Nintendo announced today at it’s Management Policy Briefing in Japan that the Wii ship date announcement would come this September. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata also confirmed that the Wii and the DS would synchronize. Also released at the briefing:
- Virtual console games will be downloadable at somewhere between US$4 and $8.
- DS will act as a touch screen Wii controller and can download demos from the Wii.
- A new Wii title called Pokemon Revolution is coming this winter.
- The first six million Wii consoles shipped before April 1st, 2007 will be sold at a loss.
Full Report Here [Famistu]
Whoa …Nintendo console sold at a loss? It's quite possible the Wii will be less than $200 bucks then.Wow. And after only 6 months of release, they will have brought the cost of the console down to sell at even or a profit. How do they do that?!?And with the DS functioning as a touch screen controller, can you say a very merry ninty-christmas? By the time the Wii is released, more colors of the DS Lite should make their way to the states. For the price of a premium 360, you can get the DSWii … or for the premium PS3, a DSWii60!Oh the possibilities. Thanks for the news!
You know you're a Nintendo fan when:You feel bad about making Ninty sell at a loss, even though it means you will have to pay less for the Wii.*sniff*Make money soon, Ninty!
$4-$8 is way too expensive. I won't download random games at that cost, only the really good ones will sell. $2 top.
They should sell Wii-DS Lite packs, so n00bs can get both 😛
It doesn't say anywhere that Nintendo is going to make a profit on systems sold after the first 6 million produced. In fact, it doesn't say anything about those systems at all. My guess is that they will continue to sell at a loss for some time, especially if the have price cuts as Nintendo's famous for.I won't be buying any old school VC games. I will however, consider buying new content released for the VC. 10$CAD sounds great for some Geometry Wars action on the Wii.
Fuzz might be on to something.Wii ($250 or $200) + DS Lite ($130) = $380 or $330I'd be tempted to buy them in a set if they knock $30 off the total package. It might be tempting to a lot of other folks if they add a bit more cross-functionality (download NES titles to your DS or buy DS budget titles via VC).
4-8$ is to high, i think 2-4$ would be more appropriate.WiiDS connection sounds great.
Great. An announcement of when the announcement is going to happen!Talk about keeping us in suspense…
whoa, theres an invisibleman and misterinvisible. one of you has to change. or not.
Err… why is $4-8 dollars "way too much" ??? I realize 99 cents would be an awesome price, and that 1.99 would be an awesome price, but while these ARE classics, you must remember they're still video games! Mind you, a 3-4 minute video on iTunes cost 1.99… an entire NES, SuperNES, or N64 for no more than 8 bucks! Hah, you bet I'm there!Complain all you want – I'm buying myself some classics!
MacUser – InvisibleMan and I have coexisted for some time now and it's worked out quite fine. We admire each other's postings with a quiet dignity.
In regards to the "Mysterious Black Wii Close up":I'm not one to fall for the fakes, but personally, I think this one looks … pretty real! Obviously, this isn't the NEWEST version of the Wii we've seen, as it still bears the Revolution logo, BUT, the console and controllers themselves, with their realistic shine and gloss, are very convincing. I have no idea what that white strip / close-up area could be, although it looks the least realistic of the entire image. It's very two-dimensional, and in my opinion, if it WERE real, Nintendo would make such a feature more "neatly" if you will.Regardless, if it IS a mock-up, I must say it is an EXCELLENT mock-up, considering it is not just another "real" image that just-so-happens to show the console in the same EXACT position it is shown in the official Nintendo pictures – standing upright and at that particular angle.So, what am I getting at?I don't know, really. I personally am doubting that the base serves as a charger, only because… well, wouldn't that mean the base would have to plug into an outlet or something? So… what's the point? I guess it would be kind of cool – and it IS rather strange that an official Nintendo Power magazine "accidentally" mistyped such a BIG feature.Mind you, that part of the article was VERY upfront, clear and concise – it didn't seem like a simple typo or jumbling of words.There is something about that silver base/stand/dock – and while I'm doubting it's a charging station (I simply don't see the reasoning!) I don't understand – if it really serves no extra purpose – why Nintend would even CREATE the thing… "Oh look! It can stand up on this thing, if you want!" And what if I want to put my console sideways? If I put the base on it, it's going to look retarded!Hmm…Kudos to this tipster.I think there are several more suprises in store….
I would assume that a lot of money was pumped into research and development for the Wii. Nintendo probably took great strides to assure that the controller worked properly, and it has gone through so many different prototypes.Add the cost to develop Nintendo's gaming network, and this could very well explain Nintendo's deficit. Does the article mention a specific loss? It could be as low as $5 per unit.
I doubt the Wii will be cheaper at launch. I think the issue is that this time around the $200 price point does damage to Nintendo for upping the power of their hardware and the new technology, but to make such technology widely available at a meager price, the games will surely balance things out for profit. In the long run, the price of chips will inevitably go down either when Nintendo "breaks even" (usually when half of the target sales are met) with Wii sales before the end of the fiscal year or when Nintendo pays off their "debtors" in full (as in IBM, ATi, MoSys and Gyration) for contributing to the Wii's hardware development. True, manufacturing costs for parts are a LOT less than what we may pay for at CompUSA or NewEgg. Nintendo's Wii sales won't be THAT much of a loss compared to Sony's $300-400 shots in the foot ($900+ in parts – $600 at retail, $500 for the stripped down one). That still doesn't mean that Nintendo will be getting off so easy either. What we can expect is that in a sense Wii is not only nearly half the price of XBox360, but at least half as powerful too. That could explain the "losses" and ATi's "Tip of the Iceberg" announcement.