Reggie promises streaming flow of Wii; WiiFit now $99
Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 10:22am by Jack
Nintendo of America’s Reggie Fils-Aime is promising a Wii inventory stream of Flomax proportions this winter to coincide with the holiday season. With every analyst and industry watcher predicting that this holiday will be a megaton event for the entire video games industry in terms of sales, I hope he’s right.
System sellers like Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy are sure to strain that supply chain, and even Reggie is telling people to key an eye on the shelves to snatch up Wii’s when they see them. Add on top of that the fact that WiiFit currently has a Jan 2 listing (and a new $99 price point!), and the situation could reach Disaster Day of Crisis proportions (no, I don’t mean that it will be non-existent, I mean things could get very riot-like).
September 15th, 2007 at 11:33 am
wasn’t it going to be $79? meh. I’m still going to get it. I’m buying fake music instruments for $200 why not buy something like this…
September 15th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
For $99.99, I might actually not by WiiFit. That is too expensive, especially considering the game seems like crap and is just a novelty.
September 15th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Im am not 100% convinced on this Wii Fit thing.
But time will tell.
September 15th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
o.o 100.00, no thanks.
September 15th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
At first, I was excited about Wii Fit. Now, I’m not so sure with a price point like that. Oh well, I’ll wait until I see more of it in action.
September 15th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Not a big surprise there with Wii Fit’s price, though I was shocked people actually thought it’d be $75 dollars or even naively considered $50.
This is Nintendo we’re talking about, the ones that charge $5 for a NES game, they know how to milk the cash cow.
September 15th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Yes because Gamestop knows the price of something that only inside of Nintendo Japan knows….
The DS was listed on Gamestop for 199 for months till Niintendo announced the real price(149).
So yeah $99, good way to cover there butts when the WiiFit is going to be priced between 60-80 dollars.
I’m going to go with the lower side, 20-25 dollars more then a regular Wii game, since Boogie and Mario Party 7 was 10 dollars more and they came just with a microphone.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Wii Fit doesn’t seem worth a $100 bucks.
$90 at the most.
Regardless, Wii Fit REALLY needs to get a worldwide release BEFORE Christmas. There are no big games from Nintendo that cater to the New Gamer crowd.
That sends a REALLY bad message amidst Mario Galaxy, Metroid and Smash Bros.
Hell, there aren’t even any major casual-style games I know of coming from 3rd parties, either.
September 16th, 2007 at 3:04 am
there are a lot of casual games coming from third parties this holida season.
here is a partial list: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=190472
it is speculated that wii fit is coming out after the new year to catch people making the very popular new years resolution to get in shape.
its not needed before the holidays because a fitness device isnt the best thing to give as a gift. but it does make a great buy for yourself when you have that goal in mind, and when do you make such goals? as i said before, one such time is new years.
the holiday is otherwise covered and nintendo will already have enough trouble selling systems, that it wont need more help.
about the price. I thought $70 was reasonable, but i dont know what it actually costs to make the device. the balance board is big, and has chips+ sensors. its a bit more hightech then a simple bit of plastic. but i do think that some of the price is a healthy profit margin because this isnt aimed at gamers. they arent trying to convince gamers that wouldnt really be interested in it to buy it. they are trying to convince people typically in there 30s and above, who have money and expect to spend plenty of money on fitness equipment to buy the device.
this thing will also come with software that will provide the popular excersizes of the day, yoga, amongst other things, some 40 total, to entice such non-gamers to try it out, to give them a better feel that its worth the money.
honestly, anybody here can complain about there disinterest, and say they would buy it if it were dirt cheap. but if you will buy guitar hero, that comes with a cheap guitar with very little tech in it, especially for the wii version where half the tech is in the remote, and also comes with cheaply made software (except licensing which we know nothing about),
for $90-100, then there is no sense in complaining about th price of the balance board/software.
its all about how much you like the software. pricing is subjective, but make no mistake. it will sell fine as long as nintendo advertises it well. $100 is a good price for this type of device.