Wii U available for pre-order

[sumo73]

I guess the console will be somewhere between £250~£280. Extra add ons will bump up the price more.

 

Anyone know how much the games will cost?

[Cube]

Anyone know how much the games will cost?

 

Probably the usual £30-£40 with the odd few (Call of Duty) costing slightly more.

[Rummy]

I guess the console will be somewhere between £250~£280. Extra add ons will bump up the price more.

 

Anyone know how much the games will cost?

 

Still don't think it's going to warrant that price imo, why would you think so? The tech just surely can't cost that much with the advances in tech even in just the last five years, the advances/price amazes me, but also makes me realise....how good is this, really, to warrant a price over £200? The Wii was like what, £180 6 years ago? Could this really be so good for current to be worth £250?

[dazzybee]

£250 with nintendoland. I'm telling you this will be it.

[Zechs Merquise]

I think before we jump the gun on how the WiiU is going to cost, we have to bear several things in mind:

 

1) It is more powerful than current consoles, but probably not by enough to warrant a massive price tag.

 

2) The controller itself will probably significantly bump up the cost.

 

3) Nintendo are yet to have set the price, currently places taking pre-orders are guessing. The are more likely to guess high than low, as if they lower the price they're OK, if the price rises they may be held to the initial pre-order price or people will simply cancel their pre-orders with that company if they see a pre-release price rise.

 

4) Nintendo should know better than to over price this as they have seen from the 3DS launch how that can stunt initial sales. The 3DS got off to a rocky start but since their large price drop and the steady release of new titles it's now leading the worldwide sales charts every week.

[Rummy]

I think before we jump the gun on how the WiiU is going to cost, we have to bear several things in mind:

 

1) It is more powerful than current consoles, but probably not by enough to warrant a massive price tag.

 

2) The controller itself will probably significantly bump up the cost.

 

3) Nintendo are yet to have set the price, currently places taking pre-orders are guessing. The are more likely to guess high than low, as if they lower the price they're OK, if the price rises they may be held to the initial pre-order price or people will simply cancel their pre-orders with that company if they see a pre-release price rise.

 

4) Nintendo should know better than to over price this as they have seen from the 3DS launch how that can stunt initial sales. The 3DS got off to a rocky start but since their large price drop and the steady release of new titles it's now leading the worldwide sales charts every week.

 

All valid points that I'm considering, though I do wonder how much the 'new controller' will cost in actuality? If a Wiimote cost £30 and made profit 6 years ago, have we not really advanced enough now for this to not cost that much either?

 

I also wonder if, and this is quite skeptical of me, Nintendo might intentionally overprice the console with an early higher price, get the early adopters and make a tidy margin, then drop the price as with the 3DS. I don't doubt the idea of the price drop, and customers thinking they were getting more of a bargain , would have helped 3DS sales. Though as I said, incredibly skeptical, but would it hurt their business much?

[dazzybee]

The 3DS launch had a lot of negative press so I don't think they'd be up for that again. I think they'd like to replicate the Wii (though with a higher price as they wished they had then) and have a console at a price that doesn't change for years and years.

 

Anything under £250 with nintendoland and I'll be very very happy. I'm hoping to spend about £500 at launch. That'd allow me to get a controller pro and 4 games. Roughly.

[Burny]

All valid points that I'm considering, though I do wonder how much the 'new controller' will cost in actuality? If a Wiimote cost £30 and made profit 6 years ago, have we not really advanced enough now for this to not cost that much either?

 

No we haven't.

 

The Wiimote didn't have the necessary hardware to receive a constant video and audio stream and do any computations that might be associated with it. It didn't have a near field communication technology or a microphone. Nor did it have a 6'' LCD or a rechargeable battery to support all these things. The latter two alone will drive up the price of the gamepad significantly.

 

And I guess Nintendo isn't going to sell the tablet separately. If they did, I'd expect them to ask about 100€ for it.

[dazzybee]

Of course they'll sell it separately if it uses two. If there are no games that use it initially they may hold off, but they have to.

[Burny]

Of course they'll sell it separately if it uses two. If there are no games that use it initially they may hold off, but they have to.

 

Have they?

 

I see the concept of "get your friend to buy a Wii U and bring his tablet along" to be a lot more promising than "buy an extra 100€ controller, just so your friend can play along". Even more so with the "Gamepad Pro" and most games being build around these asymmetric controls.

[dazzybee]

Funny, I see the concept of not shrinking the market of 2 tablet gameplay in games and giving the audience a choice whether or not they want to buy another controller.

[Rummy]

No we haven't.

