Why Nintendo Should Drop the Price of Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii was released in late 2006. One of the main selling points early on was its cheap price tag of $249.99 USD. However, Nintendo hasn't dropped the price of their video game system yet. This is quite unprecedented as the Nintendo Wii is about to celebrate its third birthday near the end of the year. Here are a few reasons why Nintendo should drop the price on the Nintendo Wii.

Xbox 360 Arcade

Last year Microsoft decided to drop the price to all of their Xbox 360 models, one of which was the Xbox 360 Arcade. Thanks to the $199.99 price tag of the Arcade model, the Nintendo Wii is no longer the cheapest current-generation video game system on the market. The perceived value of the Nintendo Wii ended up dropping as a result. While it didn't affect the Nintendo Wii much early on, the Xbox 360 managed to close the gap in hardware sales thanks to their price cut.

Playstation 3 Slim

Sony recently revealed the Playstation 3 slim. The new model is lighter and smaller than the older ones. As a result, its manufacturing costs were reduced significantly and Sony managed to cut the price of the Playstation 3 to $299.99. The Playstation 3 launched at the premium price of $599.99 when it came out at around the same time as the Nintendo Wii. While the price tag of the Nintendo Wii stayed the same throughout the years, Sony quickly closed the gap. With the initial high price tag widely believed to be holding back hardware sales for the Playstation 3, many expect the price tag will help Sony close the gap on the Nintendo Wii.

Motion Controls

While some may argue that the Nintendo Wii does not belong in the same market as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, that sentiment won't hold any weight in the near future. Both Sony and Microsoft are working on motion controls for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 respectively for 2010. With the Xbox 360 at $199.99 and Playstation 3 at $299.99, the Nintendo Wii could lose some serious ground if they decided to keep going without dropping the price of the Nintendo Wii.

Declining Nintendo Wii Sales

The warning signs are beginning to show for the Nintendo Wii. Although it is still selling at a record-breaking pace and still beating the competition handily, the popular system has declined significantly in hardware sales compared to last year. The bad economy in addition to the lack of killer application games is hurting Nintendo. Therefore, they should seriously consider dropping the price of the Nintendo Wii.