Nintendo won’t drop Wii U price before March 2015

Stream:

News Bot

Your News Bitch
3,282
0
0
0
Console: Headset:
Games By Matthew Humphries Feb. 4, 2014 1:23 pm
Nintendo is in desperate need of some good news regarding sales of the Wii U, and president Satoru Iwata is tasked with coming up with ways of increasing sales significantly. While DS games, customer rewards, and new titles hold some promise, a hardware price drop is not on his radar for at least a year.
At $300 the Wii U is already significantly cheaper than the PS4 and Xbox One, but at the same time not viewed in the same category as those next-gen consoles by a lot of gamers. Reducing the price further, say to $250 or even $200 could potentially boost sales. Iwata says that isn’t going to happen, though, at least not in this coming financial year, which ends in March 2015.
Such is the cost associated with manufacturing the Wii U, it seems a price drop just isn’t feasible and would end up losing Nintendo more money. There’s also no guarantee it would boost sales significantly as it’s the software that should make that difference with hardware already priced reasonably.
So what is Nintendo’s plan? They’ve accepted the Wii U will never be as big of a hit as the Wii, but that as a platform it can still make a profit. Iwata believes that Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. will be the system sellers Nintendo needs, and that because they are strong multiplayer games they will encourage existing players to get their friends buying the Wii U.
I think Nintendo needs to look beyond two games, though, and the DS games on Wii U plan isn’t an idea that can turn things around. We need to hear about new titles, new IP, and a renewed focus on getting games from third-party developers and publishers. That’s the only way gamers will take the Wii U more seriously as a platform next to the PS4 and Xbox One, but at the same time, Nintendo has to be looking at what comes after the Wii U and whether that should happen much sooner than originally planned.



More...