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Ubisoft CEO Feels Nintendo may Need to Lower the Wii U Price

By Jorge Ba-oh (jb)

9785 on 13.11.2012 at 02:14

Ubisoft CEO Feels Nintendo may Need to Lower the Wii U Price on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot recently discussed the Wii U's pricing with hopes Nintendo will reduce the RRP in time.

Despite the publisher being the company's biggest third-party supporter at launch, Guillemot feels that Nintendo may have to lower the price to keep in line with the competition. "I always prefer lower pricing, so I can't say I'm happy."

He did praise the hardware cost in comparison to something like Apple's iPad as "cheap. With what it brings it's cheap", but with that in mind he still hopes Nintendo will "drop their price in time."

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RudyC3 on 13.11.2012 at 02:32#1

It's so expensive I'm not sure yet whether I'll be able to afford one at launch (with winter coming, one has to think about paying horrible bills for Heating oil to warm up the house for the upcoming three to four months, which doesn't come cheap, and the Wii U gets released in that period when we have to buy some). If that's the case for me, that'll certainly be the case for some other people.

I, too, think it's too expensive. A 50€ lower pricing, so that all models are under the 300€ psychological barrier, would have been better.

( Edited 13.11.2012 01:34 by RudyC3 )

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

Hyrule Kitten on 13.11.2012 at 03:42#2

I hoping for a slightly lower price before Christmas, even if its only 20 bucks lower or so.

Kittensssssss

JayUK on 13.11.2012 at 03:59#3

I'm hoping for a price cut february time, its too expensive in comparison to the PS3 at the moment. On the one hand I want Nintendo to be successful as they've got so many great franchises and they do really innovative things with their controllers. On the other for the technology in the console itself, its way too pricey.

I commented on an other news story that I thought it was too expensive and compared the 300GB PS3 to the 32GB Wii U and someone mentioned the Wii U's memory was flash memory which was more expensive. Can I ask if there is any real benefit to the Wii U using this type of memory?

( Edited 13.11.2012 03:08 by JayUK )

Martin_ on 13.11.2012 at 05:02#4

JayUK said:
Can I ask if there is any real benefit to the Wii U using this type of memory?

Pros:

     1) It's faster.
     2) Less moving parts, theoretically less chance of breakage.
     3) No noise.

Cons:

     1) It's faster, but if 7200rpm HDDs are good enough for the world's greatest gaming PCs, they're good enough for a console.
     2) 'Theoretically' less chance of breakage. I say this because I've had many flash cards and SD cards which crapped out. Just stopped retaining things. I've never had a HDD fail (which is not to say they don't). We have an old-as-the-hills lappy (10 years old), and the HDD whirrs loudly - but it still works.
     3) Though they produce noise, HDDs are quiet enough. An internal one would produce only as much noise as the disc drive, probably less.
     4) Puny amount of storage per penny compared to HDD.

For the same money, they could have kitted the 'U out with an internal 500GB HDD, and you'd never have to worry about storage. For reference, I have a 120GB PS3. Three years on, and I'm always deleting things to make way for new things. You can believe that 32GB is a rather pointless amount of storage in this day and age.

SirLink on 13.11.2012 at 09:29#5

I really don't see the issue with the price. Nintendo already confirmed that they are making a loss on each system for now just to get the price low enough and it's not like the 3DS' launch price where it really was too expensive without a good launch library to justify that price.

People want their "next-gen" systems but seemingly aren't prepared to pay for them. You can argue all you want about the graphics but there's no way the Wii U can be sold at the same price or even cheaper than 6-7 years old consoles from the competition. It's just not going to happen. Sony and Microsoft better be ready to take some big losses on their next systems, because those perfect and almighty consoles everybody is expecting from them aren't going to come cheap.

Canyarion on 13.11.2012 at 12:51#6

I agree with SirLink. I believe Nintendo when they say they're selling it at a loss. They have the strongest console at the moment AND they have that faster-than-tv streaming to the controller.

