Friday, May 26, 2006

Wii to have multiple prices?


"Following its overwhelming debut at E3 2006, Nintendo has announced the current fiscal year unit shipment forecast for its new home game system, Wii. Nintendo also confirmed that the price of the Wii system, which incorporates unique freehand control, will not exceed $250 in America, or ¥25,000 in Japan. The company plans to ship 6 million systems to retailers around the world between its launch in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007.

The projections are part of a full-year financial forecast that sees growth of 18 percent in sales globally, based on anticipated continuing strong demand for the Nintendo DS portable game system, as well as a successful launch for Wii.

The company also said it expects to sell 17 million Wii games in the period. Exact launch dates, identification of the launch library of titles and details on the unique Virtual Console aspect of Wii will be announced soon."

Link to Nintendo

The key words here are that the Wii will not exceed $250. Why not just say that it will be $250 then? My guess is that the system itself with the controller and sensor will cost $199.99 just like all the past Nintendo systems. They may also have a bundle system with Super Mario Galaxy or Zelda for $250. This makes some sense to me seeing that those are games we are all going to buy anyway. To go for that deal however, Nintendo would probably throw in some other goodies like a limited number of free Virtual Console downloads or free strategy guides.

Make sense to you? Time will tell.

2 comments:

game on said...

I'm not sure. I really do not think Nintendo will release Wii with multiple price points. I think they are going to try to make it as easy as possible for the conusmer. Like you said, only time will tell. Look at what Microsoft and Sony did.

Metaldave said...

Thats true. However, Nintendo did not say the price would be $250, on that it would not exceed that. So, it makes me wonder what that means. Bundles? Deals? I just hope that it is NOT $250. If it is, I hope that it is a really good deal(like a game included).