When will the Wii U get a price drop and how much?

[Scisca]

QuintonMcLeod said:

3) Once again, the price has little to do with it. The 3DS had one price drop to stimulate demand. The Wii U also had a price drop. You are demanding there be another one without understanding what the consequences are. The previous price drop for the Wii U stimulated demand for only a month or two. Then demand went down. It got a small spike due to the holiday, but then sales plummeted. This is how you know the price cut didn't stimulate demand enough. Now, Nintendo needs to do something else. They need to increase the value of their product. Cutting the price again would do nothing but hurt Nintendo's margins. The same happened with the Xbone. The price dropped by $100 dollars, but it did little to stimulate demand. That's because people don't see the value in the product. 

Look... People are willing to spend more on jewelry than they would on a PS4. The reason is because jewelry holds a much higher value. Same applies to cars and trucks. Those vehicles hold a higher value than the PS4, because people can see what a car can do over what a PS4 can do. People cannot see the value of the Wii U over what the PS4 can do. That is the problem. If Nintendo went on a buying binge and bought every 3rd party developer in Japan that they could afford, the value of Nintendo's products would increase. People would be more interested in the Wii U because now it has the support of every developer in Japan. 

You are willing to spend $20,000 dollars on a car, but you are not willing to spend $20,000 on a PS4. People will spend $1,000 on a wedding ring, but they will not spend that on a PS4. This is a very easy to understand concept. You believe Nintendo hardware shouldn't ever cost more than $250 because YOU, and you only, do not find the value in their products. However, if Nintendo were to release a high-tech smart phone or sophisticated tablet for $300, you'd buy it. Admit it. At that stage, the value of that product would increase - even by YOUR OWN standards. It's all about adding value.

The problem for both Wii U and XO is that after their price drops they STILL are too expensive. XO costs the same as PS4, but it's common knowledge that it's an inferior console. Why get less for the same money? Wii U is only $100 cheaper, but is closer to PS360 than PS4One in terms of performance. People look at this and can't see the value for the asking price. It's not just about cutting the price for the sake of it, it's about setting it on the proper level.

When I said that a Nintendo console shouldn't cost more than $250 I meant while they are still following their "blue ocean" strategy, ignoring the core mainstream. Wii U is just a Nintendo-Box, it's not really competing with PS4One. It's a console people would buy to get their Mario/Zelda/MK/Smash fix. That's all, cause at this point it's not even the go-to party console anymore. If that's what they offer, they can't set the price this high, their console has to be cheap, cause it only satisfies a very specific need. If they were to abandon this strategy and release a regular console on par with competition that would get all 3rd party support at the same quality - they could obviously charge a regular price.

The problem with Wii U is that it's impossible for Nintendo to improve the value to truely compete with PS4One, cause 3rd parties just won't care about it and, quite frankly, the gamers wouldn't care about any multiplats, as they'd be heavily gimped due to console limitations. Nintendo 1st party is great, but it's not better than 3rd parties +Sony/MS 1st party. This is why, I believe, they need to show a pricetag that makes their product a no-brainer. Its only chance to get any real traction is to become "the second console" that everyone who owns a PS4 or XO needs to have. But a secondary console can't cost as much as the primary one.

So to sum up my argument - I'm all for Nintendo improving the value of the product, it's essential, but it is absolutely impossible for Wii U to have value similar to PS4One. Thus, as long as the price remains in the same ballpark as the price of PS4One, it won't be worth the value. Nintendo can't take on the whole world with a clearly inferior product and charge you almost the same price.

To me the price is the most important factor keeping me from getting a Wii U. I'm thinking really hard about that MK8 bundle (it's 300 Euro here), but after comparing what I got from my Wii and my PS3, I'm really unwilling to pay this much.