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Soundwave on 10 June 2015
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zorg1000 said:
Soundwave said:

At the end of the day though

Inflation adjusted today:

The NES Deluxe Set (aka: the standard one most kids had with Mario + Duck Hunt) = $300

Super NES w/Super Mario World = $343

The Game Boy = $170

Is really not miles removed from Wii U being $300 today with Mario 3D World + Nintendo Land and 3DS ranging from $129-$199.

I mean if the point is things are more expensive today than they were in 1989 minus inflation ... well yeah ... and ... ? I can't buy a bottle of Coke or a Big Mac or a pair of Nikes or a comic book or spaghetti sauce for the same price as 1989 either.

If anything a $130 only "3DS model" (which would basically be the 2DS) would probably be selling worse. 

Ur only taking into account launch price, the NES Action Set (the main bundle from 1988 onward) was $99.99 or about $200 in today's money, SNES in 1994 was $119.99 or about $200 in today's money.

Ur Gameboy example isn't helping u because launches aligned 3DS is way ahead of Gameboy.

The Wii U probably should be $250 by now, but the issue is the sales are so poor at the launch price (which wasn't outrageous) that they can't leverage economies of scale to drop the price. Their parts suppliers are likely not willing to give them any leeway on component costs because the thing is selling like a donkey turd. 

Which is more of a demand issue, not really one of price, the NES/SNES/N64 all sold well enough (inflation accounted for) at their launch prices to allow for price drops later on. 

3DS has had price cuts and cheaper model revisions and frequent temporary cuts too. 

That and Nintendo learned from the GameCube that just blindly slashing the price to the bare minimum doesn't neccessarily do anything except a temporary boost in sales. So I think with Wii U they're content to finish at 18 million but not lose any more money on hardware than need be, rather than cut to $200 or $250 and maybe sniff GameCube-level sales. I think they're basically said "we give up on this gen" knowing they have a turkey on their hands. 

It's a fun system, but lets face it, the moment Nintendo lost the Wii Sports/Wii Fit gamer (largely women to smart devices) the market realities for a console wearing the "Wii" brand dimmed very, very significantly. Nintendo probably feels like since only Nintendo hardcore fans are going to buy a Wii U anyway, that's it's really not worth dropping the price to maybe grab a few extra stragglers who own a PS4-XBox One but just need to have Splatoon or Mario Kart in their life.  

They're probably not wrong either. I think suffering the first fiscal losses in company history to cut the 3DS price and then going into a tailspin of several consecutive years of losses also really did a number on the psyche of Nintendo's management. They did it for 3DS, but they weren't gonna do that again, even if it means the Wii U is going to drown to death.