Reggie Hints at Wii Price

[postofficebuddy]

TheSource said:

I'm kind of expecting a price cut in April in Japan to be honest. Then sometime between April & September in the West. I'll keep saying this til the holidays, but you have to figure Wii will spike like crazy in the West at $150, with Zelda, Just Dance 3, another Mario & Sonic, and then retail discounts in Nov-dec.

I don't think a price cut in Japan is in the immediate offing even though it really, really badly needs it there. If it were they would have done it already in response to Sony's price cut to the Torne bundle. For the base model Sony will probably end up making the first move in that region. Whether or not they do it at the same time as the rest of the world is a rather interesting question. Both companies are obviously making much larger magins in Japan then in most of the rest of the world. I have to wonder what Nintendo are thinking in that regard. Would a ¥10,000 cut be enough to give them at least 1 more year with truly meaningful sales in that region? I don't think a ¥5,000 cut would be enough to give the Wii a significant boost. Possibly not even enough to sell a million this year. With how the YOY trends are looking at the moment we could be looking at a 800k year if nothing is done and DQX doesn't make it this year. It's already down 240k and we're not even 3 months into the year.