When Nintendo unveiled the new Wii U system many thought highly of the changes and even felt Nintendo finally was headed in the same direction as hard core gamers. Whether that is the case or not remains to be seen. What is starting to draw a buzz around the new system is what will be the retail price when it makes its debut in 2012.
Questions have started to be asked about whether or not it will remain similar to that of the first edition or will it be more expensive. Satoru Iwata the Global President of Nintendo said he felt that the system may not be as inexpensive as previous systems have been with Nintendo.
The price of $250 has been tossed around and even Iwata made an inference to that price. He was the first to say when the system was unveiled at E3 that it will not be cheap. But the price of $250 is not unreasonable considering that when the HDD Xbox 360 debuted the price was $399 and the price of the 20GB PS3 was $499. And knowing that the original price of the Wii system was $250 to begin with, there should not be too much concern.
The problem is that Nintendo in their own way have created their own monster. They are well known for putting out platforms that are on the less expensive side compared to their competition. But having said that, if the Xbox's and the PS3's do not make any additional price cuts before the new Wii U is launched in 2012 then their direct competition prices wise will be the smaller Xbox version of 4GB at $199 and the PS3 160GB version at $299.
Nintendo's president also mentioned that he felt the unveiling could have been presented differently and may not have caused so much confusion and questions. He feels the unveiling emphasized too much about the controller and not the overall systems and its capabilities.
Even though there was demonstration videos that accompanied the unveiling there were not any actual games that played on the new platform. Just that may have caused issues as to what the price will be. Are you paying for a controller or an entirely new system.
What Nintendo must do is to start and promote the system as a whole with top of the line advertising pushed at the gamers like they did when the original Wii was debuted. If they accomplish that and get the players and consumers in general interested, then the overall price will not be that much of an issue.
The consumer, much more in these times of economic pressures, much be convinced they will be better off by purchasing the Wii U than if they did not. Convincing the young gamers may not be the issue as much as getting them to convince their parents that there is an important need to dish out $250. If Nintendo can do this through their advertising then they will be able to sell out of Wii U units as soon as or sooner than they did when the original Wii hit the stage.
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