My Email to Nintendo

[Flojomojo]

I think the Wii is priced as high as it is because it can be. Nintendo hasn't been shy about saying the thing will be profitable ... they're benefitting from the other two being really expensive. If the market were more cutthroat, they've have to compete on price. Maybe next year. That's when we'll see all the new games anyway.

[BydoEmpire]

I thought your letter was well written. But I think $250 is a fair price (of course i would have liked 2 wiimotes packed in). Things are always priced based on what the market will bear, not manufacturing cost. Hence, $15 CDs and $20 DVDs. Hence, MS and Sony taking a loss on their consoles. I can see not wanting to spend $250 on the Wii right away, but I'm sure the price will come down soon enough. Peronally I think it's worth it, and I'll still be getting one at launch. Some people will spend $600 for a ps3 at launch. I sure wouldn't, but hey, to each their own.

 

It does suck that Super Paper Mario and now DK Bongo Blast have moved to the Wii. I find DK odd, since the whole point is that it uses the Bongos.

[CPUWIZ]

I find DK odd, since the whole point is that it uses the Bongos.

 

Why, you can use them?

[ubersaurus]

I thought your letter was well written. But I think $250 is a fair price (of course i would have liked 2 wiimotes packed in). Things are always priced based on what the market will bear, not manufacturing cost. Hence, $15 CDs and $20 DVDs. Hence, MS and Sony taking a loss on their consoles. I can see not wanting to spend $250 on the Wii right away, but I'm sure the price will come down soon enough. Peronally I think it's worth it, and I'll still be getting one at launch. Some people will spend $600 for a ps3 at launch. I sure wouldn't, but hey, to each their own.

 

It does suck that Super Paper Mario and now DK Bongo Blast have moved to the Wii. I find DK odd, since the whole point is that it uses the Bongos.

 

 

Bongos plug into the Wii though I couldn't tell you how they'd be retooling it to take advantage of the Wii's specific controllers.

 

Personally, I find little to gripe about the pricing of the wii, or it's controllers. It's priced at the point Nintendo said it would (it was all those gaming news sites speculating continually lower prices over the past few months), the controllers with nunchuk cost a little more than the 360's controllers (and do far more), and the online service is still free. Considering how most of my buddies are picking up a wii at launch, I'm not particularly worried about being shorthanded on controllers due to price, and the machine is still cheap enough that I could pick it up with a 2nd game within a single paycheck.

[Atarifever]

You guys know what else the Bongos plug into? The Gamecube. Just throwing it out there to make sure that I reach my bitching about the poor state of the Cube limit for today. My current limit is apparently somewhere in excess of 20 posts.

 

I don't understand putting either of those games on the Wii. One more Gamecube Konga game brings the North American support of that perpehrial up to 4 games this generation. That cetainly adds to the whole consumer confidence thing. As well, with the Wii having a lot of, excuse the word I don't mean it in a harmful way, gimmicky games anyway, apparently including drumming (at some point) and an orchastra one, why does it need yet another type of game using another perephrial to further confuse potential buyers of what is supposed to be a simple to use system? I can just see little Jimmy's mom at the cash.

 

"Oh, so it's a music game like the conductor one. He liked the conducter one, so I'll get him this".

"Sorry Mame, that requires this set of drums"

"Oh no, he has a drum game, it uses that remote control"

"Yes, but that's a different type of drum, this one requires this drum"

"Oh, what's with the cord"

"Oh that, that's because this is actually a Gamecube set of drums, so they plug in"

"But his other things don't plug in; his other drum game doesn't have any plugs"

"yeah, this one does."

"Okay, I'm confused, why does this music game..."

"Oh, it isn't a music game, it's a racing game. The drums are the steering wheel"

"..." *dies*

 

Super Paper Mario seems really unecessary. There's already a new Mario game for the Wii, along with a Zelda game, and a Metroid game shortly thereafter. Why already have 2 Mario platform games right away? It isn't like Galaxy isn't going to sell enough copies.

Edited September 16, 2006 by Atarifever

[ubersaurus]

You guys know what else the Bongos plug into? The Gamecube. Just throwing it out there to make sure that I reach my bitching about the poor state of the Cube limit for today. My current limit is apparently somewhere in excess of 20 posts.

 

I don't understand putting either of those games on the Wii. One more Gamecube Konga game brings the North American support of that perpehrial up to 4 games this generation. That cetainly adds to the whole consumer confidence thing. As well, with the Wii having a lot of, excuse the word I don't mean it in a harmful way, gimmicky games anyway, apparently including drumming (at some point) and an orchastra one, why does it need yet another type of game using another perephrial to further confuse potential buyers of what is supposed to be a simple to use system? I can just see little Jimmy's mom at the cash.

