By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

After 3 years on the market, Nintendo will probably try to do something to make the Wii seem like more of a value to attract the interest of people who have yet to buy a system. As much as I think price is one factor that they could use, I highly doubt that Nintendo would just reduce the price of the console.

Nintendo could try to boost the value of the system by increasing the bundling associated with the console. Accessories like the Wii Fit balance board, classic controller, Wii MotionPlus, and even additional controllers certainly add to the potential value of the system. Nintendo also has several first party games (The Legend of Zelda, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Party 8 and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for example) which have been on the market for a couple of years and have hit a point where they have (easily) turned a healthy profit, and everyone who wanted to buy these games at full price will have already bought them; right now it would make sense for Nintendo to convert these games to budget priced titles, and (possibly) to give people the choice of one of these titles when they buy a new Wii system.

Nintendo can "change" the hardware of the system. While Sony and Microsoft get a bigger bang from moving to a smaller manufacturing process (because their CPU and GPU are larger portions of the cost of those consoles, and are also major factors why the systems are so large) Nintendo will get similar price and energy use reductions on their processors from moving to the 45nm process. It is possible that Nintendo could reduce a slim version of the Wii if they took advantage of a newer manufacturing process and a laptop DVD drive.

Finally, Nintendo could focus on the release of some big games for multiple demographic groups. While it is not Nintendo's style to release several big games in a quarter, it is entirely possible that Nintendo could have an unusually full quarter this holiday season and release several "must have" games for both core/conventional gamers as well as new/unconventional gamers.