Of course the costs are relative, Fighter. That's why a $60 game today is "cheaper" than a $60 game during the Genesis/SNES days. But you still see $60 as more than $50. The point is not what Nintendo is charging - $250, $50 and $5 - $15 is all fair relatively speaking, but it's not what Nintendo implied. Nintendo implied less than $250, cheaper games, etc. As it is now, it's only slightly less than what's being offered on the 360. Nintendo obviously is doing this so they lose as little money as possible, if any, on the hardware, this time around. That's unfortunate as they could have continued their good vibes feelings of the past year or so (despite the "Wii" name foul-up) and really gotten people excited. As it is now, they just got people pissed off, which should not have been their goal after the "Wii" thing. Underpromise and overdeliver actually means something. In this case, they didn't overdeliver and probably over sold the promise of gaming for everyone.
Ultimately, this won't make much of a difference, but it does fascinate me to see the backlash over the Wii name when that was first announced and now the backlash over their standard pricing. Is it worth $250? Probably, if you take the offering as a whole. But then an Xbox 360 it can be argued is worth $499 for the "real" version using the same logic, and maybe even the high end PS3. It just puts the competition more into perspective - a better light - than say a $199 console and $40 games and uniform $5 - $10 downloads (really, tiering your pricing by generation is rather arbitrary, isn't it?).
Of course the costs are relative, Fighter. That's why a $60 game today is "cheaper" than a $60 game during the Genesis/SNES days. But you still see $60 as more than $50. The point is not what Nintendo is charging - $250, $50 and $5 - $15 is all fair relatively speaking, but it's not what Nintendo implied. Nintendo implied less than $250, cheaper games, etc. As it is now, it's only slightly less than what's being offered on the 360. Nintendo obviously is doing this so they lose as little money as possible, if any, on the hardware, this time around. That's unfortunate as they could have continued their good vibes feelings of the past year or so (despite the "Wii" name foul-up) and really gotten people excited. As it is now, they just got people pissed off, which should not have been their goal after the "Wii" thing. Underpromise and overdeliver actually means something. In this case, they didn't overdeliver and probably over sold the promise of gaming for everyone.
Ultimately, this won't make much of a difference, but it does fascinate me to see the backlash over the Wii name when that was first announced and now the backlash over their standard pricing. Is it worth $250? Probably, if you take the offering as a whole. But then an Xbox 360 it can be argued is worth $499 for the "real" version using the same logic, and maybe even the high end PS3. It just puts the competition more into perspective - a better light - than say a $199 console and $40 games and uniform $5 - $10 downloads (really, tiering your pricing by generation is rather arbitrary, isn't it?).
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
[ My collection ]
[ http://www.MythCore.com ]
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.