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

[HappySqurriel]

Lucas-Rio said:

HappySqurriel said:

Lucas-Rio said:

HappySqurriel said:

Lucas-Rio said:
The evidence is that Nintendo wants to sell a lot of hardware.

At 350 it won't sell.

$350 wouldn't be too bad, especially if it comes bundled with a game ... After all, at $400 the XBox 360 sold well, without the established userbase Nintendo will have with the Wii U and without a bundled game.

The 360 started selling well when his price dropped

I would expect the Wii U to do substantially better at $350 bundled with a game than the XBox 360 did at $400 for multiple reasons:

1) The Wii U will have a larger established userbase (over 100 million) than the XBox 360 had (25 million)
2) The Wii U would be $50 cheaper
3) The Wii U would offer a "free" game
4) Inflation
5) The Wii U will be launched 6 years after the Wii, while the XBox 360 was launched 4 years after the XBox

The big challenge for Nintendo (and any company) is that the higher the price of your system is the more you have to do to justify the price with quality games. With a $200 console Nintendo would probably sell a ton of systems on potential alone, but if they hit (or pass) the $399 mark they will need to have several games released and several games on the horizon that really interest gamers in order for them to justify the price.

At $300 or $350 a strong launch line-up and a few games released in the first year will go a long way to getting people to adopt

 

I don't think the Nintendo players want to buy a high priced hardware. Nintendo console are the home of their game and that's why they are selling well. People will be very disappointed if this is released at more than 300$ and for sure I would wait a price drop before getting one. With the pricedrop effect of the 3DS, Nintendo would shot themselve in the foot by pricing the Wii U high, as the Wii U has a less solid position than the 3DS had.

They should not think about their profit for their first year I think, as the important is taking the biggest advantage possible before their competitors are ready.

I think you're under the impression that there is uniformity in what Nintendo fans (or any gamers) will pay for a system ...

Like most statistics in the real world, I expect that what people are willing to pay for the Wii U follows a normal distribution. If I were to guestimate the mean and standard deviation, I would say that the mean would be between $300 and $350 with a standard deviation between $50 and $100. While it would be best for potential sales to price the system at one standard deviation below the mean of what people are willing to pay, a system in its launch year with a large existing userbase could be priced as high as one standard deviation above the mean of what people are willing to pay and still sell as many units as you can produce in the first year.