GamerNode: News - Wii price drop coming? Nintendo prez says no way

Wii price drop coming? Nintendo prez says no way

There's an old saying that says there are two certainties in life: death and taxes.

For gamers, you might want to add "no price drops for the Wii." The Wii, almost two years-old, coming November 19, has maintained its launch price of $250.

Where it once stood proudly as the least expensive game console, the Xbox Arcade, at a paltry $199, has overtaken the Wii's status as the cheapest machine. The PS3 comes in at $399; a two hundred dollar drop from its former brain numbing launch price of $599.

Surely, with the gift-giving season almost upon us, Nintendo must be thinking price drop, right? Wrong. According to Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, he doesn't see the need or reason for doing this. Why? He doesn't want to "offend" those Wii-ites who have purchased the Wii at full price. He also said that price drops are bad for business.

"This is my personal thinking, but when the model's price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it's better to wait, and I've always thought that was a mistake."

If we take Iwata's logic a few steps further, Nintendo should have never discounted the pricing on its popular DS either because it would have been bad for business. But the real answer to why there isn't a price drop, something that Iwata probably can't really utter in public, is that demand for the Wii is still outstripping what Nintendo can produce. If there is that much interest in the machine after almost two years, why drop the price?

So at least for this holiday season, if people are still thinking about getting a Wii as a stocking stuffer, they will have to shell out the full price of admission to enter the exclusive Nintendo country club.

And if we ever do see a price drop for the Wii, it will mean that the market has finally been saturated with the machine, at which time, not only will there be a price cut, we'll probably see Wii II on the horizon.

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