It really feels like we aren't in disagreement, but just making some of the same points from different angles.

Like, if your main idea is that it was all about marketing, then I'm with you. I just think that the marketing stemmed around motion controls and new ways to play, not the price point. I think people would have bought the Wii if it was an X360 with a Wiimote; it might not have sold 100 million hardware units, but let's stop acting like that's the only statistic that matters.

Do you think Dr. Phil and Oprah wouldn't have promoted the Wii if it cost $400 and could output games in 720p? I'm not going to tell you what you heard about people online saying, "If only Wii games had HD graphics." I'll just say that you must not have been on VGC or in many gamer forums 15-20 years ago. I joined this site about 15 years ago; I heard it plenty. 

Those non-gamers spent hundreds of dollars on plastic equipment for Guitar Hero and Rock Band, bought enough Kinects for the 360 to make MS think that forcing it in the box for the next console was a great idea, and spend hundreds/thousands on new phones, tablets and watches every year.

But a generation prior, they wouldn't touch the GameCube with a 10-foot pole even though it was consistently $100 cheaper than the competition and had the same first party support the Wii got, minus Zelda at launch and a certain other launch game in the box.

If a product is appealing enough for people to really want it, they're going to go get it.

Probably. This strategy seems to have worked out pretty well for Nintendo. Having every console pursuit the same big-dick graphics model is pretty boring, so I appreciate the extra option Nintendo offer, even if that's not as appealing for myself.
I think the innovation is important too - whether it's the motion sensors on the Wii, or the consolidation of their handheld and console products through the Switch, these innovations have contributed to Nintendo's success.

Yeah, it's both, but mainly marketing. The lower price point helped but checking Google, the Wii sold for average $435 on Ebay after launch. People wanted it anyway. 

And yeah the simple controller was the main attraction to the blue ocean. To my parents and anyone else new to console gaming, the standard controllers are rather intimidating with 12 buttons and 2 analog sticks. Here comes something you can simply swing around, point at the screen and press one button to play.

Oprah Winfrey did a giveaway of the Xbox 360 with Kinect to her entire studio audience in a 2010 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. 
MS copied the marketing, Oprah isn't looking at the price ;) Nintendo approached the Dr Phil show I would assume.


I don't know if the Wii would have sold so well at $399. Sure initially it would have sold the same, but as we are seeing now, later adopters look for lower prices. The lack of cheaper slim consoles is slowing current gen adoption down.

September 2009 - Nintendo Wii price dropped to $199
May 4, 2011 - Nintendo is dropping the suggested retail price of its Wii™ system to $149.99 and including a Mario™ game with the Wii hardware.

That was possible because it started at $250

Taking a graph from this site

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/466596/ps5-vs-wii-sales-comparison-november-2025/

So at 34 months price drop to 199, at 54 months price drop to 149, keeping those holiday sales boost going.
(Kinect launched at 48 months on Wii's timeline, WiiU at 72 months)

I don't think Wii would have reached over 100 million sales if it had started at $400. So yeah we agree, Wii would have been a success regardless. Nintendo would have made a bit less money, fewer consoles, fewer game sales, more expensive game development.

Bolded: Damn, I didn't even think about that, but good point... I mentioned people putting each other in headlocks at the store to get one (I'm being facetious in case anyone can't tell, I don't think this literally happened), but I didn't even consider the scalping market. If people were paying north of $400 USD to get their hands on a $250 console, they'd pay $400 for a 360 with a Wiimote in the box.

Nintendo would have made a bit less money, fewer consoles, fewer game sales, more expensive game development.

Most likely. It probably doesn't sell 100 million units at that price, and assuming that it still had the infamous Nintendo level of online service, I don't think it's pulling too many people away from CoD, Battlefield and Madden off of XBL and PSN. However, I do think that it gets some of the generations greatest hits that just weren't capable on the Wii that exists in our current timeline. I'm confident that if Capcom could have put Resident Evil, Street Fighter IV and Turbo HD Remix on it as straight ports, it would have. Konami would have brought the Metal Gears and that Castlevania reboot. Sega would have brought Bayonetta, Yakuza and Sonic '06 Generations. Ubisoft would have brought Assassin's Creed. We know that there was a prototype build of Arkham Asylum for the Wii that never got far off of the ground, so Eidos/WB were interested in getting Batman on it. With a more consistent serving of third party hits, the Wii has stronger legs near the end of its lifecycle and doesn't hit the same cliff it did around 2010.

