Mr Khan said:
The basic was probably to hedge their bets on whether or not the deluxe was too expensive, to avoid an embarrassing 3DS-type scenario. If the Deluxe were truly "too expensive" to most people, then they would just buy the Basic, and they could just sort of phase the Deluxe out, until it became cheap enough to produce to become the new "Basic" price-level. |
The basic one probably also acts as a way for them to cut the price without cutting the price by offering better value in the basic bundle. If they started to bundle the charger and the cradle and the game with the white version it would effectively count as a $30-40 price cut but it wouldn't insult early adopters nor ring any alarm bells with the other players in the industry. Microsoft did a similar thing when they went from the $280 Core to the $200 Arcade which was an effective price drop for some customers of around $120 if you include the memory card costs. Having two SKUs gives them flexibility to crab walk the price and target different segments.
Tease.