| superchunk said: Those of you who keep mentioning the Dollar to Yen ratio are being ignorant of the 3DS. Yen to Dollar ratio should have it priced around $300, however it launched at the same /10-ish scheme all Nintendo consoles do.. 25,000 yen price equated to $250.00 3DS, when if it really took the ratio it should have been ~$300. I think this disproves how much weight many of you are giving the weak dollar. |
Just on this point ...
Prices on most products in most markets are based on what people have demonstrated a willingness to pay, not based on what exchange rates are. This is one of the reasons why Europeans constantly complain about being "Screwed" on the price of many goods like most videogame consoles. The exception to this tends to be in markets where the barriers to consumers buying products from another country are limited, and (therefore) prices end up being much closer when you compare exchange rates; the best example of this is (probably) Canada, where cross border shopping and grey market suppliers tend to undemine a company's ability to set their prices dramatically differently in Canada vs. the USA.
If Nintendo is not losing a significant amonut of money on their console due to manufacturing costs they will have some flexability to cut into profits (or take small losses) to ensure that their system sells for the price they want it to in every region regardless of what the exchange rates are.
