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You say its a much better console but the 70+ million in sales says otherwise. The demand for both the 360 and PS3 has gone down hence the pice drop. If the demend for the Wii has been steady there would be no reason to drop its price.

Obviously you haven't been paying much attention to the hardware sales numbers. The market is saturated with wiis, so wii sales have been steadily going down, while the 360 has been steadily going up. The PS3 has been improving as well, but fluxuates alot more. A wii pricecut could stop the wii decline and keep it going strong throughout the remainder of the generation.

Umm, no. If the market is saturated, it's saturated, people aren't going to start buying multiple Wiis just because the price came down $20. If the Wii market is saturated, sales are going to fall. Period.

Wii hardware sales may have dropped but they are still outselling the copmpetition last I looked so I fail to see how this is a bad move at all. It's not like they haven't got the option of dropping it in the future.

Hell if they want to boost sales all they have to do is get around to releasing the Wii in different colours like they have in Japan (black) and they will likely get a good boost from something as simple as that regardless of the price.

Why is it stupid? They know business more than you do. They know the market more than you do. You can't possibly think it's stupid considering they're destroying the competition. When they see sales plummet as Xbox and PS3 has, they will consider it ... but Wii sales are crazy high ... if they keep going the way they have done, they'll end up with the biggest selling console of all time. That's far from stupid.

I'm actually thinking they are holding off for the holiday to drop prices.

Then again, it feels nice to know everyone has paid what I paid for a wii, and will now and in the near future.

They are now competing with consoles in the same price range. Do you seriously think people are going to buy a last gen console specs wise, or a more powerful console with a lot more value per money spent (blu-ray anyone?). Not to mention buying Wii accessories add's $100 to the price (Wii remote, Nunchuck and Motion Plus). I'd rather buy a $300 console with everything included than a $400 console including accessories.

Yes, I would expect people still to buy the Wii. Most people couldn't give a care in the world to the specifications...they are meaningless. People buying the Wii are doing so because they want to play those games, not because of the price or the hardware. The XBox has been cheaper than the Wii for a long time now and that hasn't stopped the Wii's sales what so ever.

I doubt Nintendo are holding off from a price drop. If anything I'd expect them to keep it the same and introduce some colored variants of the Wii like they did in Japan recently. Something as small as that is often enough to spark sales and they can keep the price the same for several months after that.

I disagree, Sony takes the "arrogant crown" by miles. The "we'll charge whatever we want for the PS3 and because it has the PS logo on it people will buy it by the truck load" comes to mind...not to mention Sony entered this generation expecting to dominate it...that panned out well for them

Exactly! Although Nintendo has made some seriously stupid moves in the past (sticking with cartridges for the N64 comes to mind), they dont a candle to Sony when it comes to arrogance.

Considering the competitors been fighting for a distant second place for a couple years by lowering their prices and it is still a whole year before they release their own motion controller, I guess it's pretty obvious who is making the smart moves.

That fanboys don't wanna see it it's a whole different subject. Tons of people already hate Nintendo since it defeated Sega during the 90s, even Sega now is business partners with Nintendo yet the gamers still hate its guts.

"as if they're still on top of the world like they were back a couple of decades or so ago"

Umm, but they are? I don't know if you have noticed - but Nintendo has been destroying the competition like they did a couple of decades ago. DS and Wii dominates the Handheld and Console market.

Which is all fine and dandy. Except for the fact that this isn't the late 80's or the 90's when really, they had nothing to worry about.

Their arrogance will only take them so far. Sure the Wii is fine now, but what happens when Nintendo fails miserably for the next 10 years because they decide that something as simple as a "network card in a console" is just a fad and they fall behind again? Why? Because of their arrogance.

I'm pretty sure it's simple to see what happened the last time they thought they were on top of the world....

They need to stop acting like it's impossible to knock them off their high horse. It will only take one of the 2 other giants to to backhand them back into the 80's. Microsoft's Natal is on the horizon (Whether it's released in it's current mythical form or not). They should stop acting so smug.

