Reggie hints at Wii price drop, but does not denounce Wii 2
In an interview with Gamasutra, Reggie Fils-Aime made a comment that suggests the Wii is open to further price cuts in the future.
The Wii has a long life in front of it. We’re still sitting at $199. There are a variety of marketing tools at our disposal.
If you’re wondering how this implies a future price drop, look carefully at the words, “We’re still sitting at $199.” The Wii – supposedly an outdated console, according to EA – is still holding up well commercially even with an HD Xbox 360 running around at the same price. What Reggie is really saying here is that when sales really dip down to a critical point, Nintendo won’t mind slashing a few more dollars off the Wii’s price to boost ’em right back up again.
I’d like to use this chance here to compare the Wii to the PlayStation 2. The latter continued to sell even after its successor, the PlayStation 3, came along, at a low price below $100. Considering that Reggie only stated that the Wii has a long life ahead of it, but didn’t say anything about there not being a successor in the cards, I think it’s possible that he may have only wanted to say that Nintendo is planning to milk every last sale out of it, even long after the Wii 2 might become available.
via My Nintendo News
On an unrelated note, I’m leaving for a trip to Europe tomorrow, and will be unable to update the blog until after I’m back on March 27th (incidentally, that’s the day the Nintendo 3DS comes out). If, by some chance, anything big gets announced while I’m away, popping into the forums (which crossed the 1500-post milestone today) is probably your best way of finding out more about it.
We can deliver all the latest Wii U news straight to your inbox every morning. Want in?
But to be fair, a lot of PS2’s continuing sales were linked to the E3 2006 Sony Conference. The PS3, at that time, was a $599.99 successor to the much more affordable PS2 that appeared to offer no real upgrades (we know better now), and the PS2 library was not only huge but still growing. Instead of only damaging themselves for the year, one of the most famous sets of memes the internet has ever seen ensured they were crippled in the marketplace for the next few years. It also didn’t help that Xbox Live had such a strong foothold in gaming when they attempted to introduce PSN.
When the system got back on its feet in 2009, the PS2 sales started to wane.
I’d actually compare this more to the SNES, since it could play some of the best games ever made and the N64 (w/o a 3rd-party adapter) couldn’t play those. Also, despite the existence of the transfer pak, the N64 never had an equivalent to the Super Game Boy. This was especially important when Pokemon took America by storm in 1998 and revitalized the Game Boy brand with truly original content, a contrast to its earlier image as the machine for “gimped NES/SNES ports.” Funny enough, they stoped SNES production in the US the very next year.
Point being, a system with great games that can differentiate itself enough from the next system will continue to sell. If there wasn’t backwards compatibility in the Wii, the GCN would be in high demand for at least Super Smash Bros. Melee.