“Price cuts? Pffff. We don’t need any stinking price cuts. Mwuhahaha.”
Ok, well that’s not quite what he said, but it appears Nintendo certainly isn’t going to be giving in to pressures to chop prices of its über-hot selling Wii and DS hardware anytime soon. In an interview with Japanese gaming site Touch-DS, translated via Kotaku, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated he feels those consumers who initially support companies by buying new gaming hardware are being sent mixed messages when the prices are later dropped.
“This is my personal thinking, but when the model’s price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it’s better to wait, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake,” said Iwata.
Right. This tends to tick people off who shelled out big bucks for a new system only to find out they could have saved a large fraction of their hard-earned money by waiting just a wee bit longer. But what about the many gamers who can’t afford to drop hundreds on the latest gaming hardware the second it comes out? These folks wait many agonizing months in hopes of a reduction to bring prices to a more reasonable level.
Of course, there really hasn’t been much incentive for Nintendo to cut its prices. The Wii’s immense popularity, its inability to stay on retail shelves for very long, and a low pricing point continues to drive demand. It’s doubtful Nintendo is in any serious danger of losing tons of console sales for sticking to its guns.
Published: Nov 6, 2008 12:38 pm