Nintendo Announces Japanese Wii Price

Wowzer writes "Nintendo has revealed to Famitsu.com, at the company's recent press conference unveiling its financial results, that Wii would arrive in Japanese stores with a maximum price tag of 25,000 yen. After taking in account various factors, the conversion to other currencies comes down to a launch price of: 225 dollars, 225 euros, and 150 pounds." Update: 05/25 13:45 GMT by Z : GamesIndustry.biz points out they hope to ship 6 million units by next March, and an Opera exec has said you can browse the internets with the wiimote.

Congrats Nintendo

[creepynut]

All this negative press about Sony, and you come out a true champ.

This is one I'll be getting myself for Christmas. I don't see them changing the price much, if at all when it comes overseas.

The next question is, how much of a profit are they making on that? IIRC, Nintendo doesn't have a history of taking losses on their consoles, someone correct me if I'm wrong. At this low price, is it possible they've taken a turn on this one?

Either way, even if Sony has a killer launch lineup, I don't see them making the family Christmas market given the steep price difference. Unless the 360's price has a Christmas price drop, I doubt they'll be much in the match, since they got their head start last year.

BS

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

if it's 225 dollars, then here in the UK it will be 225 pounds. FACT.

still a good price in absolute terms though.

Re:BS

[CableModemSniper]

Yes, but it's not $225 its 25,000 Yen. I doubt the US/Continent/UK price is going to be $225, it'll be $199.99 or $249.99. $224.99 is a really odd price.

Price

[tgpo]

I can't say the announcement of the price has swayed me in any way. Price was never what held me back on newer systems. I havn't bought a system since the Nintendo 64 because most games are nothing more than recreations of games that have been available for years. The thing that does swing me to the Wii is the innovation and "Road Less Traveled" feel of the entire system. It no longer feels like a Gamecube V.2, nor does it feel like they are slapping some new hardware inside the old shell to make games prettier. I feel that is all the PS3 and 360 have going for it, they have more power than their earlier versions. SO WHAT! If you simply do updates and resell as brand new their is nothing innovative and exciting. It seems that Nintendo caught on to this and decided to try things a little differently. I saw that simply reshaping the wheel wasn't enough for most people and decided reinvert at least a small part of the wheel. Now I'm not saying that Nintendo is doing something that is 100% brand new, no, but I do say that Nintendo is doing something in a totally new way and they stand to reap the benefits of it. Sometimes, even a small diversion from the path will lead you to a whole new place.

Sold!

[nbannerman]

£150?

I'm buying one. End of discussion.

For the price of a 360, I can get something original and interesting, plus 3 games, and waste away hours being entertained. Seriously, why do I need a 360 or a PS3, when this thing looks like it might actually manage to be a games console, instead of a glorified media centre? ;)

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Re:Congrats Nintendo

[coffeechica]

They might make less profit on the console itself than in the past, but I suspect that at worst they'll come out with zero profit, zero loss. Count market share wins into that (and those will be massive if they don't do anything stupid now, or Sony suddenly gets an epiphany and does a 180 degree turn), along with future game and controller sales, and they're well within the black numbers.

Re:NOTE!

[TheBlackSwordsman]

I, too, can pull numbers out of my ass. For example, because the launch price of 25,000 JPY is exactly the same number they used for the GameCube, they'll release the Wii in the US for 199 USD (like they did with the GameCube).

Exactly. Anyway, I'm much more inclined to believe the Wii will launch for $200, considering that's the price every previous Nintendo console launched at.

Re:Been wondering about the "loss leader" idea

[aliquis]

Nintendo probably prefers to make money instead of selling many consoles.

Re:Been wondering about the "loss leader" idea

[GeckoX]

That's pointless, even if Nintendo RAISES their launch price to lets say $250USD, 50 more than they every have before, they're still blowing the competition OUT OF THE WATER on price, what kind of message would selling themselves short send? This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Nintendo has very sound, and more importantly, PROVEN business practices in the gaming industry. Why would they screw with what works? The only real reason Nintendo has lost some ground is that there is now so much more ground out there, and there are 3 MAJOR other competitors out there these days: xbox, playstation, and PC.

Nintendo will continue to relegate all major changes and innovation to their actual products, not to their business practices. Just as it has always been with Nintendo, and as long as they are viable, will likely continue to be.

