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Sega pours gasoline on Wii's fire

Forbes has an interesting recap of all the recent Playsation, Wii and XBOX 360 announcements.  Although Nintendo executives claimed that the price of the Wii would remain a secret for now, it seems as though the Vice President of Marketing for Sega (one of Nintendo's franchise partners) has something else on his mind. From Forbes.com:

Bet on the Wii will selling for less than $200, says Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing for Sega, one of the major game publishers for Nintendo consoles. Prices for both the Microsoft and Sony machines are higher due to their heavy-duty processing power, and the PS3 will also feature Sony’s next generation Blu-Ray DVD drive.

After the demise of Dreamcast, Sega exited the hardware market to focus solely on software development.  Some of Sega's major titles have become franchise favorites for the Nintendo GameCube, such as Sonic the Hedgehog.  However, take Steinberg's prediction with a grain of salt: the executive later commented that he is not even sure how many units Nintendo will be able to ship to North America. 

Nintendo's Senior Vice President, George Harrison, earlier stated that pricing for consoles released for the holiday shopping season is usually released in September or August at the earliest.  While his statement was a reaction to Sony's PS3 announcement, it was probably also a foreshadowing of when Nintendo will announce the official price of the Wii.

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I would
By Merry on 5/10/2006 2:13:17 PM , Rating: 2
Consider it, if it turned out to be that price, depending on the games available.


Maybe Nintendo have spotted a gap in the market for a 'mid range' console?




RE: I would
By igloo15 on 5/10/2006 2:29:41 PM , Rating: 2
for 200 dollars I would buy this just to be able to play all the nes, snes, n64, genesis, t16 games that are gonna be available


RE: I would
By NullSubroutine on 5/10/2006 3:02:52 PM , Rating: 1
really want to buy all those again?


RE: I would
By WileECoyote on 5/10/2006 3:56:08 PM , Rating: 1
Has anyone heard a price for these? Will they be stored on the 512mb of flash memory?


RE: I would
By middlehead on 5/10/2006 4:09:59 PM , Rating: 2
They'll probably default the download location to the internal memory, but the system will also have CompactFlash and SecureDigital expansion slots, as well as USB ports in case they enable external hard drive use.

As for price, last I saw Nintendo plans to make 1st party games free or very very cheap, but won't dictate pricing to 3rd party publishers.


RE: I would
By Alphafox78 on 5/10/06, Rating: 0
RE: I would
By breethon on 5/10/2006 5:59:33 PM , Rating: 2
WORD!


Nintendo coming through in a big way
By plimogs on 5/10/2006 2:38:35 PM , Rating: 2
I'm very exited about the Wii, and if their pricing of old 8-bit and 16-bit is reasonable (i.e. cheap) I'll be more than happy to fork over a couple hundred to clear up all of the cable clutter caused by all those Legacy Nintendo consoles bunched up by my home entertainment system.

That coupled with the sheer novelty of the controller...

Count me in. I can't wait!




RE: Nintendo coming through in a big way
By Bull Dog on 5/10/2006 2:57:56 PM , Rating: 2
Well for me, Nintendo actually has me a bit more than passively interested in purchasing its console when it comes out. I have a vague and passing interest in the XBOX330 (I'd but it if I won the lottery.), and not even a remote plan for the PS3.

Likely hood of being purchased listed in descending order.

Nintendo Wii
Microsoft Xbox360
PS3


RE: Nintendo coming through in a big way
By Exodus220 on 5/10/2006 6:29:58 PM , Rating: 2
You just put them in order of price, I doubt you even care about the Nintendo system that much, you just figure that it is cheapest and therefore should get more of your attention. I hate hearing people bash the PS3 because it will be the most expensive system (not that you are really doing that right now). And the emulator thing is so stupid because in reality any of the systems can do that and so can all of our PC's that we are using to type on right now.


By sxr7171 on 5/11/2006 11:00:29 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah because money doesn't grow on trees and people just want their video game system to give them a fun time.

Hey if I can have a great time for $200, why should I pay $600 for the same (or more likely worse time)?


