Nintendo has announced it will be selling its soon-to-be released Wii U console at a loss.
Nintendo Senior Managing Director Yoshihiro Mori made the following announcement during a press conference in Osaka:
“Manufacturing costs are expensive, and we priced the machine at a level customers would accept,” Iwata said at the press conference. “It’s important for us to develop a healthy business next fiscal year by combining sales of hardware and software.”
Sony sold the its PS3 console at a loss when it was launched back in 2006/2007. Sony did not make a profit out of selling PS3 consoles until development costs went down a few years after.
The main reason the Wii U is expensive to manufacture is because of its touch screen gamepad. Nintendo is expecting 5 million Wii U consoles are to be sold worldwide until the end of March 2013.
Source: Examiner
Nicholas Gatewood
October 28, 2012 at 9:26 PMI’d only accept the system if it was $250 or less, the Wii U is only marginally more powerful than the last-gen consoles(I build computers for a living, I guarantee its E6760 and tri-core CPU are disappointing as hell) and it lacks features like a bluray/DVD drive and a hard drive bay. I’m not interested in external drives, that involves way more clutter and I didn’t expect to ever have to deal with them in my consoles.
Screw the Wii U, I hope it bombs so Nintendo learns a lesson from its failure and improves. I wanna love Nintendo again, but not at the expense of my morals.