| sam987 said: €199,- is the magic number but Nintendo doesnt care.. |
That is actually an artificial magic number that forum posters have conjured over the years; it has no bearing on products that no one wants to begin with. I suppose this is where I point out that the Gamecube was only 99$ after a rather short time on the market. A product that sells really, really poorly at 299$ won't start selling very well at 199$; it will likely cause some on-the fence stragglers to take the plunge and then go right back to being ignored by the masses when the dust settles. It didn't even do a thing for the Wii, which was almost completely aimed at this very market that supposedly responds so heavily to this price point.
Price is certainly a factor in consumer electronics but this myth of the "magic mass market barrier" at 199$ is simply false. When we see some products get a large boost from reaching this particular sum; it is the price cut itself and not the number that causes the surge, not to mention the fact that there are similar examples of great boosts of cuts to much larger sums. The greatest argument is the smartphone though; they certainly do not cost 199$ but they certainly do sell to the mass market, and if anything; the market is seeking more and more towards the high-end units that cost the most.
