aren't based on final hardware, so we don't know how accurate those are

A video game hardware company does not have to make up all its R&D in the initial sale.  Also you sound ridiculous because no one knows how much R&D truly cost Nintendo.  We heard about the investment in the gyroscopic company ages ago, so who knows Nintendo might have always been on the right track and their R&D was mostly refining the accelerometers.  
After the success that was the DS and the support the Wii/Rev is garnering, Nintendo has to have high sales projections - Other than greed, I can not see the console being more than 200 USD (3rd parties on record say it could feasibly be sold for 99), especially when you consider licensing fees Nintendo will be netting along with the fact that Nintendo's first party titles are their biggest sellers.

[mantidor]

Quote
Originally posted by: stevey
Their a rumor going aroungd about a tha the Wii will be free with when you buy of 4 Wii games or 3 Wii games and a Wiimote/nunchuck attachment and the bundle is $199.

I dont see that happening.

Besides the nunchuck should be standard, not part of a promotion.

[jasonditz]

Actually since overall research and marketing expenses are on their income statement we can probably take a pretty good guess. Of course we have no idea how much went to the Wii and how much went to other things (like the DS lite, or the next Gameboy), but since their profit margins don't seem inordinately effected by the Wii's development, I think it's safe to say it didn't cost any more than, say, the N64 or the Gamecube.

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: mantidor

Quote
Originally posted by: stevey
Their a rumor going aroungd about a tha the Wii will be free with when you buy of 4 Wii games or 3 Wii games and a Wiimote/nunchuck attachment and the bundle is $199.

I dont see that happening.

Besides the nunchuck should be standard, not part of a promotion.

Actually I took that to mean "a second Wiimote/nunchuck" since we're assuming the system itself comes with one.

I'd be very happy with something like that, but yeah... seems unlikely.

[jasonditz]

Actually: promise to Nintendo Time:

Do the "Free Wii with 4 games or 3 + controller" thing and I promise to buy two at launch.

7 games + controller = 2 Wiis.

Well... provided you have 7 launch titles (which from the GI article seems a given).

[Ceric]

This is already the third revision of this post.  

I don't think that Nintendo is necessarily the greedy one here.  We want all this stuff to be included and for it still to be sold at the historical $199.99 price mark.  That's a little ridiculous.  I don't walk into a tailor and expect a handmade suit for less than $25 because at one point it was that much.  No, I expect to pay more because wages have gone up.  New regulations have been put in place, etc.

It's a little unreasonable.  Plus this time Nintendo will have to pay the DVD licensing fee, Wifi Licensing Fee, pay for any certifications the device needs to be FCC or equivalent compliant because it now has a wireless component.  Pay the initial infrastructure cost of the online component.  Servers and bandwidth aren't cheap.  Neither is the support staff they bring with them.  Develop and maintain a VC front end.  Develop now manafacturing processes that will need to be tweaked to accomodate production.

All for this new system.  I don't possibly see a way for Nintendo not to take a pretty big financial hit because of the Wii this year.  Not to mention that Nintendo has admitted to be having a pretty big developemental push for the launch.  Rumor has that a fair amount of titles will be from Nintendo themselves.  Also they are making more of an effort to work with 3rd party in a supporting capacity.  That means more Staff which means more cost.  

This year Nintendo will probably just barely come in with a profit.  Even for a launch year they are trying to go beyond what they normally do.  The console might not be much by the sum of its pieces but that's only half the story.

I still don't think it could launch for less then $249.99 and I do think it will include 2 Wiimotes and Nunchukus because they want more people to try it.

[jasonditz]

Most of that stuff is unreasonable to price into the initial console cost. The DVD licensing fee won't have to be paid unless the user buys the optional DVD add-on, so it's ridiculous to price it into the system instead of the add-on. Likewise, the VC cost money to develop, but that money will undoubtedly be recouped by the VC download fees. Expecting the casual user to pay for its development whether he/she intends to use the VC or not doesn't sit well with me. The cost of the Wifi I can sort of see, but that's really trivial. The cost of the servers, though? How about pricing that into the game that uses the servers instead?

In the end, I'm not going to be happy paying up front for a lot of stuff that I might not use. Nintendo might as well launch the Wii at $10,000 to pay for the development of every single first party game they plan on making for it.

[IceCold]

Wow, jason triple posted, and each of them started with the word "actually"..

[jasonditz]

I've got a little wheel that I spin every day, then I start most of my posts with either Actually, Indeed, Of Course, or It may well be that

[Jensen]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ceric


I still don't think it could launch for less then $249.99 and I do think it will include 2 Wiimotes and Nunchukus because they want more people to try it.

Nintendo is paying for all that extra stuff you mention by not upgrading the cpu/ram/gpu nearly as much as its competitors.  The Wifi service will be covered by the price of VC games and Rev games.

[Ceric]

Launch Prices

$199 Atari 2600
$299  Intellivision
$150  Intellivision II
$249.99 Jaguar
$299.99 TurboDuo
$200 Master System
$200 Genesis
$200  Super Nintendo
$399 Sega Saturn
$299 Playstation (That was a surprise to me.  It thought it looked terrible and would never make it)
$199 N64


I just feel that it's gotten to the point that since there not using off the shelf parts that a $50 price markup would be justified.  Especially if they included a game like everyone wants. (I had a point with those but lost.  Though I thought that was interesting so I'm leaving it up.)

[jasonditz]

I've thought about it, and decided the "Free Wii" idea is complete garbage, and here's why:

Controllers aren't sold at a huge markup... and third party game licensing fees aren't that enormous.

$200 for a controller and 3 games (assuming they're all third party) probably nets Nintendo at best $30-$40... that's not enough to pay for Wii manufacturing unless they're planning to do a Microsoftian level of subsidy.

[Caliban]

I wander if it comes with a recharger for the controller, or does the controller use batteries.

[Nile Boogie]

It all depends on the following things:

1: The optical format. Not once has Nintendo confirmed what type of DVD drive will be in the system. I'm not saying there going to put in a HDVD in the Wii but in may be a 15gig disc or good old DvD-9's or something else??? But I'm so sure that it has a large impact.

2: Sound output. Will this system support real DD5.1 and not Dolby Pro Logic II?

3: Video Output. 480p is a given. Don't worry about that. And although this might seem foolish but Nintendo may decide to include a DVI out/in on the system. NOT FOR HDTVS but other things. NinTivo?

4: What's in the Box? It will not come with a Wii game. Please don't get yourselves believing that. FREE VC DOWNLOADS, sure why not. A three piece controller scheme. Maybe.

5: The DS. This seems like even more of a stretch than the previous things I posted but ahh nevermind. It's late and my pills are starting to wear off. Transfer protocol box for 802.11 devices and storage and MI:III was good.....LeBron is a man.... two sku's with or without a DSL included.

I love the people on this planet. They make me feel all jelly in my feet.  

[Luigi Dude]

My guess will be if the price is revealed during E3 then it will probobly be $200 but if they say they'll reveal it at a later date then it'll be over $200.  

I remember hearing a rumor that Nintendo might not say the price at E3 which if true, points to the Wii being over the $200 range since they know annoucing the system for that much might anger some people and they want all the attention at E3 to be on just the games.