You've said that twice... I don't see them being arrogant at all. And as for the "don't need a network card" I seem to recall that the PS2's networking was optional as well as well as the hard drive, and most people didn't buy either. I've bought 3 Wii games and 2 WiiWare games this month already. I think their sales are fine.

it is true they have nothing else, but they also have billions in cash reserves. Everybody knows that Nintendo makes MOST of their money from the sales of their software. They make a profit on the hardware too, but I would say that reducing the cost of the hardware, even at a slight loss to increase marketshare to increase software sales in the end would mean more overall profit than before.

I can't blame Nintendo for making a crazy amount of profit, but I don't like them as a company, because they are greedy and cheap plain and simple. It's like I always said I can respect Sony for putting blu-ray into the ps3 and be willing to take a chance on something new while also adding value to the customer. Nintendo doesn't take a chance on anything anymore. yes I know the motion sensing was a big chance and I admit that, but that's the only thing they've done. There's ZERO innovative software from Nintendo now, all they are doing is putting out mario party XXX, wii noun # games.

so I feel Nintendo has sold their sold to the devil right now. they are making a crapload of money and are on top of the world, but there's a reason it's called the casual gamer and if you bite the hand that constantly feeds you, you're going to get burned eventually.

I miss the Nintendo of the NES days that brought us the power glove, the turbo pad, the track pad. The Nintendo of the SNES days that brought us the mouse pad and mario paint, the superscope gun, and was going to bring us the CD drive but that was the point where they just went down hill in innovation IMO and they haven't looked back.

Last edited by macrosslover on 07 Sep 2009 - 04:32

First off The power glove, Turbo pad, and track pad were all non nintendo accessories (meaning nintendo themselves didnt put it out).

Also you proved my point with the Ps3 reference., Their other divisisions helped keep Sony going since they Just started as a couple of months ago started to make a profit on the PS3. Microsoft did the same thing by using profits from windows to keep the gaming division a float.

Nintendo cant take huge risks and nintendo themselves stated they need all that money for a rainy day. Plus a lot of it is not readily available money anyway.

but putting internet in the gamecube back then isn't a huge risk or adding something as simple as dvd playback to the Wii when you first announced it and then back tracked. That's not taking a huge risk that's just being cheap.

and I'm sure those were Nintendo accessories because the track pad came bundled with the system and it has never been Nintendo's pattern to bundle non-Nintendo accessories with any of their systems.

I understand they can't try and come out with a holographic virtual reality system, but there's a difference between taking some risks and zero risk and they are taking zero risks.

Last edited by macrosslover on 07 Sep 2009 - 05:00

You mean the virtual boy?

You just contradicted yourself on a MASSIVE scale. BluRay was no where near as bold a statement as the motion sensing. No one in the history of Videogames has taken a chance as big as the Wii's motion sensing input. You are crazy for suggesting otherwise. I'm not a Ninty fanboy (used to be), and I own a PS3, and LOVE it ... but come on... the Wii is FAR more inventive than the PS3. What you have to realise is that while you're saying Wii hasn't got any innovative great titles .... neither has PS3 or Xbox ... they're rehashing the same old crap from the last gen too ... maybe with new names on the games, but a racing game is a racing game, and a beatemup is a beatemup ... fancy graphics and new weapons or not.

come off it. How can you say you're not a fanboy but then say the Wii is the greatest chance in the history of video games, that's a huge claim. blu-ray wasn't established at all when Sony put it into the ps3 and it could have easily lost the format war. Sony was risking ALOT by putting blu-ray in the ps3. If for some reason Wii's motion sensing failed, Nintendo wasn't going to go under. Not saying Sony would have went under too, but don't act like Nintendo was risking everything with the Wii because the DS and the portable scene wasn't going to go anywhere. and as the virtual boy shows (and to the previous poster no i wasn't talking about that) Nintendo can survive a hardware failure.

There are a lot of AAA quaility titles on both the xbox and ps3, Flower, GoW, Viva Pinata. I sold my Wii because all they had software wise are cheap flash games repackaged as full games. Canival games, and other mindless crap, the Wii had a very interesting hardware concept but the software side failed miserably. The only reason i would pick up a Wii now is if the price was incredibly cheap so i could play my old SNES games through the virtual marketplace.

The PS3 motion controller was in works since PS2 times, way back when Nintendo Wii came so stop talking bull****. PS3 didn't copy anything from Wii.