You are a pain in the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

"Until we get official numbers, though, this is all speculation."

Yes, I believe the original article said that.

In other news, water is wet, the sun is hot, and lawyers are not always ethical (you can take these little ideas and run with them, tiger).

The fact that people have marked you as "insightful" says two things: (a) in general people are stupid (b) since people do the moderating, we've got primarily stupid moderators.

Re:Congrats Nintendo

[Evangelion]

Similarly, complex universal remotes retail for about $19.95. You can usually find them much cheaper than MSRP.

Considering that the Wiimote has zero relationship to a traditional IR remote, other than shape, I don't see what this is supposed to mean.

However, that doesn't change your point -- accelerometers are dirt cheap, they're included in every laptop hard drive made for the past who-knows-how-long. Similarly, the cirutry that interacts with the sensor bar can't be too costly either -- really, all it has to be is a radio receiver/transmitter, and a chip to do the positional calculations. As long as they find a cheap source for the parts, the cost of this technology to produce is neglegible. None of it is complex, in terms of the amount of silicon needed.

Why argue

[suv4x4]

200 or 225, does it matter :) The news is the confirmation it'll not be $400 nor $600 :)

Re:In real exchange rates

[TheLongshot]

Maybe they are taking VAT into account...

Re:Congrats Nintendo

[EnderWiggnz]

with flash, you plug a DOM into your onboard IDE, and hit it with a glue gun. /producing upwrds of 250k units a year this way :-)

Re:200 USD/Euro launch price pretty much confirmed

[Zed2K]

If it ends up coming out at $199 and they can have it out before the holidays they will sell a ton. But they need to have enough for everyone to buy. At the $199 price point it will be a no brainer purchase for many folks.

Re:You are a pain in the ass

[Guppy06]

"Yes, I believe the original article said that."

The summary didn't.

Re:Congrats Nintendo

[rolfwind]

With that $11 price tag, you are assuming they are using regular flash memory. Perhaps they want the 40x flash, which is faster and more expensive. About $40-50 for a 512MB unit. That might make more sense in a multimedia system for faster load times.

The Jaguar, Saturn, Neo-Geo, and Turbografix were all consoles that were on the cutting edge of technology. They all lost out to consoles that were inexpensive, built with off-the-shelf components (plus/minus a custom part or two), and were easily manufactured using less-than-cutting-edge technology.

I believe the Jaguar was based on Motorala 6800 CPU (16 bit, Mac). My friend had one. I was under the distinct impression, compared to the Sony PS, that it was a cheap PoS with no 3rd party support. Neo-Geo was just too expensive compared to the competition. Saturn was designed to be the ultimate 2D monster, and they started scrambling back to R&D when Playstation changed the game into 3D games.

I don't remember the Turbografx too well though.

Why the short stock?

[gatesvp]

From the Nintendo magazine link

Talking of units, Nintendo also confirmed that 6 million Wii consoles will be released worldwide at launch, with a further 17 million games being made available.

When the X-box released before x-mas, they sold every single one. Heck, my little bro had his pre-paid at EB in November. We received it in February. If they're going to sell out, why don't they just make more before they start selling? MS doesn't make more money from people re-selling the unit on e-bay, but MS lost a lot of goodwill by failing to deliver a unit in reasonable time.

MS just became a running joke b/c so many people had ordered systems and not received them. I'm sure that this hurt them. I heard rumours of supply-chain issues and given ATI's own supply-chain problems, this may have been true. But, truth or no, it didn't get more systems in more houses, it actually gave potential buyers less exposure, b/c nobody had a system.

I would've bought an XBox 360 in December, I was hyped about them, the marketing blitz was on and I was keen on owning one. But hey, I couldn't buy one! My buddy with the 50" hi-def TV, he couldn't buy one! Nobody could buy one, so we all just moved on. I spent $600 playing Magic instead and now I still don't own a 360 (nor does my buddy :).

But now I hear that Nintendo will have only 6 million units at launch and it's like these marketing guys know something that we don't. I mean, at $250 each, they're going to sell out. And last I heard, sold out products meant lost potential profits! If people want my product and they can't buy it, then I'm giving them the opportunity to just spend their money elsewhere.

