Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter is prognosticating that the price of the Nintendo Wii will drop to $199 in time for the holidays, pointing out that the console’s supply has finally eclipsed its demand. Meanwhile, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently said that his company plans to introduce great games instead of lowering the price of the little white box.
No offense to Nintendo, but its announcement of games at E3 wasn’t anything earth shattering. The two new Mario games will do well, Metroid: Other M will likely be a hit, and MotionPlus does indeed make the experience more enjoyable. But the Wii will have cost $249 for three entire years by the time the holidays roll around.
While I’m not sure that Nintendo would drop the price by $50, we may see them adding more stuff to the base package. Perhaps an extra Wii-mote and Nunchuck or a couple greatest hits-type games here and there.
If a console price drop was indeed in order, I’d imagine it’d drop to perhaps $229 or even $219. We’ll have to keep an eye on what Sony and Microsoft do as well. If those two introduce relatively aggressive price cuts, then Nintendo might not have any choice.
[via Edge]