While the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have gradually had their prices whittled down, and their product SKUs have shuffled no fewer than eight times each, Nintendo's Wii has remained the exact same price with the exact same specs the whole time.
From November 2006 to this very day, Nintendo's never changed the Wii's $249 pricetag.
But today at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo announced that the Wii will be getting its first price cut on Sunday, September 27. The 20% price reduction will bring the Wii down alongside the Xbox 360 Arcade at $199, making them the cheapest home video game consoles on the market.
Though this first cut takes place less than a month after both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 dropped to $299, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime told USA Today that market conditions and competition had little bearing on Nintendo's decision to reduce the price.
"Since the launch of Wii, our goal has been to expand the gaming population and get more consumers into this industry that we love. While we have sold more Wiis than any home console after 34 months -- and over 100 million DS -- we think there is still significant opportunity to get more consumers into gaming. Just here in the U.S. we think that opportunity is minimally 50 million consumers in U.S., by continuing to offer more and more value," Fils-Aime said.
That is quite an incredible statement, when considering that the Wii has sold over 53 million units worldwide, and of that, just about half of them were sold in the Americas, according to market research company NPD Group. If the price cut takes place worldwide, this would mean Nintendo is expecting to more than double its current worldwide total.
Of course, Fils-Aime didn't say how long he thought it would take Nintendo to sell that many Wiis, but by comparison, Sony took 5 years and 9 months to sell 100 million Playstation 2s, making it the fastest selling console of all time.
For Nintendo to beat this record, it has until August 19, 2012 to sell 47 million Wiis.
Think it can do it?
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
