I was hoping "Mario Maker" would hit in the Summer and initiate a $249 bundle, then maybe see a $199-$229 Black Friday Deal. I know that they need profits after the last few years, but they really need to nurture the brand at the moment, and getting Wii U's into lots of hands will do that. The 1st party games speak for themselves.

"Iwata said they cannot right now. "

WRONG. Iwata said strong yen didn't let them cut the price UP UNTILL NOW. After all this time, a pricecut should come soon.

"When people see the PS4, One, PS3 and 360 with holiday prices they will laugh at the Wii U (again)" "If Sony drops the PS4 to $350 for the holiday Nintendo is a non-factor in every sense of the word for the rest of the year."

That doesn't make any sense, as wii u's performance is steady regardless of the competitors. It's just downplaying.

I have updated the thread with a poll.Please vote

Honestly, the whole Nintendo/Wii U saga baffles me. The hardware is very un-Nintendo-like. While it does innovate as is Nintendo's MO, they've abandoned Gunpei Yokoi's hardware philosophy ("lateral thinking with withered technology"), and it's biting them hard.

OT, I voted for "Substantial Boost." What the Wii U really needs is a price cut (and maybe a bundle), combined with advertisement and a steady stream of games. Nintendo hasn't shown the organizational skills needed to string together all those things, or the inclination to do even one of those things.

price cuts almost always have a positive impact on sales...they have some good games coming up too

I think if there is a modest price cut ($50.00) we probably won't see a heck of a lot of movement sales-wise... Maybe a 50k baseline for a few weeks.

That said, if Nintendo digs deep and cuts prices by $100 and releases a slim-version of the Wii U gamepad that is cheaper to produce and looks more modern, I think this would sell a fair number of consoles (ie. at least the same as what MK8 did for hardware sales last year). All told, I think a price cut like this might mean the difference between 15M and 18M for the Wii U's lifetime sales... Nothing that is going to change the tides dramatically for the Wii U.

I guess from Nintendo's point of view, does it make sense to invest a lot of money into the hardware of the Wii U at this point? Even with a 10 million user base, Nintendo's most popular software titles are selling a respectable 3-4 million copies. Maybe it just makes more sense to try to maximize profit by releaseing lots of software and not worry about selling more consoles. The fact that Nintendo didn't even try cutting prices last Christmas tells me that selling Wii U hardware units is not their top priority.

fore sure they will

I will have to see the preorder charts before I even begin to believe Splatoon is popular. Nintendo needs to make their console visible as an option since the Wii U is no longer a primary console for most. Its in secondary console territory.

What does that have to do with anything?

Because these arent the 90's anymore. Bundles tend to work with games that gained their popularity. Microsoft didnt even trust Sunset Overdrive with a prolonged bundle even though the game was awesome.