Also the motion area of gaming is not patented to Nintendo. That's like saying Nintendo copied Sony for going 3D. Every console would need to go with motion someday, it's the new way of gaming.

Everyone copies everyone.

Ive been thinking about selling my Wii as well. I own all 3 systems, and other than the motion sensing gimmick, the Wii really has nothing. As you said, flash games made into full games. I get much more out of most games i buy for the 360 and PS3, the graphics are better, and more real, and i can do many other things than play games on my other consoles, whether it be watching dvds, blu rays, streaming netflix, or streaming media from one of my PCs. The wii just has such a limited usage that its barely been turned on over the last year.

People aren't idiots for buying what is a better fit for them based on their perspectives. The joy of a free market economy is that people are free to choose whatever product they want based on whatever values they see in that product.

Just because they aren't buying your favorite console doesn't make them any more or less educated than you...

well they are kind of missing out from a good console such as 360/ps3

Woah !!! way to lump everybody into one big category. I hope you dont do that all the time.

I so happen to have a wii and a ps3. In my opinion the ps3 or 360 cant offerwhat the wii has in terms of what the wii mote does and how nintendo programs their games.

PS Some of us happen to not like playing first person shooters all the time.

In your information, I rarely post!
You got to be joking with that wii mote crap. It just looks dumb. Dont you dare call yourself a gamer holding a wii mote... seriously.

Agreed. Some people seem to be missing the picture. Sure it'd be nice to have a price drop but it's called supply and demand. If there's enough demand then why lower the price? It makes no business sense at all.

There's a reason why everyone here saying it's a stupid idea is not a CEO/high position of a huge corporation.

Err... So a gamer is someone other than a person who... well... plays GAMES? I don't remember the definition of a gamer being limited to people playing on certain consoles, genres or using certain gaming accessories.

The number of posts you make or don't make don't make you any more or less of a quality poster. So no reason to cite your rare posting habits. Judging from the quality of what you've posted thus far in this comment sub-thread it doesn't seem like we're missing anything of decent quality.

Well, that last part was certainly pointless to say.

I think you're the one who shouldn't call yourself a gamer if you don't appreciate alternative gaming controllers, especially motion controllers such as the Wii Remote. Steering wheels, guitars, touch screens, arcade sticks and DDR pads are all alternative controllers, and each have their place in the world of gaming.

A true gamer appreciates all forms of gaming. Someone with such a narrow point of view of "gaming" should not be considering themselves serious gamers.

Your entitled to your own opinion about being a gamer.

So I take it you're still playing with a Joystick, and hating on all those gamers playing Indy 500 with the rad new paddle controller, right?

The only thing your opinion is incorrect


My opinion: The sky is purple.
That opinion is wrong as the blue (during the the daytime because of the reflection)

Whyever not? Their IQ still too high for you to consider them gamers? Assuming you're representative of what you call a 'gamer', that is.

No, Microsoft doesn't have issues moving their consoles, they dropped it ot compete with Sony and to introduce the new 320 GB HD Elite while dropping the Pro.

Sony, until recently, was LOSING money on each PS3 they made.

If you say so.....

*cough* cant even play DVDs..

I don't see the use of playing DVDs on a console, but I'm probably one of the rare people who has a Media Center PC as their media house. As a result, it is easier to pop the DVD into my media center PC (which the console his connected to) then throwing another device into the mix.

Basically, keep the devices geared toward what they are made to do. If I want to play DVDs, BluRays, or craptastic VHS I'll hook up the device to do just that

So buying and PS3 and a Samsung Blu-ray player makes sense to you as well?

Well he does make a point...

Btw, didn't sony say that the DS was nothing but a gimmick, with the one screen only being for displaying maps and such?

Not everyone is like you though, rather than have seperate boxes for everything it would be nicer to have one less box if the Wii can play DVDs.

It seems you never played on a PS3 or Xbox 360. Gaming wise there are way better. Nintendo is destroying the kind of gaming we used to have. Look at Wii Fit and other crap like that. Great games used to have exciting plots and great graphics.

Wii Games target to another kind of audience, those that don't care about gaming as much as us (old people or little kids).

They're NOT doing what gaming is really about.

