bonzobanana said:
retroking1981 said:
bonzobanana said:
Personally I think the advantage is the wii u. When you pull the wii u apart there is nothing in it of value hardware wise. It's a very cheap design. This means Nintendo have the option at selling it at a lower price more easily and consoles sell in far larger numbers at lower prices. The wii u can easily compete at a price level of 360 and PS3 and performs to the same level too. This christmas I think the wii u pricing and bundling will be more aggressive. Xbox one despite being weaker than ps4 isn't much cheaper to manufacture I'm guessing. The extra money that Sony pays for fast GDDR5 chips is probably similar to the kinect cost of xbox one. The extra GPU performance of the ps4 is merely using the silicon that is used for the 32MB of embedded memory in the xbox one to compensate for slow DDR memory. Microsoft needs pricing between wii u and ps4 but they are probably going to try to hang on to pricing close to ps4 which I don't think they will succeed with.
Nintendo have lost most third party support and will get pretty desperate to sell wii u's I believe. Nintendo will be forced back into aggressive pricing like the N64 and Gamecube era. The wii u's success will come from being a low cost secondary console in many homes or a console for younger children.
Microsoft have other revenue streams and xbox one success is not as critical for them. |
You forgot about the Gamepad.
Essentially they both have a similar problem, a forced accessory no one wants keeping the price higher than it should and ultimately needs to be.
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I'm not forgetting about the gamepad at all. The screen on that is a low cost resistive screen of minor cost. Lets not forget the ps3 and 360 have the cost of a hard drive included for most models which is probably costing them $20-30. The wii u has a over-sized joypad with a screen. Nintendo didn't even put analogue triggers in the gamepad and the battery is very low capacity. There is nothing in the gamepad of value. You can buy a basic chinese android tablets in the UK for £30. That is with a 7" capacitive screen and a full motherboard with processor, gpu etc. The gamepad is just a joypad with a screen. The processing is done in the main wii u console. What do you think is in the gamepad of value because it certainly isn't the screen or the main pcb?
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You may be right, but Nintendo are selling the Wii U at a loss, the costs must be coming from somewhere and if the console itself is cheap in design like you say then it must be coming from the Gamepad.
Anyway my main point is that I don't think Nintendo can afford to drop the price as they can't lose more money than they already are. I think MS are in a better position to play a price war, they recently made about £6billion (not sure if thats last quarter or FY so far) and could afford to lose £8billion on the OG Xbox back in the day just to get a foot hold in the market, I think they'll do the same with XOne instead of losing the market to Sony so badly. They just have more financial muscle than not only Nintendo but Sony to.
I agree with you that the wii u's chance at success would come from being a low cost secondary console but I just don't think Nintendo are in a position to drop the price.
The Wii U is between a rock and a hard place, PS3/360 are much better options as a cheap console for kids and the PS4/XOne are for the hardcore - I hate that term but you get the point.
