jarrod said:
Rpruett said:
If consumers wanted a Wii at first because it was $250 relative to a $300 HD console, why were they often going for $400-plus used on eBay or through Craigslist? Why did it take FOUR YEARS for Nintendo to finally drop the price (and by a measly 20% at that, PS2's first price drop was 2 years in and 33%).
As I mentioned above, the $300 Core Xbox 360 was not a worthy purchase. The 360 Arcade (Released 2 years after the 360 came out) actually featured enough to legitimately enjoy your system without buying a ton of extra accessories.
How many consoles were sold over Ebay / Craigslist for $400? I don't have those figures do you? Why did PS2 sell for 800-900$ before it even released? Who knows. Why did Tickle Me Elmo get sold out across the country and have people murdering each other for one? Nobody knows. Someone will always pay a price for something.
It took Nintendo four years to drop the price because of two reasons :
A.) Momentum. When you have doubled the sales of 360/PS3 within only 1 year on the market, and you double them on your 2nd year on the market and possibly even the third year on the market? Guess what? You have the pricing control now. You don't **NEED** to drop the price of your system. Your system is what people ' want' because all of their friends have it, their kids have it, etc etc. If you DON'T have it, you're missing out. Pricing matters less and less as the generation wears on. As all systems eventually sit near each other.
B.) Competitions High Price Point. As I mentioned earlier, the competition's standard fully functional models ($600/$400) respectively were a combined $500 more expensive than an entry level Wii. Even taking the absolute barebones (Discontinued SKU's from MS / Sony) ($300/$500) respectively you are looking at a combined $300 more expensive than a Wii. It took the competition four years to get within a reasonable range of the Wii's price.
What you don't seem to get is that consumers wanted Wii because of what they could play on it, millions bought it literally for Wii Sports alone. Worse, I can shoot down your "quality games on GC/N64" argument by also stating "low entry point for GC/N64"... why's it only work one way and not the other? Wii was more expensive than GC/N64, and price barrier between it and competitors' launch prices were greater on GC/N64... yet I don't seem to really remember anything on N64 or GC much like Wii Sports...
What? Are you confused? Gamecube launched at $200? PS2 launched at $300 ? Xbox launched at $300. A combined difference of only $200 in pricing. ((300-200 = 100) (300-200 = 100) = 200). The difference this generation ((500-250 = 250) (300-250 = 50) = $300) That is still even taking the barest of barebones consoles from MS/Sony (When you take full-fledged models that number becomes drastically more skewed.) ((600-250 = 350) (400-250 = 150) =$ 500)
It's not about the individual consoles price. It's about the CONTEXT in which the consoles price exists. These things don't occurr in a vacumn. GC may have been cheaper but relative to it's competition it absolutely was not.
One more factor to take note of, is Sony was the top dog in this generation. By them releasing a significantly more expensive console (Twice as much as the Wii even with the discontinued barebones SKU) they completely shifted consumer attitude. MS wasn't nearly as established as Nintendo or Sony.
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Joe schmoe could by a 360 for $300 in 2005 and have fun with it. He'd need a memory card to save game data (there's another $20-40), but that's no different than literally every other console on the market at that time (besides Xbox 1). Something tells me VGA cables and wired controllers worked fine then too (both also industry standard), hell Wii and PS3 still come with VGA cables in every SKU afaik.
On a console that's big draw is the online interface, market place, etc....You're damn right having only a 'memory card' is a big hinderance. Especially on a console that is far more focused on online play than solo play. You answered your own question. It absolutely was different than any other console on the market at that time (Because the other models of 360's showed this).
And despite how you might want to discount the Core, it still existed and was still only $50 more than a Wii. GameCube most certainly had a greater entry point price gap ($100) and that was actually key it's marketing (as it was for Dreamcast). All this is really beside the point though, since you still seem unable to bring up any shred of concrete evidence that pricepoint was a driver here. You can keep reiterating the same unfounded logical fallacy if you like, but until you can do more than argue in a circle, I think we're done here.
And Microsoft was far from an established brand. Microsoft was a distant 2nd/3rd placed ranged console last generation. This generation people were more curious to see what Sony had brought to the table and Nintendo had a namesake that was much larger in the console business than Microsoft.
Had Sony released a 'Core' system that was only $50 more than a Wii and the Wii still outsold it, you would have a point. However, when the previous generations 'winner' comes out and announces a price of $600 all excitement and general positive attitude went downhill and shifted focus.
We can be done here since we obviously don't see eye to eye and we are running in circles. However, you have yet to address the historically high price ratios between competing consoles and the Wii that didn't exist in previous generations. You have yet to address the fact that no console generation winner has ever been priced above $300. You have yet to address that the previous generation winner (PS2) priced itself literally at a minimum of double the Wii's price and how that impacts a lot (And if that has ever even remotely happened before) What about the Wii's attach ratio...For a system built on software?
I don't think this is nearly as cut and dry as you make it out to be.
