Wii Fit to Keep Americans Moving at $89.99 MSRP
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 9:23am by Press Release
In anticipation of the U.S. launch of Wii Fit™, the new interactive fitness game for the popular Wii™ system, Nintendo of America Inc. has announced pricing details for this groundbreaking release. Available at Nintendo World store starting on May 19, Wii Fit and the innovative Wii Balance Board™ accessory will be bundled and sold together at a suggested retail price of $89.99.
Boasting a dynamic mix of more than 40 yoga, aerobics, strength training and balance activities, Wii Fit provides consumers with a fun, easy and affordable way to incorporate exercise into their daily routines. Using the included wireless Wii Balance Board accessory, every member of the household can step up and stay active, setting individual fitness goals and tracking their progress over time.
Consumers in the New York area who pre-order Wii Fit from the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Plaza will receive a special bonus item. From April 18-20, the first 1,000 consumers who place a $5 deposit for Wii Fit will receive a limited edition Wii Fit T-shirt featuring the image and reproduced autograph of legendary Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
Through mid-February, Wii Fit had sold more than 1.4 million copies in Japan since its Dec. 1, 2007 launch.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Yeah, a little pricey. But I’m getting it anyway.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Good. Same price as GH3.
I can be out the store for under $100.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I know I’m being a TOTAL n00b saying this. But isn’t $89.99 a BIT over priced for just the Wii Balance Board with Wii Fit? I mean, I can see a price of $64.99 or $69.99, but for a Wii periphal that’s supposed to look like a scale that’s $40 extra?! I’m not to sure now.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Think Guitar Hero 3 on the Wii, where you are getting the game and a plastic shell for the same price.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:29 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIn anticipation of the US launch of Wii Fit™, the new interactive fitness game for the popular Wii™ system, Nintendo of America Inc. has announced pricing details for this groundbreaking release. Available at Nintendo World store … [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Yes, too much money.
GH3 came with a GUITAR, with buttons, and also the awesome feeling of shredding to Slayer and Maiden and Dragonforce like a rock star.
This is just a flat piece of plastic that you stand on and it makes you feel bad about yourself for being so out of shape. It may be a revolutionary piece of hardware, but right now the perception is it’s just a scale.
$90 to feel like a rock star is worth it.
$90 to feel like a fat load is not worth it.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:14 am
You view the BB as a piece of plastic you stand on
I view the GH add on as a small piece of plastic you pretend is a guitar.
The Balance Board seems a hell of a lot more sophisticated than the guitar shell.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:58 am
This is annoying… here in the UK it’s gonna cost us £70 for Wii Fit.. ($140) damn it..
April 15th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Lesson Learned.
In the long-run, Europeans are better off importing their own NA Wii and Wii games.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I remember Nintendo said that the Wii would be under $250 and they priced it at $249.99. I was expecting WiiFit to be $99.99 after they said it would be under $100.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
If they have to sell the scale at $40, then that thing must certainly not be cheap to make. It’d be nice if that amount included a mat though.
The balance board is solid, it’s not exactly light, it’s got bluetooth, and can sense how and where you step on it. It’s a lot more than a simple scale. Not to mention it can withstand 600 pounds! Sure, it’s limit is weighing 300 but that’s still quite the solid device.
I’ll pass on it for the time being but only cuz I need to save up.
April 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
wii fit is priced properly for the market its going after.
also, this is alot more sophisticated then most scales you see in homes.
http://www.nextag.com/weight-watcher-scale/search-html
look at the prices for the more fancy scales, and they dont come with software that acts as a personal trainer and makes excercise fun, or at least more interesting then without it. things are priced what people will pay for the experience also, not just the cost of the physical product.
so, a gamer cant say whether an excercise program is overpriced because they generally have no interest in such things anyway, how do you know the value of it?
and if you say you would only buy it if it were cheap, then why? the games you wont stick with long, as they arent exactly deep, not even as much as wii sports.
if you werent interested in getting into shape before, then why now? you can buy cheaper stuff then wii fit to get you into similar shape, but then if you say thats not what interests you about it, then you will begin to see the value of wii fit.
it can get people to think about something they knew they wanted to do but didnt have the motivation for before, and to many thats worth a small premium.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
$40 is what a Wiimote costs.
The board is like 2 Wiimotes for your feet.
You are getting a bargain.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
So it took 4 months for it to sell as much in Japan as Brawl did in the first week… Hm. Well I guess this obviously wasn’t as highly anticipated as Brawl, but who knows?
April 15th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Does anyone know if this thing will have to be used on a hard surface? All the videos look like it needs to be, but A LOT of people (myself included) still have carpet in their living rooms. Just wonderin’. Thanks!
April 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
@WalterMH: I’m not sure how true it is, but I don’t know if it’s wise to stereotype gamers as not interested in fitness. I know many aren’t, but look at the hosts of ELR: Scott runs, “O” rides his bike and does martial arts and Bryan…well…I don’t know if he works out. But at least 2/3 of the hosts of a geek podcast are interested in fitness. As am I. Just something to consider.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
$90? Wow. Wiifit is just a glorified way to motivate you to work out.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Think Unreal Tournament for Wii: riding on your hoverboard (Wii Fit) while aiming and shooting with the Wiimote.
$90 for the future of gaming? A friggen’ bargain.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Looks like I’ll be spending a lot more money on WiiWare titles next month!
April 15th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Quix - Let’s just hope that it gets USED in some future games to be an actual PART of the future of gaming.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford to buy this, and probably by the time I can, hopefully it’ll still be on sale. I guess I can wait ’til next Christmas? *sigh*
April 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am
“$90 for the future of gaming? A friggen’ bargain.”
I’d say that is a major assumption. Nintendo has a track record now of not exactly supporting their accessories. Heck the Wii Zapper is already pretty much dead. I’ll believe it when I see it when this thing is used extensively in the future. I mean so far hardly anyone has even figured out how to even use the Wiimote very well, and that includes Nintendo.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
@ ResidentialEvil
Supposedly, there are already 10 other games in development that utilize the Wii Balance Board, and I believe some of these are third-party.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
family ski is third party andf already uses the balance board.
it may not be your kind of game, but its there.
April 16th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I will probably pick one of these up for me. My parent’s are also interested in this. I can’t wait to look at graphs and putting a round thing in a hole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iYBmAVuBns
April 16th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Having games come out is still a far cry from it being the “future of gaming”.