Why I'm sure the Wii U will release at $250 to $300

[NightDragon83]

Lord Ciansworth said:

NightDragon83 said:

Lord Ciansworth said:

Play4Fun said:
Nintendo aren't going to launch at $400 and they sure as hell aren't launching at $450,

Why not?

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.

You're absolutely right that the games sell the consoles, but even then it will be a tough sell at such a high price point because of the reasons i listed earlier.  And going back to the SNES for a minute... while it had a good launch in North America (and it came with 2 controllers and a brand new Mario game for $199... not too shabby), it struggled to keep up with the Genesis in sales until late '93-'94.  Also, keep in mind, the PS360 gamers already have access to the games that they love the most... they aren't going to drop money on a Wii U for multiplatform games like the next COD, Madden, and others that they will just end up getting for their existing consoles anyway.  Nintendo will have to have some serious exclusives to get them to jump ship... Mario and Zelda alone just aren't gonna cut it next generation.  And the casuals already have access to the Wii and 360 w/ Kinect much cheaper than $400, so they might not see a reason to pick one up so soon just because of the tablet gimmick, the same way they initially shied away from the 3DS and its 3D gimmick that Nintendo foolishly thought would create an immediate Wii-like demand for the handheld.

My point is that pricing the console so high initially will prove to be a barrier for many gamers of all types simply because they won't see the console as a good value for what it is, just like what happened to several other major consoles over the years like the Saturn, the PS3, the 3DS (for its first 6 months) and now the Vita too.  Making it more affordable right off the bat like around the $300 mark gives Nintendo an immediate edge going into the next generation, where the next batch of Sony and M$ consoles will most likely land at around $350-$400 the following year.  Nintendo can't afford to waste their year-long headstart over the competition (a luxury they have never had in the post-NES era) by getting off to a sluggish start and hurting themselves by pricing the Wii U out of its target audience's range.