| noname2200 said: There are several reasons, actually, but I'll limit myself to the top two. For starters, you're comparing the purchase of the base unit (a one-time deal) to a constant subscription. Simply put, if you bought the 360 (for $200) and a $250 Wii in 2005, your Live subscription would mean you've paid an additional $200 by now, and you can look forward to doing the same for every year going forward. That $250 you spent on your Wii, by contrast, is a steady amount. I'd also add that you're setting up a disingenuous comparison. The $200 360 is very bare bones, and can not in fact do everything that a regular 360 can. Adding things like wireless and a hard drive (the former a luxury, the latter much less so) bring the price to above that of a Wii. Indeed, a much more accurate comparison would be that of a Wii with a 360 Pro, which data suggests many many many many many more 360 owners choose over the Arcade version, but I'm sure you already knew that. I wonder why you didn't bring it up? But I'm sure that, to you, none of this matters. You seem to have this odd opinion that hardware manufacturers should be losing money on hardware. While I would have been happier if I bought my Wii for less, I knew full well what I was getting into with my money, and I (as well as the majority of the public, it seems) thought that that was a fair price for a luxury item. Let me anticipate you. You're going to babble about HD, hard-drives, etc., and how on a purely tech level the Wii is overpriced. I don't care. Apparently, the majority of gamers don't care. Like other gamers, I play games, not hardware. Do you feel that the Wii's games suck, making the system not worth the price? That's nice, but seriously, nobody cares.
To summarize: your rebuttal stinks because it's comparing apples to oranges, and because it's disingenuously using a unit that the vast majority of 360 owners didn't buy. A tech-oriented argument will get you nowhere with a luxury entertainment device. And your subjective tastes in entertainment don't matter to anyone but you. |
You're kidding, right? You're trying to compare a console with several times the performance of the Wii, the ability to be used as a DVD player, media center capable, supporting HD games, the ability to have a mass storage device (hard drive), etc., and saying that the Wii is a good value for about the same price? Nintendo could probably still make money on the machine at $150, yet they keep the price at $250. I have no problem with that, but I'm not going to pretend MS is bad because they charge a small fee for online services not even available on Nintendo's online system, while Nintendo is good because they don't charge for a bare-bones online system while charging much more for the base unit than they need to in order to turn a profit.
The bottom line is that MS makes a small profit or just about breaks even on each 360 sold, while Nintendo make a very large profit on each Wii sold. So tell me again, which company is providing a good value for the price of the base console? The people at Nintendo are reporting massive profits while the MS gaming division reports a loss due in part to how little margin they add into their console prices, and you think Nintendo is doing you a favor. I'm starting to think you would give Nintendo a pass if they mugged you in an alley.