 

"Oh, so it's a music game like the conductor one. He liked the conducter one, so I'll get him this".

"Sorry Mame, that requires this set of drums"

"Oh no, he has a drum game, it uses that remote control"

"Yes, but that's a different type of drum, this one requires this drum"

"Oh, what's with the cord"

"Oh that, that's because this is actually a Gamecube set of drums, so they plug in"

"But his other things don't plug in; his other drum game doesn't have any plugs"

"yeah, this one does."

"Okay, I'm confused, why does this music game..."

"Oh, it isn't a music game, it's a racing game. The drums are the steering wheel"

"..." *dies*

 

Super Paper Mario seems really unecessary. There's already a new Mario game for the Wii, along with a Zelda game, and a Metroid game shortly thereafter. Why already have 2 Mario platform games right away? It isn't like Galaxy isn't going to sell enough copies.

 

Presumeably, it has to do with that "dead zone" most consoles have for software after their launch, but before most of the big guns come out. Nintendo probably figures they could easily move existing code from the cube to the wii, make gameplay changes to better suit the latter machine, and BAM, you have a pretty good game to fill that time frame.

 

Makes it look like a steady stream of quality Wii games are coming out, as opposed to jack. The Cube is pretty much dead except for Zelda, and has been for what, a year now? At least on the Wii they'll get some attention on themselves.

[Atarifever]

 

 

Presumeably, it has to do with that "dead zone" most consoles have for software after their launch, but before most of the big guns come out. Nintendo probably figures they could easily move existing code from the cube to the wii, make gameplay changes to better suit the latter machine, and BAM, you have a pretty good game to fill that time frame.

 

Makes it look like a steady stream of quality Wii games are coming out, as opposed to jack. The Cube is pretty much dead except for Zelda, and has been for what, a year now? At least on the Wii they'll get some attention on themselves.

Alternatively it could cause some customers who own a GCN to lose confidence in Nintendo and, being that the Wii is launching with a pack-in Nintendo game, all those Nintendo VC games, all those Nintendo made Wii games, and now a further 2 Nintendo games, it could cut into third party sales and cost them some support. I mean, geez Nintendo, leave some for the rest of em.

Edited September 16, 2006 by Atarifever

[BydoEmpire]

I find DK odd, since the whole point is that it uses the Bongos.

 

Why, you can use them?

My point was that if it were a game that they could tweak to take advantage of the Wii then it would make sense (i.e. Zelda, MP3.. mabye they'll even do something with Super Paper Mario). I'm not sure what they can add (other than up the graphics/sound and maybe online support) that would make the Wii version any different than the cube version. But I guess we'll see. Perhaps one player can use the wii remotes to play a kit while other players are hitting the bongos?

 

Regarding the bongos... Four games that use the Bongos is pretty good, imho. How many Super Scope games were there? How many Xbox light gun games were there? Do you think they'll do four Guitar Hero games? For a $50 peripheral that came packed with a game, it's gotten more support than I expected.

[n8littlefield]

They just had an interview with Perrin Kaplin (Spelling?), from Nintendo, at the NY event - I think by one of the Joystiq writers, where she verified that with the hardware, they break even. So basically, they will turn a profit immediately based on software, not hardware. She mentions repeatedly when the guy tries to push that the hardware and the controllers are too expensive that they are extremely expensive to manufacture and they aren't making money on hardware.

 

So, unless you think you're letter will change their entire business model and make them willing to take a loss on system sales, it will likely fall on deaf ears.

[jbanes]

You mean this interview?

 

http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/?v=news&p=5062

 

No offense to Ms. Kaplan, but she's:

 

1. The person who claimed that the Wii would be region-free

2. She's in sales and marketing

3. She isn't very convincing

 

It's pretty clear at this point that the Wii is not as "cutting edge" as she is making out to be. Nintendo has not announced any hardware that would drive up the price of the box itself, and it's becoming clearer and clearer that it's the same hardware as the Cube, but clocked higher. So the only place where the price would be driven up would be the controllers. From what we know however, the controllers are also built in a cost effective fashion. While Nintendo may be gouging charging consumers $60 for the Wiimote to begin with, that doesn't mean the cost to manufacture is that high.

 

So how would you come up with a really high cost on paper? Simple: You add the price of research and development into the cost of the console. Now this is a normal (and required!) practice in order to make a profit. However, this is an odd figure. You can spread the cost across as few or as many units as you want. Nintendo appears to be trying to spread the cost across fewer consoles rather than more. That allows them to recover their costs faster, which can make the shareholders even more happy. The problem is, I feel it will hurt Nintendo, at least in the short term.

