NightDragon83 said:
For 2 reasons: (and the point you made about the other consoles' prices adjusted for inflation has no bearing on this topic, it's comparing apples to oranges). 1: Nintendo's primary audience is the family / casual / mainstream / whatever you want to call them gaming audience, and they're not going to drop $400 on a game system just because it has a gimicky tablet controller. They didn't jump on the 360 and PS3 bandwagons when they launched with their fancy HD graphics and Blu Ray at $399 and $499 respectively, so why on Earth would you expect them to do it for the Wii U? And also note that the 3DS, the successor to Nintendo's biggest selling handheld of all time, struggled most of the year because of the high initial price point, which Nintendo was forced to slash by almost $100 in order to stimulate its sluggish sales, proving once again that name and branding alone won't sell consoles. 2: On the flip side of the gaming coin, the core gamers (you know, the people that Nintendo are trying to win back this upcoming generation) aren't going to drop $400+ on the Wii U either. Why? They already own a console that can already do pretty much everything the Wii U can do sans the tablet controller, and they're not going to take the plunge for an unproven system that (from what we've seen so far) has only marginally better graphics, IF that, then what they already own and have been playing for the past 5-6 years. They spent $400+ on a new console half a decade ago, and you expect one of the most notoriously fickle group of consumers in history, the hardcore gamers, to do the same next year for a system that barely outperforms the current gen console on paper, let alone in practice? No way. In short, next year Nintendo will be competing directly with the 360 / PS3, which will have permanent entry price points of $149 and $199 respectively by the time the Wii U launches. There's no way Nintendo releases the Wii U at double the price of the most expensive current gen console.... they'll just end up in the exact same situation they found themselves in with the 3DS earlier this year. |
Okay, first off, my comparison to SNES pricing is quite relevant to this conversation for two reasons. Firstly it shows that, even at a launch price of close to $400 dollars, the American market was, and remains, willing to see value in a home video games console at this price point or close to it (the PS2, for example, launched at the equivalent of $422 in 2001 and was a smash hit). The comparison is also a pertinent one as the SNES launched into an American market in which the Sega Genesis had been selling for 2 years. The Genesis had a much larger library of games and was available at retail for the equivalent of about $100 (in today's money) less than the SNES at its 1991 launch. Why then was the SNES able to beat the Genesis in the market place? The games.
The point you seem to be missing is that it is always games that sell consoles. Why would someone buy a Wii U when the already own a 360? Simple. To play good games and enjoy gaming experiences that they cannot get on their existing home consoles. It is up to Nintendo to provide those experiences, and if they can't the Wii U won't sell. To suggest the Wii U won't sell simply because it may be priced at around $400, however, is frankly wrong. History has proved otherwise, and I have no doubt that consoles of the future will prove the same again.
