Will Japanise companies be forced to increase US prices?

[HappySqurriel]

I have been mentioning this for months and have been largely ignored or disagreed with ...

Being that the hardware is determined years before a system is released to market, and even the price is determined months before a system is released, a large portion of Sony and Nintendo's strategy is related to exchange rates. For example, I believe that Nintendo initially priced the 3DS at $250 due to changes in exchange rates and as a hedge against future changes.

Personally, I doubt we will see price increases in any released systems but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see any price cuts either. Most of the hardware is already profitable, or will see manufacturing costs decrease more rapidly than exchange rate changes, so I doubt they need price increases.

With that said, I wonder what Sony projected the dollar-yen exchange rate to be when they set the price of the PS Vita at $250/$300 ... If Sony projected that they could sell the PS-Vita at that price with an acceptable loss with the dollar being worth (on average over the first 12 months) 80 yen, and before the system launches they project that the dollar will be worth (on average over the first 12 months) 65 yen they may have to change the price or force bundling. After all, that kind of change in exchange rate would translate to a $50+ additional loss for every system sold.

Of course this will also impact the release price of the Wii U and PS4 ...