 

Even if we assume you're correct, we come back to the same issue. As a consumer, $310 as a base price is too much. I have not bought an HDTV because the value of it to me is not commiserate with the price, and I may not purchase a Wii for the same reason. As a result, my letter tells Nintendo that they need to find a way to bring that price down so that they can appeal to the casual gaming market I'm in. (Not trying to be selfish here; Nintendo has stated that casual gamers are their market.) Until they do, they'll have a difficult time reaching us.

 

That being said, there's exactly one reason why I'm still considering a Wii at launch. That is that I've really wanted to make it a Christmas present for the kids. (I think I've mentioned before how much the Wii aligns with what they want.) Will it happen, though? It's hard to say. It will probably depend on how well I do on saving extra money between now and Christmas. Otherwise my wife will probably veto it.

[Flojomojo]

it's becoming clearer and clearer that it's the same hardware as the Cube, but clocked higher.

I think you're assuming a bit too much here. It's not like they're just overclocking the five-year-old GameCube CPU, these are new versions of the old Broadway chip from IBM. New silicon always costs more in the first generation.

 

I don't mean to suggest that desktop computer CPU prices have much to do with console prices, but check out http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/ for some interesting trends. The pricing curve for new hardware is pretty steep (expensive at first, then falls off a lot in about a year -- Moore's Law), while the mid-range stuff declines only slowly in price, because it was cheaper to start with.

 

I suspect the Wii will drop in price gradually as well, not in $100 increments like we'll probably see with PS2 and XBOX360.

 

Here's a comforting thought: $250 is the absolute maximum price the Wii console will ever cost. It will only get cheaper from here!

[jbanes]

I don't mean to suggest that desktop computer CPU prices have much to do with console prices, but check out http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/ for some interesting trends. The pricing curve for new hardware is pretty steep (expensive at first, then falls off a lot in about a year -- Moore's Law), while the mid-range stuff declines only slowly in price, because it was cheaper to start with.

Again, I would point you back to the Nikkon Citigroup report that found the Broadway chips were being produced for less than expected. Also, new generations of chips are always higher priced than reworked chips of the same generation. e.g. The Pentium IV showed a marked increase in price over a late-model Pentium III. The Broadway appears to be an update to the Gekko processor rather than a generational redesign.

 

Here's a comforting thought: $250 is the absolute maximum price the Wii console will ever cost. It will only get cheaper from here!

True enough.

[Flojomojo]

Here's a comforting thought: $250 is the absolute maximum price the Wii console will ever cost. It will only get cheaper from here!

True enough.

Yay! We be happy gamers!

 

The other nice thing about time passing is that the cumulative number of good games is always growing. I'm trying very hard to sit back and enjoy what I have ... if I could control my miniscule attention span, I'd realize that a game like Oblivion (or Morrowind ... or probably Final Fantasy ##) would be plenty of entertainment for a very long time.

[jbanes]

Got a response!

 

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

 

I'm sorry to hear that you weren't pleased with the price of Wii. As we have stated for some time now, the system would be priced competitively and for the mass market at no more than $250 US. In addition, please note that for the price, you also get a game included (Wii Sports, featuring tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, and boxing), as well as the Nunchuk controller to go with the innovative Wii Remote.

 

Having said all that, I appreciate your taking the time to share your comments. Rest assured that they will be forwarded to the appropriate department for further review.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nintendo of America Inc.

 

I don't expect anything to come of it, but it's nice of them to take the time to reply.

[Flojomojo]

And a fairly reasonable one at that. When you consider the extra stuff packed in, for about half the competition's price, it's OK ...

[keilbaca]

Got a response!

 

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

 

I'm sorry to hear that you weren't pleased with the price of Wii. As we have stated for some time now, the system would be priced competitively and for the mass market at no more than $250 US. In addition, please note that for the price, you also get a game included (Wii Sports, featuring tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, and boxing), as well as the Nunchuk controller to go with the innovative Wii Remote.

 

Having said all that, I appreciate your taking the time to share your comments. Rest assured that they will be forwarded to the appropriate department for further review.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nintendo of America Inc.

 

I don't expect anything to come of it, but it's nice of them to take the time to reply.

 

Hehe, that's Nintendo for you. Sure it might be a little overpriced, but its worth it considering the one hell of a customer service they have.

[Atari Master]

Not to mention Nintendo products are damned near indestructable...