 

The Wiimote didn't have the necessary hardware to receive a constant video and audio stream and do any computations that might be associated with it. It didn't have a near field communication technology or a microphone. Nor did it have a 6'' LCD or a rechargeable battery to support all these things. The latter two alone will drive up the price of the gamepad significantly.

 

And I guess Nintendo isn't going to sell the tablet separately. If they did, I'd expect them to ask about 100€ for it.

 

You think all of that is going to add up to €100, seriously? That's like £80, and that is crazy.

[Burny]

That's like £80, and that is crazy.

 

Nope. If say, the component's aggregated costs are 40-50$(€) for Nintendo, you can count on the retail price to be about twice that much.

 

Don't forget that Nintendo, retailer and the government (19% of retail price in our case) all take their share and there are more costs than just those of the components. Manufacturing (even quasi slaves at Foxconn - or wherever they put together our toys - do cost something), packaging, shipping...

 

Edit: A Dual Shock 3 costs 60€ if I were to purchase it at one of our large electronic chains (Media Markt, Saturn) instead of ordering with an online shop, that pushes the prices down more aggressively.

 

Funny, I see the concept of not shrinking the market of 2 tablet gameplay in games and giving the audience a choice whether or not they want to buy another controller.

Great concept. It sure did materialize heavily at this E3. Reggie paid lip service and... Zombie U?

 

No seriously. I don't see much of a market for such an expensive controller (if my guess isn't too far off the mark). Plus, as I've already said last E3, as long as Nintendo won't sell the controller separately, there will be no disappointed customers having bought what they assumed was a Wii addon just to realize that they were supposed to purchase a new console with it.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Burny

[Magnus]

If they don't sell the tablet controller separately, how are you supposed to replace it if it breaks/gets lost/gets stolen?

 

I guess if it breaks, you could send it to Nintendo to be repaired, but they wouldn't stand to make any money from impatient people then.

 

And I think Nintendo would make more money from people buying an extra tablet controller for the ultimate multiplayer experience than the unlikely "get a friend to buy a Wii U for local multiplayer" scenario you proposed, but I guess I wouldn't put it past them. :p

[Burny]

I guess if it breaks, you could send it to Nintendo to be repaired, but they wouldn't stand to make any money from impatient people then.

 

You answered your own question. Once the customers are out of warranty or it's reasonably save to assume the controller didn't break of its own accord, but was dropped down the stairs, they can ask money for the repairs.

 

As I tried to imply, multiple screen local multiplayer would be interesting - if it was heavily supported instead of being an afterthought of the whole second screen concept.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Burny

[Rummy]

Nope. If say, the component's aggregated costs are 40-50$(€) for Nintendo, you can count on the retail price to be about twice that much.

 

Don't forget that Nintendo, retailer and the government (19% of retail price in our case) all take their share and there are more costs than just those of the components. Manufacturing (even quasi slaves at Foxconn - or wherever they put together our toys - do cost something), packaging, shipping...

 

Edit: A Dual Shock 3 costs 60€ if I were to purchase it at one of our large electronic chains (Media Markt, Saturn) instead of ordering with an online shop, that pushes the prices down more aggressively.

 

 

Great concept. It sure did materialize heavily at this E3. Reggie paid lip service and... Zombie U?

 

No seriously. I don't see much of a market for such an expensive controller (if my guess isn't too far off the mark). Plus, as I've already said last E3, as long as Nintendo won't sell the controller separately, there will be no disappointed customers having bought what they assumed was a Wii addon just to realize that they were supposed to purchase a new console with it.

 

A markup of 100%? Still sounds pretty crazy to me. Tbh I don't think component wise it *really* costs that much either, you can get some cheap android smartphones with pretty much everything you mentioned already(probably better mic and certainly better camera), plus the whole phone component, for £80. The only thing missing would be the NFC tech, and even then from what I understand, NFC isn't even really new tech, but an evolution of old.

 

Let's look at it like this, a replacement battery for my phone would cost..£5 according to a quick google, £6 for a 3DS one if we assume they use something like that. I broke my phone's(4-inch) screen a few months back and looked for replacements, found one for £18 a few months ago, and that's capacitive tech, not resistive. Admittedly it's an outer screen, but even looking on ebay for a 3DS screen or 800x480 display(not the touch) screen for my phone, it's about £18. That's in a niche market too, and must already be marked up for profit as I'm a consumer. Even with the other bits, I just don't see it adding up to as much as you seem to be saying. In fact, looking at all this now, I can't see it costing anything more than £25-£30 max, and this is even with marked up prices for individual components. Yes, there are the manufacturing costs etc, but also the large bulk buy will knock a huge chunk off the above figure.

