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hsrob on 14 March 2015
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Soundwave said:
KLXVER said:

It desperately needs a price cut. Nintendo isn't being aggressive enough. Its mostly their own fault that the WiiU isnt selling.


Why take losses on a failed system? Nintendo knows whats up and isn't going to incur financial bleeding for a system that's going nowhere. 

The only thing worse than a failed system is a failed system you bled tons of money on (see: Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast). 

Besides it's not like $299.99 is some outrageous price. The damn thing comes with 2 free games on top of that. If you don't like it at $299.99, I don't think you're going to do backflips to get one at $249.99. What does $299.99 buy these days? Like the lowest storage version of an iPad mini? 

The Slim PS3 is still $269.99. 

I think that it has been plainly obvious for some time now that this is Nintendo's strategy.  That is why they have been extremely conservative with marketing, except for a few flagship games and why they haven't rushed to a price cut.

Incurring significant losses might temporarily boost sales but it's not going to significantly change the system's tragjectory. Even if they managed to take moves to boost sales into the 25 million consoles range, rather than the 15 million console range, this would cost them 500 million dollars on a mere $50 price cut. Incidentally I don't think that would be anywhere near enough to see a long term boost into the 10 million range.

I think Nintendo is happy to attempt to sell the console at a profit, and will only pursue price reductions when they are financially prudent, meanwhile attempting to gradually improve, or at least sustain sales, through quality exclusives.

OT: I think there is an outside chance the the Wii U could compete with, not beat, the XB1 but there is no real chance that it will impact the PS4 in any significant way.  If the PS4 continues to sell the way it has I believe it will become virtually the default first console for the majority of new buyers, with the XB1 becoming an 'also ran'.  In this scenario I could see XB1's sales plateuing, or even falling off, allowing the Wii U to compete with the XB1 for second console sales.