AfterDawn: News

No price cuts on DS or Wii in foreseeable future, says Nintendo

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed that the company is not likely to cut the price of its ever popular Wii and DS gaming systems in the foreseeable future.

"Our earnings projection for the year is not based on hardware price cuts, and I don't think we are going to need them," said Iwata.

Despite supply shortages on huge demand for both systems, Nintendo revealed its fourth quarter earnings this week which showed the company has sold 18.6 million Wii consoles over the last 12 months, putting worldwide sales since launch at almost 25 million. The company also added that total sales were up 73 percent year on year "while operating income was up 115.6 percent and profit up 47.7 percent."



Nintendo added that it hopes to sell 25 million consoles worldwide for the upcoming fiscal year. To meet growing demand, the company will also be ramping up production from 1.8 to 2.4 million consoles every month. Maybe this year there will be Wiis on the retail shelves next to all those PlayStation 3s and Xbox 360s.



Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Apr 2008 13:38

• Previous article

• Apple releases fourth iPhone SDK

• Next article

• Microsoft Xbox division finally sees profit

• 10 comments

• khmernize

  It makes a lot of sense to not cut prices. They are selling their product with no sign of slowing down and they came out over a year ago.

  25.4.2008 21:13 #1

• ZippyDSM

  with the millions/billions the WII made, drop it 80$ already........

  26.4.2008 04:17 #2

• TBandit

  Why the hell would you do a price cut? You're making more money if you don't and you know you're still selling a lot. I didn't know DS's were out of stock either...

  26.4.2008 04:22 #3

• Tecbot

  seen a whole bunch of wiis and dss at wal-mart where I live like 10 minutes ago...2 people bought wiis thoughs doubt sales are going slow down to fast doesnt really need a price cut imo yet.

  26.4.2008 12:56 #4

• DVDBack23

  Originally posted by Tecbot: seen a whole bunch of wiis and dss at wal-mart where I live like 10 minutes ago...2 people bought wiis thoughs doubt sales are going slow down to fast doesnt really need a price cut imo yet.Wow man, I cant find either anywhere (NYC)...from my personal experience they are always sold out. I feel like employees must hold them and resell haha

  26.4.2008 15:50 #5

• emugamer

  Quote:Originally posted by Tecbot: seen a whole bunch of wiis and dss at wal-mart where I live like 10 minutes ago...2 people bought wiis thoughs doubt sales are going slow down to fast doesnt really need a price cut imo yet.Wow man, I cant find either anywhere (NYC)...from my personal experience they are always sold out. I feel like employees must hold them and resell hahaGood theory. If I worked in retail, I would use my employee discount to buy 20 of the first shipment. Then sell them at a $50 markup on ebay.
  
  Nintendo is raking it in hand over fist. If the PS3 came down to $250, they might have to come down, but that will never happen. If it did, the PS3 wouldn't be worth buying, as it will come with 1 USB 1.0 port, a 10GB IDE HDD (those old XBOX HDD's can finally be put to use), no HDMI, and a half controller (yes, they will give you half a controller and you would have to order the other half from a third party with instructions on assembly).

  28.4.2008 12:38 #6

• wetsparks

  The Wii sells out within hours of arrival and the only reason you can see DS's in stock is because they are easier to manufacture. Either way they both are selling like crazy and Nintendo is making money on each sale. If you have a hard time keeping up with demand at this price point, it makes no sense to lower the price and increase the demand. Add in the fact that the sales of Wii games are picking up with a bigger user base and the 70 million user base of the DS is having software sales that rival what a console usually does (which is a huge deal since portables don't usually sell near software that consoles do) and Nintendo would be stupid to make any alterations to the price of there products.

  2.5.2008 17:16 #7

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by wetsparks: The Wii sells out within hours of arrival and the only reason you can see DS's in stock is because they are easier to manufacture. Either way they both are selling like crazy and Nintendo is making money on each sale. If you have a hard time keeping up with demand at this price point, it makes no sense to lower the price and increase the demand. Add in the fact that the sales of Wii games are picking up with a bigger user base and the 70 million user base of the DS is having software sales that rival what a console usually does (which is a huge deal since portables don't usually sell near software that consoles do) and Nintendo would be stupid to make any alterations to the price of there products.why? the DS would gain more software sales if they lowered the price a bit, whack another 50$ off it and dominate the market.

  2.5.2008 17:34 #8

• wetsparks

  why would they want to lower the price by so much, if at all? they already sell a boat load of software (and the DS has the cheapest software at a starting point usually of $30) and the hardware is flying off the shelves. You can only sell as many as you can produce anyways and if the consumer says $130 is the right price (and they have by buying so many of them) and you are just keeping up with demand, it would be stupid to cut the price of your product and cut deeply into your profits.

  3.5.2008 01:06 #9

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by wetsparks: why would they want to lower the price by so much, if at all? they already sell a boat load of software (and the DS has the cheapest software at a starting point usually of $30) and the hardware is flying off the shelves. You can only sell as many as you can produce anyways and if the consumer says $130 is the right price (and they have by buying so many of them) and you are just keeping up with demand, it would be stupid to cut the price of your product and cut deeply into your profits.ah I forgot the last drop set it to 99 and leave it, it wont hurt them a bit and would help them sell more units increasing their market.

  3.5.2008 12:12 #10