They aren't destroying anything. They have only reached a new crop of gamers who like a different type of game. You are free to still play whateever type of games you have always enjoyed.

My wife is purchasing the Wii in a few days and was asking me if I wanted to chime in for her to get a Xbox 360 instead. I told her no as everyone I know who plays games on the 360 the "good" games are these 40+ hour monsters. I'd have to be a college dropout, unemployed, or single to invest that kind of time into a single game. So I'd prefer a game I could play for 20 minutes a weekend and be done.

Not on Wii. PS3 and XBox 360 have a large variety of games, including for kids and oldies but the focus remains in quality games that make history, not something to kill time with.

My god. Your blatant arrogance and stereotypical nature is just disgusting.

For one, if a game takes 40+ hours to beat, then it's on your own damn time that you beat it. That doesn't make it a "bad" game. It just means it has a long play life, and it's up to the end-user (you) to budget your time to play it. Nothing is stopping you from beating Mass Effect one mission/side quest at a time. If anything, I'd be happy to play it that way, it would feel like reading a long novel, being excited to find out what happens next.

College dropout, unemployed, single??? Seriously? So then i could turn around and say that to own a Wii, I'd have to be a 30-something man with a boring life who's married and has just enough time to play a series of mini-games on a motion-sensing gimmicky console? Ok. That makes sense.

AS for Nintendo, as far as the serious gamer is concerned, they are no longer an icon of gaming. They have been fully taken over by marketing, licensing, and gimmicks, and since there is ALWAYS an audience for that kind of blissful ignorance, they have found a new niche.

On a classic gaming level, Nintendo has left that world, receiving only ports of the better games out there, 1st party games which all are the same in essence, and licensed Disney crap.

So basically, I'd prefer a game that has depth, and relies on other factors rather than how I move a little stick around in the air, and that doesn't require me to buy addons for the controller to make it what it should have been when it first came out.

Lol @ the hype and technology gatridgdy. Fable 2 is not that much more different from Zelda, I don't see "hype" and "gadgetry" in that one.

No, gaming was about the shovelware produced for the PS2, and marketing to the smaller demographic. Oh wait...

well the I would assume that 10 year olds play a console that only has games for 10 year olds.

Unfortunately, you're correct about that.

even IF natal is all that. it will still be the gimic accessory to the ps3. and certainly not the standard control. The wii mote on the other hand is the standard control no matter how gimicky it seems.

360, not PS3.

I wouldn't be worried if I was Nintendo. To be honest I feel Natal and the PS3's controllers will both have a hard time to really take off because they are arriving so late into the consoles life and neither are standard with the console, thus will require some good software to make consumers shell over the probably considerable amount of money they will need to aquire them.

As far as I see it it will be both SOny and MS that will be up against it to both convince people to buy this accessory after ones such as the cameras have been under utilised as well as convincing developers to jump on board with an accessory that is only going to be on a percentage of the units.

Not saying either will fail and they can't succeed, just that with the Wii mote being standard I think Nintendo is better placed here. Had these accessories launched with new consoles down the line then yes, I think they'd have an easier time. As it is both will have to prove their worth.

Since the Wii remote is "standard" and all games must use it, they will utilize it. However.... Since PS3/Xbox motion controls are designed after the fact.... Dev's won't embrace it.

Yeah their track record is so terrible.

Oh wait...

Companies with good track records can make stupid decisions that in the long run, kill off their business (IE: Nokia/Symbian)

You're a few years late with that joke...

Years?

That's generous.

Yeah, Nintendo is winning if you're willing to overlook the fact that their main gaming population consists of females and elderly people, all whom are coming out of their closet in terms of gaming.

So no, not a win at all.

Who's laughing all the way to the bank? Seems like that's a win to me.

Their actual target market is everyone EXCEPT people like you. Thankfully for them, there are a lot more people who aren't like you than who are.

Massive price tag?

$249 is massive?

Well the console itself costs 80 bucks to manufacture so it's pretty massive. Then there's all of the overpriced accessories you'll need to play with more people.

Like $55 for an extra controller? Oh wait, that's how much it's going to cost me to get another for my PS3, not my Wii.

Wasn't the $80 the cost of the parts? Labour would be more.