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The Wii system is in a league of its own for a variety of reasons today, chief among them a unique control scheme and incredible sales numbers that dwarf the competition month over month.
Another differentiating factor in the Wii column is also the fact that price cuts will probably never come to the system, as they have with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Chief among the reasoning behind that decision is the fact that price cuts send mixed messages to the customer, said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.“This is my personal thinking, but when the model’s price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it’s better to wait, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake,” said Iwata, in a Nintendo Japan web site interview, translated by Kotaku.
As Wired’s Chris Kohler notes Wednesday, this is the Nintendo strategy today. The company finds a price that it can maintain indefinitely, and then rides insane sales numbers and popular public opinion all the way to the bank. It also chooses a price point that allows the company to make money from day on a system, which runs contrary to the methods employed by other video game hardware manufacturers for the past decade.
Sony and Microsoft, for instance, have adopted a strategy of gradual price cuts. They also recoup losses on hardware (which is sold at a loss) with software licensing. The price cut practice results in sporadic sales spikes, coinciding with the cuts, but thus far has been unable to capture the sustainable magic of Nintendo’s little white machine.
That said, with the unprecedented success currently being enjoyed by Nintendo (with both DS and Wii), the Microsoft/Sony strategy for the next generation could be considerably different.-PC World
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