yvanjean said:
I don't think Nintendo will drop the price till September 2014. Here lies the biggest problem with the WiiU - its price. The wii sold at $249 when it was first released back in 2006, the Wii was selling not just to the hardcore gamers but the casual market. At $249 the Wii was cheap enough for an impulse buy by consumers. Nintendo produce the WiiU targeting the same casual market without actually having an impulse & casual friendly market price. The Wiiu is simply selling to hardcore Nintendo fans. The Gamecube was never after the casual market; Nintendo was going up against Sony and Microsoft trying to capture the hardcore gamers and failed at it. It found its niche with kid friendly games. The Xbox 360 has actualy manage to steal away some of the casual market with their $199 XBox 360 + Kinect consoles from the Wii and now the WiiU. But, going forward as Xbox 360 and PS3 sales drop the WiiU can recapture that same casual market with a $249 WiiU bundle. When going up only against the PS4 and Xbox one the WiiU can exercise the price advantage over PS4 & Xbox One and the unique features of the WiiU will differentiate from these consoles. The WiiU is in a complete different consoles war then GC was against PS2/Xbox. The transition period of November 2012-2013 as hurt the WiiU because from a price point the system was being compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360 giving it a disadvantage, this will reverse back as an advantage in the current generation. |
Well you finally explained how you think atleast one thing is gonna be different the next time around! :P
So basically you're saying it'll start selling that much better once they drop the price another $50 to get to $250? Seeing how there were no long term improvements with the first price drop, I find it difficult to believe this one will do any better. Afterall, sales shouldn't only increase once you reach a certain threshold, in this case $250. They should increase whenever the price is reduced! Then again the first price cut was hardly much of one since the cheapest price remained the same, so the next one should indeed be more impactful, especially if combined with a MK8 bundle. Not sure what you're getting at with the price competition thing though. PS4/XO also compete with the PS360, probably even more so, and they're already much more expensive than Wii U, yet they're still selling better. Why would that change just because PS360 get discontinued, whenever that will be?
Btw the main reason I think the Wii U doesn't appeal to the casual crowd because of it's concept. The Wiimote was simple and intuitive, wheras the Gamepad is complex and intimidating. This is because they tried to also appeal to third partys by going back to to a more standard controller, but still their console is underpowered, and there's still the stigma between them and third partys *cough*EA*cough*, so they wont be getting their full support, hindering sales further as they'll have less games of less variety but more game droughts. Another factor is tablets n mobile gaming grabbing the attention of the casuals, and that they probably see no need to upgrade when their Wii Fit n Wii Sports games still work, assuming they even still play them.
