Wii price not influenced by PS3/360

By Tom Bramwell Published 25 September, 2009

Nintendo exec denies being pushed.

Nintendo has denied that the US and Japanese price cuts to Wii have anything to do with recent cuts for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

"Not at all," was vice president of corporate affairs Denise Kaigler's assessment, speaking to GameSpot. "We were not driven by any other factors but our own business decision to do this.

"As I mentioned, this was timed to take place exactly when we're executing it. The holiday period is the best time for us to offer this great incentive for these consumers on the sidelines."

Kaigler refers there to the research Nintendo cited when announcing the price cut - $199 down from $249 in the US - that "there are 50 million Americans thinking about becoming gamers".

In the UK, meanwhile, Nintendo has announced a new bundle that adds Wii Sports Resort and a Wii MotionPlus to the existing Wii and Wii Sports package.

This is likely to retail for the roughly the same price as current Wii hardware following a dip amount trade buyers have to pay for their stock.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • KayJay #1 2 years ago

    Yeah Yeah Yeah!

  • Frumper #2 2 years ago

    What do they gain but denying it's a reactive price drop? Which it clearly is.

  • Waffleaber #3 2 years ago

    A price cut for Christmas is hardly unexpected, that goes double when the price was raised during the year.

    I'm more surprised they didnt wait until the end of next month when the Christmas advertising push starts.

  • GamerG #4 2 years ago

    As if they have been pushed, they've maintained the price for the longest time on record!

  • Senate #5 2 years ago

    I haven't bought a game for my wii in an awful long time - what are expected buyers gonna get gamewise? Only Nintendo themselves make the best wii games but they dont last forever.

  • darkmorgado #6 2 years ago

    I haven't bought a game for my wii in an awful long time - what are expected buyers gonna get gamewise? Only Nintendo themselves make the best wii games but they dont last forever.

    Madworld? HOTD: Overkill? Dead Space: Extraction? Little King's Story? Zak and Wiki? No More Heroes? Broken Sword?

    They are all 3rd-party, and that's just off the top of my head.

  • Canyarion #7 2 years ago

    Also Okami. Some say it's better than Zelda: Twilight Princess.

  • makeamazing #8 2 years ago

    Nintendo have nothing to worry about at the moment from Sony or MS, and its not about that... what they are worried about is not meeting or exceeding their previous sales. That is all. Unfortunately in business it seems that making a good profit is never enough and they always want/need? to beat previous years revenue/growth. You will see the same pressures in Retail/Grocery sales.

    As for Nintendo, yes we just raised the price and now we have dropped the price, not because of falling sales or competitor sales increasing...lol... but then i guess they couldnt actually say that.. Again another side effect of business. :)

  • Senate #9 2 years ago

    Mad world i grew bored off in minutes when it wanted me to button bash through the very first section, No more heroes was okay but the city roaming hurt my eyes, BrokenSword are you kidding? I dunno i just thought this generation would be better but its all talk. We see screenshots of up-coming titles that look great and the previews but then you get the game and its meh.

  • smelly #10 2 years ago

    "Msoft also have some big hitters, such as halo/forza and the cheapest console on the market. Nintendo meanwhile seems content not to release any well decent titles and keeping up hope that the wiis hype will see them through."



    Hahahahahaha!!! YES You're TOTALLY right.. nintendo dont release ANY decent titles.. and microsoft publish such amazingly original and varied games as halo and forza...

  • Sharks #11 2 years ago

    And Smelly sure does reiterate himself to the point of nausea.

  • robson_wii #12 2 years ago

    But he (smelley) is right some of the time...not quite so sure about attitude though...

    As for the article...Our ROEs have been rubbish since the current Gvt. got the BOE to print money, devaluing everything, and making prices worse for us outside our own country. It now costs much more to import so that's why we don't see a change for the Wii. Wii, PS3 and 360 prices have become more expensive to import so margins at the shops are really being squeezed if they keep the prices the same unless the price per unit is cheaper for Wii but markup is higher.

    I am amazed at the price of the new PS3 Slim and almost tempted to get one soon.

  • electrolite #13 2 years ago

    "I think nintendo are getting nervous that their empire(built on foundations of sand imo) is about to crumble"

    if ever there was a comment on videogaming that reflected the very narrow worldview of a 360 gamer and ignored reality and the magical dance of sales, profit and loss this is it.

  • electrolite #14 2 years ago

    "I am amazed at the price of the new PS3 Slim and almost tempted to get one soon. "

    Same here. Got to pay for an engagement ring this month but November....think I'll be GTI Clubbing....