Good pricepoint
By Aquila76 on 5/10/2006 3:17:28 PM , Rating: 2
I think this will be a good pricepoint for the casual gamer.
As much as I want to, I can't really justify $400 on an X360 I'd play maybe a few times a month and hardly ever on-line.
I can't even begin to BS myself into buying a $600 PS3.
But $200 isn't bad, and even if there's only a few games that I'd purchase, I could rationalize this easy enough. Hell, if I don't eat out for a month, I could buy this with the 'savings'.




RE: Good pricepoint
By Razor Crusade on 5/10/2006 3:26:40 PM , Rating: 2
I might not pay $600 for a PS3, but I'm definitely considering $700 or $800 for MGS4.


RE: Good pricepoint
By Lakku on 5/10/06, Rating: 0
RE: Good pricepoint
By glennpratt on 5/10/2006 10:57:53 PM , Rating: 2
Well if you'd only play a few times a month and hardly ever online then you should probably get the $300 version.


RE: Good pricepoint
By sxr7171 on 5/11/2006 11:12:39 PM , Rating: 2
This is exactly what happened to me. I have all three systems right now and I spent all this money on systems and games and suddenly realized that none of it was fun anymore.

So a new racing game came out with better graphics, so I bought it for $50 and it got old literally after 2 days. I mean I have 40 Xbox games 15 PS2 games and 25 Gamecube games and the only ones that held my interest for more than 2 days were:

Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Viewtiful Joe, Panzer Dragoon Orta, MGS2 and Halo. I mean almost $2000 in consoles and games for 5 games that actually were fun for more than 2 days? I give up on this B$ industry.

The Dreamcast cost me $200 and I found at least a dozen games that kept me up nights playing. I have never had that kind of value from a system other than the original NES (which for $100 + games kept me fully occupied for years and years).

The new Nintendo will definitely keep me entertained for a long time for $200 + games (many of which will be a $2 NES games).

This is what it is about, find a good game, buy it and enjoy it. Put your money on fun software not sink $600 on taking a gamble that there will even be anything worth playing on it. Many of these games people rave about on PS2 are not even all that fun, it's just that these people haven't played anything better. Those of us who grew up in the NES and SNES generation know what fun games are.

I think Nintendo will school everyone on what a fun game is again.



Sounds like a hit
By NordicNINE on 5/10/2006 5:23:32 PM , Rating: 3
The potential of the controller & the price will make it a hit if they can keep up with demand. Plus throw in the ability for my wife to play the old Mario games and my daughter can play the old Sonic games. I hope the prices on the old games isn't too much.




RE: Sounds like a hit
By Jayundead on 5/10/06, Rating: 0
RE: Sounds like a hit
By sxr7171 on 5/11/2006 11:17:19 PM , Rating: 2
If Nintendo ships 1000 units to every Best Buy/Circuit City/Target/Walmart etc. in the country by Thanksgiving I bet they'll all get sold and put Nintendo on a firm path to having a larger installed base than the Xbox 360.

Beating Sony in 2006 sales will be cake, because Sony won't have any more than a handful of PS3s this year to sell.


hdd
By Missing Ghost on 5/10/2006 8:15:33 PM , Rating: 1
How big is the hdd?




RE: hdd
By jimmiwalker on 5/11/2006 6:42:50 AM , Rating: 2
There is no hdd, only 512 megs of flash ram. Which is quite enough for Mario and Donkey Kong :)


hell yea!
By Chiisuchianu on 5/10/2006 4:17:47 PM , Rating: 2
hell yes, this means i am going all out in my Wii launch purchase. the first time i buy a system at launch since n64! ive never been so excited for a videogame ever

nintendo is back baby!!




Dynamite
By Rampage on 5/10/2006 5:49:37 PM , Rating: 2
Sounds like a knockout when MS/Sony battle each other with higher and higher end graphics.

You only need as much graphical power as resolution you need to push.
Running HDTV yeah you might need a MS/Sony system.

I'd rather see the console be better priced and not required to run insane resolutions for the sake of having an insane resolution.

Next console generation will be the time for Nintendo to go 720P (dont even need power for 1080i).. as I predict 720 being the dominant HDTV resolution due to much larger market saturation than 1080.




wii rocks
By leatherboots on 5/10/2006 7:39:37 PM , Rating: 2
i'm looking forward when wii launches. i can't wait to play my old nintendo games. from 8-64bit and also sega games. also turbo graphics16. SWEET!!! the games are $20.00 or less. i heard wii may cost $249.00. wii rocks!!




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