14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Pachter, who is an analyst watching the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan, believes that the price that Nintendo has announced for the upcoming Wii U is too high and that the company will see low enough sales to introduce a significant cut before the holiday season of next year.
Speaking with CVG, Pachter stated that, “We think that Wii U’s price points are appropriate given likely demand from Nintendo’s core fanbase, but believe that pricing will be too high to sustain demand given current competition from other consoles and tablets.”
He added, “In our view, Nintendo was smart to introduce the Wii U at higher price points in order to maximize initial sales from its core audience. We expect 1 – 1.5 million Wii U units to be shipped into the US by the end of GameStop’s fiscal year (January). We expect demand from Nintendo’s core fan base to remain high through the end of its March 31 fiscal year. Once initial demand begins to subside, we expect Nintendo to lower prices.”
The analyst believes that much of the future of the Wii U depends on the plans that Microsoft and Sony have for their own next-generation home consoles.
Pachter even suggests that they might be officially announced in the coming weeks as the two rivals are trying to steal some of the wind from the launch sails of the Wii U.
The Wii U home console delivers six times the computing power of the older Nintendo console and brings a new touch screen powered GamePad.
The device will appear on November 18 in North America, on the last day of the month in Europe and on December 8 in Japan.
Nintendo is offering two versions of the consoles: a Basic one that includes the core hardware and a Premium with extra online services.