Industry says Nintendo must follow Microsoft and Sony’s lead to ‘regain its edge’; Console to drop to £149?
The RRP of Wii is looking shakier than ever – as retail dramatically slashes the price of Nintendo’s console and Microsoft drops its powerful 360 Elite to under £200.
The trade this week told MCV that a drop this Q4 could be the only way for Nintendo to “regain its edge” over PS3 and Xbox 360.
Both rival consoles have been re-launched at new prices, with Microsoft’s 120GB Elite available for just £199 – closer than ever to the price of Nintendo’s console.
“Wii has been one of the most successful consoles in history,” Bethesda MD Sean Brennan told MCV. “Nintendo will need to adapt their pricing strategy as demand slows down due to the competition, difficult economic conditions and the fact that it’s not quite as innovative and fresh as it once was. I suspect, though, that Nintendo will not be as reactive to recent price drops as we might like.”
Analysts have already begun speculating on what
the movement of Wii’s new pricetag will be – with whispers from the likes of Altium Securities that it will hit £149 in Q4, down £50 from its current trade price.
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However, Nintendo told MCV that it had no plans to introduce a price cut “on any platform before Christmas”.
Supermarket giants Sainsbury’s and Asda slashed the price of Nintendo Wii to below £150 this week, meaning all three consoles did battle at lowest-ever prices.
“If Nintendo wants to regain the edge that they had previously, a price cut is something they have to look at,” added Codemasters MD Jeremy Wigmore.
“It’s known that the Wii isn’t as graphically advanced as PS3 or 360, but they’ve always had the unique advantage of the hardware being less expensive.”
Nintendo maintained that it would not react to the price cuts of its rivals’ systems.
A spokesperson told MCV: “We feel with their current configurations Wii, DS and DSi all offer fantastic value for money. Competitor activity, as ever, will have no impact on our plans.”
Comments
Does anyone not have one?
I know im gonna get slated for this, but will a price drop really help now? Software sales are still pretty good, but is there really anyone left who is a "casual gamer" left who deosn't own a Wii yet?
Same with the 360 (I'm a 360 owner - So not a fanboy), most people own one (or 2 in my case due to RROD lol). Everyone knows it, but I think we are finally going to see a PS3 xmas that we have been promised for the past two years as opposed to a Wii dominated one. Ninty have done extremely well, but they can't expect to dominate forever with such a limited offering . . . . . .
ok
sorry but the wii has really slowed down for us, since the price increase we have only sold used consoles, and if publishers insist on releasing pathetic titles there isnt much nintendo can do, even teh hardcore games dont sell well, only 1st party and you cant release these every month
Poor Games for a Quality machine
Firstly I agree with Henry Ford the games on offer from Nintendo and others are very poor.
We get offered Wii's from Distribution at £82 and expected to sell them at £179 who in there right mind would.
Nintendo have lost the selling power of all us Indies and therefore less sales of their machine.
£97 PROFIT!?!?!?
@3 - Surely that is a typo!?!? If not, PLEASE give me the details of your distribution company - I'll buy 250 Wii's RIGHT NOW for £82 each!!!!!!
LOL
Maybe Nintendo will give a crap what these two companies say when they actually make a high quality Wii game. Until then there is no "pressure" from these fools.
Yep Typo
£182 per unit sorry lads for the scare
wii
i am still laughing from the email from koch saying they were putting the price up in april and then the next day telling everybody it was on free sale, you couldnt make it up. we havent sold any new Wii console this year only preowned like henry ford says, but it has pushed preowned prices up so we still win on this one and lets face it we can always buy some from asda and save them for xmas stock, they must be losing money on the consoles so i think we owe them a thank you for giving us some of their profit ( i am joking )
wii 2
not forgetting that nintendo now want £64.97 for a controller package
remote £29.99 wii moition £19.99 and a nunchuck £14.99, i think the customer is getting a bit wise to this. its great to sell the accessories but having to have 3 controllers pre player is pushing it a bit and lets not forget that wii motion is own doing what the wii remote was meant to do
so a price drop would be fairer even if it was back to its old trade price
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MCV is the leading trade news and community site for all professionals working within the UK and international video games market. It reaches everyone from store manager to CEO, covering the entire industry. MCV is published by Intent Media, which specialises in entertainment, leisure and technology markets