In my retail experience, "impulse" stops at under 50$ for 90% of people, and the more money people have the more stingy they tend to be with it.

Claiming Wii as an impulse like Sony has in the past is just completly ignorant, I don't carry 250$ on hand every day nor do most sane people I know unless they're doing something special, not on an average day.

I also got more news for you, poor people don't buy game consoles they'd rather buy FOOD. You mean people who are -just- scraping by. If those people manage to buy a console they're gonna buy their kid a PS2/Gamecube. There is a HUGE advantage to dropping a consoles price below 200$ It's just less significant going from 199.99 -> 149.99 then if it went from 249.99 - 199.99 but there is a difference.

Wii is on that cusp, only seeming cheap because the two alternatives are priced ridiculously(in the public eye), where it seems like it's cheap mostly because it's just cheap-er. I'll tell you there's a difference between cheap and cheaper, granted a 50$ price drop will help the PS3 but that'd only bring it to 549.99$(didn't they discontinue the 20GB model in North America?) I can still buy 2 wiis for that price, even with tax in my area.

Now if Wii dropped 50$ and PS3 dropped 100$ it'd be 199.99 Vs 499.99 Wii is now at that mass consumer side where people who were on the fence would grab it, where PS3 is still beyond the price of people who don't consider themselves gamers.

 I agree that a lower price will help the PS3 enter the mass market, but barring a miraculous plummeting in manufacturing cost, Sony can't afford to make any significant drops for a couple of years. By then the PS3 will have an uphill struggle against the Wii (not to mention the 360). Superior hardware doesn't matter as much as superior games (which is what the phrase "Graphics don't matter," actually means, even though it looks like a literal phrase). That's the real deciding factor. If developers can't catch on to the Wiimote fast enough, that's the PS3's best chance to overtake it when the price drops, but that's a big if.

 Looks like the poor people are bringin Sony DOWN HAHAHAHA!!! 

yeah, looking farward game sales of something not like "wii sport" or "wii play" in quantanty more then 500k.

in japan Wii already outselling ps3 2,5 times, but what about game sales?
22  Mezase!! Fishing Master Hudson 1 18,897  with more then 2 mln wii sold?
same stuff will be in usa, people bought wii with wii sport or wii play, and that`s all.
it`s like buying tetris machine to play tetris.

wii RE edition? yeah, watched some videos.. a lot of fun with shaking controler(lol), but well it`s capcom, which started be more like EA.

and yeah poor people, i mean, with average income. Ofcourse 250$(for a wii with a game) is more then 50$, but just due other consoles like x360/ps3, you can call wii impulse purchase.

There is a huge, huge flaw in calling the Wii an impulse purchase. You simply cannot buy the Wii right now on impulse, because they don't stay on the shelves. The people who are buying Wiis are people that have either waited in line or have been constantly scanning the stores. Wii's haven't even gotten to the stage where they can be bought by impulse. So to call the Wii an impulse buy at this point is simply ignorant of the facts.

I just love how people throw blanket arguments like "250 bucks is an impulse buy, or you are too poor".

Different countries, even developed ones, have different income brackets; even within the same country, purchasing power varies (e.g. West/East coast, USA vs central USA).

What is an "impulse-buy" anyway? An impulse buy is an unplanned or otherwise spontaneous purchase. One who tends to make such purchases is referred to as an impulse buyer.

In other words, this is comparative to the person who goes to a shopping mall with his girlfriend, walks by a store and sees a console that he ends up buying. He had no intention of going to buy a console, but given he was there, and the console kept winking at him...

An "impulse purchase" for gaming consoles has been traditionally/historically pegged at maximum $400, with the sweet spot at $250; having said that, people with high disposable incomes may not hesitate to impulse-buy a $600 console, and people with little to no disposable income will not impulse-buy, or "any-buy", a $250 console.

I make pretty good wages, but I'll be damned if I'll go and buy anything over $125 on "impulse" alone. I normally do my research before buying anything. Case in point: I scoured websites and read two months' worth of reviews before buying a mobile phone that cost me $200. (Consoles are different: I normally buy them all anyhow, such is the rabid gamer in me).

In any case, impulse-buying is not tied to some magical number; it's the product's ability to make the owner throw pragmatism into the wind and open their wallets as if guided by some unknown force.

So, the real question is: How many of you were counting your beans prior to buying the Wii? The PS3? The 360?

If you didn't count the beans and just went out and bought the console then you are a brand loyalist.

If you counted the beans and then went out to buy the console you are a "conscious" buyer.

If you had no plans to buy the console, but saw it in a store and magically opened your wallet, that is an impulse buy.

Edit: I think it would be safe to say that any VGC member automatically doesn't qualify as a console impulse-buyer - we already know we want them damn consoles!

Hus learn some english i really have no idea what you are trying to say with the fanboyism comments surrounding your words. However i think you are trying to say that the wii will drop in price when PS3 does. If so i agree because even though they arn't directly competing with PS3, Nintendo will need to lower the price so that the lower price bracket people can start buying the console, cause some of those buying the Wii at 250 might be swaded into getting a PS33 at say $400

A dictionary description would lead to such excuse against calling the Wii and impulse buy but people forget that the meaning extends furthur than that. Quick emotional reasoning can be the cause of an impulse purchase and that reasoning doesn't have to stop after the item cannot be attained. This is something "I" have used personally when I was  a salesman and I am pretty sure other people have. The trick to apply emotional based reasoning to get someone to buy a phone "just because" of a unique feature or color and/or maybe to seperate them from the rest. Calling the Wii a $250 dollar impulse purchase has very little to do with price because I have sold Items $500 applying that technique and I have seen cars sold using the same method.

Part of what falls under an impulse purchase is making something desirable that someone wasn't interested in in the first place. It can be a friend or hands on experience A purchase based off of one feature you can attribute to impulse. Like buying a 360 for halo 3 only or a PS3 for blu ray. this applies not to VGC members or people who have been planning on these systems for a while... but more along the lines of people seeing the item in the store or having a friend hype the system for them. 

Rational vs emotional reasons for purchase:

Why do people buy Mercedes-Benz?

a) better resale value

b) legendary German precision engineering

c) leading safety standards in its class

d) outstanding after-sales service

If you chose any one of the above, you are wrong. It's

e) because you want your neighbor to feel the envy.

Here's the one flaw in that argument, besides the mad people skills;

People don't buy "Core" systems when there's a premium available.

In 5 months of working at a game retailer, I've sold about 20 Premiums, and 1 Core.