Nintendo Wii-U

[eczamurai]

Nintendo will land flat on their faces this time. They didn't back up the Wii, what incentive do they give me to buy a Wiiu?

None. Even the name stayed the same. I smell laziness in this one.

Will only buy it once I know where this console stands graphic/game/gameplay wise. Not interested in playing Batman AC with a different controller, not in ME3 without the previous two. (seriously, what the **** is up with that game? ANYONE buying that?)

Will wait a year or two, wait for improved version, get old version for cheap second hand, get zelda. Call it a day. That's all there is these days for wii.

 

[darthviper107]

What I see happening is that they will most likely start off lower than what they'd like but not too drastic---just based off the Mario/Zelda fans. But they won't recapture the casual audience that the Wii had. And it won't get grab the Playstation or Xbox audience since people will be satisfied with their current consoles and would rather buy new versions of those consoles, especially since they will be better when they come out.

 

[angelo07stang]

What I see happening is that they will most likely start off lower than what they'd like but not too drastic---just based off the Mario/Zelda fans. But they won't recapture the casual audience that the Wii had. And it won't get grab the Playstation or Xbox audience since people will be satisfied with their current consoles and would rather buy new versions of those consoles, especially since they will be better when they come out.

 

[plasmid303]

I highly doubt they'd offer a version at $250, I would think they'll probably sell at a minimum of $400

Considering the value, it's probably about as expensive as a smartphone---which these days at full price is around $600, Nintendo doesn't typically sell at a loss.

I wouldnt put it out of the realm of possibility given Nintendo's penchant for arrogance in the last couple years, but I think this thing would be dead out of the gate at $400. They won't get the casuals at that price, and the core demographic, aka those who know better than to shell out $400 for current-gen tech won't be falling for it. The only ones left would be the diehard Nintendo fan base that were going to buy it anyway.

$300 sounds good in my book. $350 is pushing the limit. The tech can't possibly be expensive per unit to produce, and though it is certain that Nintendo will sell this at a sizeable profit margin, they are going to want to avoid pricing it too high in order to not repeat the pricing disaster that was the 3DS in its first 6 months. It's all about perception. Does the Wii-U look like a $400 machine? I don't think it does. It looks like a slightly beefier Xbox 360 with a faux-tablet controller. That's a ~$300 value proposition to me.

And man, they've been so bad at building enthusiasm and hype for this thing that a $400 price tag announcement 2 months before launch would kill any interest I had in it, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Smartphone pricing is a different beast altogether, since you have to factor in the miniaturization of tech as well as making a large profit off of those who don't want a subsidized service.

 

[darthviper107]

I'm just comparing that it has a lot of tech in common. The processor is probably cheaper than mobile processors, but the tablet has quite a lot of mobile tech and it's pretty complicated--that stuff there is what would drive up the cost. Consider how much a regular Wii remote is and then the tablet controller will be much more.


They really need to do a good job next week though--they just haven't given enough information about it, especially for important things like their online system.

 

[Shropt]

I highly doubt they'd offer a version at $250, I would think they'll probably sell at a minimum of $400

Considering the value, it's probably about as expensive as a smartphone---which these days at full price is around $600, Nintendo doesn't typically sell at a loss.

I don't see how they could offer a $250 unit when people have said the tablet itself would cost $150. So the system would only cost $100? I don't buy it. $299 would be cheapest without them eating a large amount of the cost.

 

[Rzeznikk]

Nintendo will land flat on their faces this time. They didn't back up the Wii, what incentive do they give me to buy a Wiiu?

None. Even the name stayed the same. I smell laziness in this one.

Will only buy it once I know where this console stands graphic/game/gameplay wise. Not interested in playing Batman AC with a different controller, not in ME3 without the previous two. (seriously, what the **** is up with that game? ANYONE buying that?)

Will wait a year or two, wait for improved version, get old version for cheap second hand, get zelda. Call it a day. That's all there is these days for wii.

They sold me with FINALLY getting a Mario and (in the future) Zelda in HD. Thats enough Price for Admission right there.

And the fact that youll be able to transfer all my Virtual Console games over is a HUGE plus.

 

[THX-182]

I will probably wait and see how this does before I pick one up. I grew up on Nintendo and have usually always been in Nintendo's camp from the NES all the way through the Gamecube. After the release of the Gamecube, I slowly started to tire of Nintendo and their lack of moving forward. Games are too child oriented for my tastes. I like the Mario and Zelda familiar titles but even they have gotten watered down and repetitive. I was never really impressed with the DS or the Wii due to their gimmicky and sometimes hindering use of the touch screen and motion controls.

I'll have to really wait and see with the Wii-U. It just seems like a slightly beefed up Wii which is disappointing from what I've seen of it.

 

[wanderlai]

Press conference 10am est tomorrow. I hope Amazon preorders go up tomorrow so I can lock one up. Come this holiday season I think they'll be hard to find.

 

[Karma]

Nintendo has announced the Japanese release date for the Wii U (8th December.) Basic 8GB is roughly $337 USD , Premium 32GB is roughly $405 USD.

 

[Shropt]

Stealing some comments from another site:

The Wii-U has 2gb of RAM with 1gb of RAM only used for the OS (and the sending of data to the tablet IMO).

The Wii-U has 2gb of RAM. For comparison, the PS3 has around 500 mb of ram, and the 360 has about 400 mb. PC's have at average 4gb of ram.

22.5 MB/S read speed is
2.5X faster than the ps3 BD drive so it should have impressive load
speeds. Cool

Yep. And for comparison the PS3 has a read speed of only 9 Megabytes/s so games should load more than twize as fast which is nice, and the 360 has 15,85 Megabytes/s, so ~50% faster than that too. So a little less wait on the Wii U tjan what we are used to on the PS360

 

[Rzeznikk]

Cool Beans!

 

[Karma]

18th November in US

 

[BadMoon]

Whu whoa.....

The Premium bundle will cost ¥31,500 and the basic set will cost ¥26,250. Based on the current exchange rate this is approximately US$405 and US$337. A standalone Wii U GamePad will set Japanese gamers back 13,440 yen (that's just over US$170). Prices in US dollars are provided for context; Japanese pricing may not necessarily reflect pricing in other territories.

can't see too many people that would spend $170 on a controller.

 

[Karma]

basic $299
premium $349

 

[Matt S]

It'll be interesting how this does as that's a little more than the Wii

 

[Karma]

30th November for EU

 

[Shropt]

Streaming Live of the conference here:

https://www.nintendo.com/wiiu

 

[Shropt]

Thank god they are showing the same footage we've already seen over and over again instead of launch details.

 

[Matt S]

Ah, isn't price and release date launch details?!?!