I've thought long and hard about whether or not to get the Wii U on launch. There aren't many launch games I'm looking forward to, so I figured I could hold out until the price drops and there are better games available.
But then I realised I'm probably only going to save €50 or so. For that amount, I could enjoy the Wii U a year earlier!

Yes, it's €100 more expensive than the Wii, but we get a much fuller package with the U.

Darkflame (guest) on 13.11.2012 at 15:34#7

SDD are massively more power efficient as well as vastly more durable - I have had many hard drives fail over the years. SDDs never.(a few sticks have gone, but thats down to the connection not the chip)

The great thing with SDDs is also when they do finally wear out you can still read all your fails - they merely lose the ability to write.
--
As for WiiU....no must have game for me, no upgrade to the wiimotes and the price due to the controller just means its not worth it. At least,yet.

RudyC3 on 13.11.2012 at 17:55#8

I agree too that the price is right for what you get, but in this day and age, when you have other responsibilities and other more important things to spend your money on than gaming, it's a lot of money to spend in one time, to upgrade to Wii U. I can understand how younger people with less worries (or rich kids... lucky them) can consider that there's no problem with the price as it is, but that's not necessarily the case for all potential buyers.

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer

Flynnie on 13.11.2012 at 20:48#9

I could have sworn that i read that Nintendo didn't set an official RRP in Europe, or at least in the UK anyway?

So its mainly the retailers that are controlling the price here. I was hoping for a price war to emerge, and we all know that the country's biggest game retailer (TESCO) will definately attempt to undercut all other high street retailers.

I like having new kit myself and can fully appreciate the cost, i am just disappointed there isn't that amazing 1st party launch game (NSMB, Nintendo Land aren't on my radar). I was at least hoping for Pikmin 3!

I am actually more worried about games retailing at £45-£50!

JayUK on 13.11.2012 at 20:54#10

i know i'm not paying £30+ for any game, unless its a collectors edition. I'll just wait

SirLink on 13.11.2012 at 21:03#11

Flynnie said:
I could have sworn that i read that Nintendo didn't set an official RRP in Europe, or at least in the UK anyway?
So its mainly the retailers that are controlling the price here. I was hoping for a price war to emerge, and we all know that the country's biggest game retailer (TESCO) will definately attempt to undercut all other high street retailers.

I believe Nintendo actually can't set an official RRP in Europe anymore. I was hoping for a price war between retailers as well because the 3DS launch price war was pretty good and I got mine quite a bit cheaper. Unfortunately, when retailers are struggling to get more units because they're all sold out they won't exactly be concerned about undercutting each other for the best deal when they'll sell any stock they can get anyway.

Flynnie on 13.11.2012 at 21:35#12

That's supply and demand for you! I preordered at Expansys which is meant to be the deluxe package for around £250, but i have heard very negative things about them so i am not holding my breath.

I've preordered Tekken from Zavvi as well but might end up with a game and no console!

If my Expansys order falls through i wouldn't care too much, Nintendo Land would vaguely catch my interest but still have a plethora of games to get through and plenty of games such as Resident Evil 6, Metal Gear HD collection and Naruto Ninja Storm 3 (when it comes out) to buy as well!

I'll be intrigued to see early sales as a lot of places seem to be sold out already!

Canyarion on 13.11.2012 at 22:09#13

Weirdly none of the Dutch stores I went to expected sellouts. They also didn't take preorders until a week ago or so...

So if the UK runs out of Wii Us, perhaps you can buy them from the Netherlands. Smilie

Martin_ on 14.11.2012 at 03:59#14

Or on eBay at inflated prices!!

Mandown on 14.11.2012 at 16:13#15

I'm not buying Wii U until I can play VC games on the GamePad.

JayUK on 14.11.2012 at 16:16#16

Linkyshinks said:
I'm not buying Wii U until I can play VC games on the GamePad.

pretty much the same, unless they release metroid prime trilogy hd

George (guest) on 16.11.2012 at 14:44#17

Well, he can start by cutting his own company's games price then. Asking for £50/€70 for a GAME compared to a £239 piece of hardware IS expensive. He should put his money where his mouth is first. And i am pretty sure he owns one of the £500 smartphones as well, guess these are not expensive.