Some Thoughts on the Wii

Some Thoughts on the Wii

September 15th, 2006, 17:19 Posted By: wraggster

Article via Kotaku

I was really surprised by both Nintendo's choice of price and date. Initially, I thought that the company would try to launch a good month before Sony broke the Champaign bottle on the SS PS3, getting a mighty lead on their competition. And I figured they'd try to put just as much distance between the price of the two consoles as well.

But why should they?

They don't have to give the Wii away to win, they just need to be cheaper and offer up a good value. The console comes with a game, which I suspect would have sold for $40 not $50 if it hit the market separately, so that already knocks the price of the console down to $210. And Nintendo price was most likely determined by Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. They just needed to release their console at a substantial discount and when they saw the price of their competition they realized they could actually sell the console at a profit, and still deliver a value compared to what has become today's standard for console pricing.

The date, well, the date just makes sense when you think about it.

All of this talk about Nintendo being a third console has sort of lulled me, and I suspect others, into thinking that Nintendo is the also ran, the other guy, a company knowingly making a console that no one is going to buy as their primary gaming rig.

Guess what? Nintendo doesn't think that way. Just because their mascots are cartoons doesn't mean that the company isn't out for blood. And this proves it.

Nintendo isn't just OK with people comparing the PS3 with the Wii, they want people to. They set the launch right on top of Sony's because they think they will win that comparison. And they don't just want to slip a knife in Sony's belly, they want to twist it a bit.

Check out what Reggie Fils-Aime was saying after the press conference: Consumers "can go take out a second mortgage and buy our competition's console, or they can buy ours."

I still think that Nintendo is taking a big risk injecting this disruptive technology into the gaming market, but I've gone from thinking that they will either sink or swim to thinking that they will do moderately well to tremendously well.

Do you agree or disagree with what the article says ?

For more information and downloads, click here!