 

Funny, I see the concept of not shrinking the market of 2 tablet gameplay in games and giving the audience a choice whether or not they want to buy another controller.

 

I'd completely agree, I highly doubt they wouldn't release the 'new controller' standalone, though I also wonder how many people would buy a second one; at the moment there doesn't seem to be many games that do/would require the two screen multiplayer, though it IS an idea with lots of awesome potential for me. If I did get a Wii U, it'd be unlikely that I'd get a second 'new controller' for quite a while.

[Magnus]

You answered your own question. Once the customers are out of warranty or it's reasonably save to assume the controller didn't break of its own accord, but was dropped down the stairs, they can ask money for the repairs.

All I hear is, "if your controller breaks or gets lost somehow, you won't be able to play ZombiU for three weeks." :p

[Burny]

All I hear is, "if your controller breaks or gets lost somehow, you won't be able to play ZombiU for three weeks." :p

 

Red Ring of Death? At least you have some degree of control over losing or breaking your controller.

 

A markup of 100%? Still sounds pretty crazy to me. Tbh I don't think component wise it *really* costs that much either, you can get some cheap android smartphones with pretty much everything you mentioned already(probably better mic and certainly better camera), plus the whole phone component, for £80.

The markup for a Wiimote (40€) is probably a lot higher in relation to its component's costs. The 3DS' markup also was higher, going by these estimations. That didn't go well, but considering it now goes for 170$/€, the markup isn't too far south of a 100% (with Nintendo losing money on it). And what Android Smartphones are 80£? The Samsung Galaxies SIIs/SIIIs or the old ones retailers need to get rid of asap, as they have a new wave of models about every six months that earn them actual money? (or the ultra low-speced models, where the components together are probably cheaper than the screen of the modern ones alone)

Edited June 12, 2012 by Burny

[Zechs Merquise]

I think we can safely say the controller will be sold seperately, some people will want two, some people will want a replacement etc.

 

For the first time in the history of gaming, I shall not be able to hurl the controller across the room!

[-Dem0-]

For the first time in the history of gaming, I shall not be able to hurl the controller across the room!

How many controllers have already suffered that fate?

[Rummy]

Red Ring of Death? At least you have some degree of control over losing or breaking your controller.

 

 

The markup for a Wiimote (40€) is probably a lot higher in relation to its component's costs. The 3DS' markup also was higher, going by these estimations. That didn't go well, but considering it now goes for 170$/€, the markup isn't too far south of a 100% (with Nintendo losing money on it). And what Android Smartphones are 80£? The Samsung Galaxies SIIs/SIIIs or the old ones retailers need to get rid of asap, as they have a new wave of models about every six months that earn them actual money? (or the ultra low-speced models, where the components together are probably cheaper than the screen of the modern ones alone)

 

Yeah, lower specced phones, but what I'm saying is that if a low-specced phone, that has a lot of similar things to the wii u controller, some better components, whilst also being a phone, can be £80, then I highly doubt the wii u controller can be too. Whilst Wii U controller will have nfc compared to a low spec phone, a low spec phone still has wifi capability, 3G/mobile(two things the new controller wont), accelerometers(which it will) and so forth, so how can the price really be that high? Giving and taking a few things either side. I just think people are grossly overestimating the cost of the wii u controller, and I can't see what would warrant it being that much.

[dazzybee]

I'd completely agree, I highly doubt they wouldn't release the 'new controller' standalone, though I also wonder how many people would buy a second one; at the moment there doesn't seem to be many games that do/would require the two screen multiplayer, though it IS an idea with lots of awesome potential for me. If I did get a Wii U, it'd be unlikely that I'd get a second 'new controller' for quite a while.

 

There isn't any games using it because of two reasons, one is Nintendo didn't allow it until very recently. Two, because I imagine developers will want to wait til the are more controlles in the market before wasting time creating dual pad modes. If people can't buy a second pad then developers would e Ben more reluctant.

 

I expect eas sports games to allow it though. As it'll just be basic mps and tactics information.

[S.C.G]

The controllers will be sold seperately but won't cost any more than £49.99... [/Wild Speculation]

[Zechs Merquise]

How many controllers have already suffered that fate?

 

Countless! I always used to do it back in the SNES and NES days. The N64 not so much, nor the GC. But my controller throwing reached a new peak on the Wii. I actually snapped a GC controller whilst playing Mario Kart, those blue shells really get to me!

[dazzybee]

I never imagined you to be the angry type

 

I used to bite controllers out of frustrating. SNES pads were easy, used to tear fuck out of them. I learnt the hard way with the N64...