14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, we talked about how Wal Mart, one of the biggest retailers of gaming consoles around, had already prepared an advertising flier about a price “rollback” for the Nintendo Wii.
We chalked that up as being just a rumor but now the evidence is mounting and the possibility of the Nintendo home console getting a price cut becomes much more of a sure thing.
A new ad, this time coming from Toys R US, is also claiming that a reduction in the sales price is in the works and even spells the new tag as being 199 dollars, which is pretty much what analysts and gamers have been expecting. The ad seems set to run at the end of September so gamers might be able to get their hands on the cheaper console at the beginning of October.
When Nintendo was contacted with the news of this price cut evidence, its only statements was the now classic “Nintendo does not comment on rumors and speculation,” a tune that the company should really change given the mounting evidence.
A price point of 199 dollars would mean that the Nintendo Wii again becomes 100 dollars cheaper than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that Microsoft and Sony would like gamers to pick up. The Arcade version of Microsoft's console remains equal in price but it is relatively under specced for the needs of a gamer. In effect, a price reduction from Nintendo would effectively put the console in the same monetary distance as they were before the announcement of the Slim and the cut for the Xbox 360 Pro.
It will be interesting to see if a cheaper console is enough to again push sales of the Wii up, after a pretty significant decline over 2008 in the last few months. Of course, this also depends on the videogames released for each platform.