This Nintendo Wii is going to spread like wildfire. Casual gamers are going to come out of the cracks, people will marvel at the interactive gaming, just like people who stare at the DDR machines in the movie theatre arcades. But if I have to tell all of my jealous friends (& family) that they cannot have the instant gratification of owning their own system (b/c Nintendo didn't make enough systems) then they're going to move on the Next Big Thing.

Having a limited number of consoles makes the console a highly-valued item, it does not put more consoles in households, it does not increase the system's exposure, it does not sell more games, it just makes people angry that they can't own one of their own.

Re:Quality Over Quantity?

[InsaneGeek]

In the 4 years from 2001-2005 Nintendo sold around 20million units *total* of gamecube. You are insane to think that in less than a years time that they will sell out half of that number to a single country.

Re:Quality Over Quantity?

[Slappytron]

So only 6 million Revolutions by next march? That doesn't sound too good to me.

Assuming Wii launches in October, that's about a million a month, which is above the Xbox 360's pace (which in turn, is selling faster than PS2 at launch).

6 million would be over 25% of the total number of Gamecubes sold (about 21mil). It would be about 10% of the total number of NES's sold (around 60mil). It seems like a very reasonable target, especially for launch when production has not yet ramped up.

Re:Congrats Nintendo

[AKAImBatman]

Interesting enough, the NES was, adjusted for inflation, was a little more expensive than the average of the two 360 price points ($350 or so).

But it was right in line with the consoles that preceeded it. The Atari 2600 was introduced at $199.95, as was the Colecovision. The Intellivison was introduced at $299, and the Bally's Personal Arcade was $350 back in '79. So adjusting for inflation, consoles have continued to get cheaper over time. Which is in-line with general electronics which have also gotten cheaper with time.

The problem with adjusting for inflation when setting new price points is that consumers are used to prices going down. Over time they will expect more for less. So if you give them a price that used to be acceptable (after adjusting for inflation), they'll feel you're overcharging them. Ergo, it's wisest to allow your pricing to follow the general trend of products.

Re:Sold!

[spyrochaete]

Nintendo has a lot more family oriented games, or so I hear.

Maybe in percentage of all games sold, but not in sheer numbers. PS2 has 1.2 jillion gamesa out and a ton of them are family-friendly. I just bought a used PS2 a few weeks ago (my first console since N64) and I adore it. It's a very polished, mature, professional system that feels and plays great. Pick one up while you wait for Wii. The used and cheap games make it well worth the investment.

Re:Congrats Nintendo

[timster]

I think that Nintendo's success here is in seeing beyond the supposed "adult" market to the "new" adult market. I feel like in the last generation, "adult" meant age 17-24 males; people who tend to like violence, explosions, intense graphics, etc; people who are "afraid that playing a game with colors in it will make them look like a dork."* In analogy to movies, think the Matrix, Mission: Impossible, or XXX. The new adult market is 25+; people who are interested in good gameplay but have less time, have families, etc and while they might still enjoy a game like GTA, they might find it easier to make time for a session of Mario Kart.

If these impressions are correct, it's not that the PS3 will fail as such; it may be the best system for people who enjoy what it offers. But Nintendo's strategy is still brilliant. Sony may not be wrong as such, but I am afraid that their overall corporate strategy will fail if they lose more than a little market share.

* - Penny Arcade, "I Think Our Time Is Up"

Re:Under $250 is unlikely

[MarkVVV]

For Iwata's sake, the Gamecube optical drive is just a FRIGGIN DVD READER! The disc DOES NOT SPIN BACKWARDS, i have a gc without the case in front of me right now, i'm SEEING THE DISC SPINNING, so please, STOP THIS RUMOR.

Re:BS

[kfg]

When the American Federal income tax was enacted it was a 3% tax only the top 1% of earners; and we were told it would stay that way.

When the NYS Throughway was built it was made a toll road, but we were told "only until it is paid for."

It's paid for. The toll remains. Why?

We are told it is necessary to pay the salaries of the toll takers. No, I am not making that up.

The cynical might conclude that politicians are fucking liars and will always go for the money. I however, am not a cynical man. I am an emotionless realist. Therefore I know that . . .politicians are fucking liars and will always go for the money.

KFG