Pachter predicts Wii price cut by November

1. Michael Pachter may be an "analyst", but really all he's doing is making educated guesses, which ISN'T newsworthy. Anybody who pays any attention to the industry can do it.

2. His guesses are more often than not wrong. He has a lousy track record. If anything, his guesses are LESS newsworthy than other people's.

There's a very narrow window for them to announce a price drop, they would basically have to do so within the next month, or not do so until April. It'd be really shitty for PR if they announced a price drop even in, say, February. Like a big middle finger to everyone who bought it at the old price only weeks before, and it would be a bad idea to kill their momentum with a price-drop announcement after mid-October, because you'll have the inevitable decline in sales before the surge.

But they have to know something we don't. They're about 3 million behind, year over year so far, but they have not lowered their annual projections, either they're merely projecting false confidence (which doesn't seem like a tactic they would do, considering they were very willing to move projections down last year when they knew they would not be able to meet holiday demand), over-confident in the abilities of certain games (which is likely), or have something else up their sleeves

i wish nintendo would stop playing this dick move of holding steadfast until their figures go down and they have to lower the price. the wii has been overpriced from the start and it was okay when the competition cost almost twice as much, but to still hold onto it when the price comes within fifty dollars?

Michael Pachter is an idiot when it comes to Nintendo.

I don't see Nintendo changing the prices this year. My guess? They'll ride out the holiday season and see what happens at the $250 price point. Nintendo's target audience isn't the person deciding what console they want to buy; Nintendo's target audience has been new gamers. Like I said, I think they'll just see what happens as far as holiday sales and if they don't like the numbers at the end of the year, then yeah, I would think Q1 would see a price cut, or at least a Wii Sports Resort bundle.

But this year? Probly not.

What you don't see if the PSP huffing and puffing 5 meters behind the Xbox.

The DS flew to the finish line.

Yeah, I gotta say that that's some messed up logic there, Chris. I'd say the actual numbers (GTA3 vs GTA4) are pretty arbitrary. Vice City and San Andreas were as complete as 3 or 4.

@ Vidikron

The number represents a new game engine. The next GTA won't be 5 because it will use GTA 4's engine.

they damn well better! that thing has overpriced since launch, im really tired of ppl saying it has the power of an the original xbox cause i remember it going to 720p way back when. On another note i find it interesting that the ps3 is behind in this pic, whats joystiq trying to say?...hmmm....

Yah, Pachter "predicts" a lot of stuff

I anticipate the incredible surge of PS3 Slim sales will continue, possibly entering a shortage over the holiday season, and that the Wii will less and less at its $249 price point, with many retails and online shops doing considerable discounts until Nintendo drops the price to $199.

Can't help but feel there's a significant market shift with the arrival of the Slim, with its reduced price and forcing of Microsoft to drop the price of the 360 Elite to $299.

At $249, I can't see the Wii selling more units than the PS3 Slim for any month for the rest of the year. The Wii will probably outsell the 360 at present prices, but the Slim's sveltness just became the hottest player on the court. It doesn't have as great a game library as the 360, but the blu-ray will convince fence-sitters.

As for making money, though, Nintendo makes money on each and every console it sells. Probably quite a lot of $profit$ per unit these days. Supposedly the 360 makes money. And the PS3 loses money. Even if Nintendo doesn't drop the price, it'll still make the most money on hardware.

I'll bet Nintendo would still make money on the Wii at the $199 price point. Heck, it's a glorified Gamecube; they're probably making closer to $100 per console.

Look at the picture - the PS3 is in third!!!







/runs

I predict by Christmas next year we'll have a 'Wii HD' that will come bundle with a new motion plus-imbedded controller and wireless nunchuck. Also bundled with WSR and the original. At the current Wii price point.

nintendo has some time to think about this...
i wouldn't expect any immediate price drops.

they have a 20-30 million console lead as it is.

i would expect them to wait until sales steadily fell and wii's started collecting dust at stores.
they have no need for a price drop until they see a major drop all around.


is this even a prediction? these people are funny... ''analysts''' geez...
even i can say: "" i predict in the future the ps3, 360, and wii will drop in price"' expect it and you heard it here first...

breaking industry analyst news here for you.!!

Actually Vice City and San Andreas were MORE complete than GTA4.

This is not news.

I could use a black wii already. My middle finger stays up at Nintendo until they do.

I think he continues to make these asinine "predictions" so that when it finally does happen he can say that he was right.

hey whylekat i ONLY HAVE A WII..... y u ask b/c there are so many good games coming out like..... monster hunter 3, no more hereos 2, the grinder, fragile farewell ruins of the moon, gladiators a.d., metriod other m, super mario galaxy, new super mario bros. wii,vallaha knights,resident evil darkside chronicles, dead space extraction, sin and punishment 2, red steel 2, those r the ones i can think of right now but i beat theres more................. i think i have made my point