For all I know, those games could have flopped on the HD Wii like they did on the Wii U for the few ports it got. But a big reason why they flopped on Wii U was because Nintendo spent an entire generation sending the message to the kind of gamers that those games appeal to, to go elsewhere for those games. The other big reason was that the Gamepad didn't add any appeal to people to abandon their current ecosystems. It's possible that an HD Wii would have allowed Nintendo to send a more inclusive message with its marketing to say, "Our console is big enough for casuals AND dedicated gamers!", and Nintendo wouldn't have had to spend years digging itself out of that hole in terms of image.

Of course, as the OP suggests, this is all just a thought exercise.

Agreed. The Wii trajectory would have been a bit slower but also longer.

I don't feel they're digging themselves out of that 'hole' at all, rather the opposite. The refusal to add a home version of the Switch and Switch 2 shows me they've chosen the mobile market as their main audience. No surprise after the Wii U. (I loved that thing, hud / map in your hands instead of on the TV was great. Touch screen inventory management, super mario maker level editing then playing on TV by just looking up) 

The Switch 2 is plenty capable but holds little appeal to me. Switch docked was not a great experience, the joy cons weren't either. Switch 2 is sticking to the handheld experience first. So Switch 2 might have more capable hardware, it's still not interesting to me. The value isn't there when it comes with a screen and joy cons I will never use, while it still has to sit upright in a dock not fitting nicely under the tv, only 256GB storage included. In a Wii form factor coming with a 'normal' controller and 1tb SSD I would have been more interested.

Anyway we'll see how Switch 2 is going to do at $450 and going up.

I sold those Guitar Hero kits and they were gamers. People with PS2s and buying Halo 3. Wii was losting steam by 2010 and 360 had come down in price and Wii was a gateway 4 years in for those non gamers to enjoy other games, Kinect would have gone the way of the Eyetoy in 2005. 

I feel like the Wii would still have succeeded as a more powerful system with a slightly higher cost, as long as it was still reasonably affordable.

The thing is though, it's easy to say this in hindsight, but in 2006 the whole concept was unproven, and if motion controls hadn't exploded the way they did, Nintendo could have been stuck with another failed system, and this time one that was expensive to make and develop for, which could have been disastrous.

They needed to hedge their bets, and making the Wii technically conservative was a prudent move at the time.

That's really all it was. Nintendo didn't want to take the risk of something unproven on an expensive chipset. 

The Wii could have definitely been more powerful, $250 was still quite a bit of money even back then. The GameCube was a massive upgrade over the N64 and was still only $199.99 just a few years earlier. 

The re-used the GameCube chipset because it made the system far, far less risky for Nintendo, if it had flopped they could have moved on to another console. 

Same thing with the DS, if the DS had not taken off they would have moved to make a better than PSP Game Boy Next for sure. 

The broke ass college kid that was me in 2006 definitely remembers that $250 was quite a bit of money back then, lol. But in 2006, you could hold down an apartment working part time on minimum wage. We had 20 fewer years of wage stagnation vs. inflation, were still years away from the '08 recession and the more recent COVID recession. If you had the dollars, those dollars went farther.

The Wii and the Switch had a lot in common leading up to their launches. Plenty of message board pundits speculated the Wii would fail because of its price compared to its graphical and processor capabilities, just like the Switch. Both consoles had humongous hype leading into their launches and came out of the gates like they were shot from a cannon because they both introduced a concept that the masses suddenly realized it needed and couldn't get elsewhere. Like I said earlier, if you make something people really want, their going to find a way to get it regardless of price.

I realize that it's easy for me to say casually now with 20 years of hindsight and no irons in the fire in Nintendo's board meetings, but if Nintendo made a more powerful Wii at an extra $50-150, it would have been fine. People still to this day go broke trying to get their hands on the latest iPhone. MFers will go and get the latest Jordans, yet sleep in the middle of the floor on an air mattress. Everybody complained about Tears of the Kindgom's $10 price hike over the MSRP of every other Switch game, yet that did nothing to stop its momentum. Make a product people want, they'll go and get it once their tears dry up over the price.