Rumour: UK Retailer Slaps £149.99 Price Tag On Wii

[Zeus]

Perhaps we're playing into one UK retailer's hands by posting this, but they made a quick banner with a price tag of £149.99 on the Wii console. This does rank in slighty above Nintendo's acknowledgement that it will retail for below $250 but as we know, the U.K. always gets a raw deal and anything lower than £149 may connotate something a bit too cheap!

<center><img src="http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/wiiuk149.jpg"></center></a>

News Source: <A href="http://www.shopto.net/page.php?page=dettagli&lang=en&UID=&codart=WIICO00" target="_blank">Shopto.net</a>

[tashmeister]

You wouldnt say no at tht price lol

If them hardware specs are true, then i can see this as beliveable, and a sure buy! ok so it may have xbox graphics (wich i doubt) but its still got a whole lot more fun for me than any of the over consoles can offer. Especially at this price!

[TomIsADeftone]

That'll do for me, I would of paid upto about £250 anyway.

[Azariel Z]

I don't think price effects people s psychology so easy, if someone has a trauma, about the tag's value, sure don't buy it, they are more interested on much they spend on somethign instead the utility they could give to it, making somethign accessible is the key to become popular. Coca Cola anyone?

[Souzar]

At £149.99 means I can buy it on launch instead of later on.

[weejames]

Hmm... my N64 cost that not long after launch.

[neilpatel]

Hmm... my N64 cost that not long after launch.


it was 400 quid but n01 bought it so they reduced it

[roch]

£149.99 is good but £45-£49.99 for a game !! is to much, i know that consoles are sometimes sold at a loss so they make their money back on games, but £50 a game is taking the piss.

[corbs]

gamecube was good hardware at launch and sold for £130, wii isn't exactly cutting edge technology it's just a gamecube with a fancy controller I think this is say £20 too much. probably get 1 for £130 though

[Souzar]

gamecube was good hardware at launch and sold for £130, wii isn't exactly cutting edge technology it's just a gamecube with a fancy controller I think this is say £20 too much. probably get 1 for £130 though

Then why not buy a Wii, put your old gamecube in and return it for a refund (afterall it's still a gamecube right?) - that way you get yourself a 'slimline' gamecube for free! as a bonus your old controllers will still work..

[{{909}}]

im sure the cube and the n64 launched in the UK at around £250. they both dropped drasticly within a few months.

£150 must be the cheapest release of all time.

[dreary79]

I won't be buying a Wii at that price unless it comes with a game.

[shangrula]

**** me there's a lot of bitches yapping about console prices these days

[Havok154]

I won't be buying a Wii at that price unless it comes with a game.
I don't know why you would buy a Wii anyway, all you do is ***** about how much it'll suck. Either way, I'll still be getting one and if that really is the launch price, then I know a lot of people picking one up since they said they would get it if it's under $200.

[pubjoe]

Not a raw deal at all!

£150 is exactly what I expected/hoped. And I don't feel it justifies any moaning about "rip-off-britain" price hikes.

It's actually historically much less than the usual british price hike.

$250 dollars converts to around £135 - rounding this to £150 is just about right and is well below the common practice that rip-off-britain is used to.

Many publishers have in the past, simply converted $100 to £100.

And don't forget that the USD exchange rate is a bit flakey at the moment, a few years ago $250 dollars would have converted to at least £150.

Almost all consoles up to now have always been cheaper to import than to buy in UK shops.

£150 is well in line and far cheaper than importing.

[thePANICHIOteam]

There was a rumour it would come with a game wasnt there? and since wii sports is being sold separately it cant be that?

£149.99 is a good price, but Im going to wait to see how much the controllers are, I think theyre going be about £30 for uk, but if theyre more it will take a shine of the £149.99 price tag.

[Retroboy]

Wtf, 149.99 For A Vamped Up Xbox, No Way, But What The Heck To Prove Im Not Anti Nintendo Ill Buy One Because I Have Good Faith That This Console Will Be Hacked To Shreds, If Datel Have A Action Replay For It Then Hell Ill Be Playing Copied Games In No Time.

[Radiozo]

Wtf, 149.99 For A Vamped Up Xbox, No Way, But What The Heck To Prove Im Not Anti Nintendo Ill Buy One Because I Have Good Faith That This Console Will Be Hacked To Shreds, If Datel Have A Action Replay For It Then Hell Ill Be Playing Copied Games In No Time.

Why do you even bother posting in the Wii section. you obviously dont like the console so **** off.

[chukz]

Well if Wii Sports might be going for £19.99 or even £14.99 then it's very realistic that it can be bundled in with the Wii for a total of £149.99. Also, Nintendo themselves said it will be lower than $250 USD, so it would be smart for a retailer to just put the Nintendo Wii at a price of £149.99 or $279.99USD knowing that there is no way it will be higher than that. Then if the console launched for £149.99, there is no problem, and if it launches for £129.99 they can pretend they are having a "SALE" and have lowered the price.

Here is a good question though, how much would you pay to buy a Nintendo Wii? Assuming all it came with is the console and the Wiimote and the nunchuk adapter (and all the power cords and sensor bar of course ;) )

Personally, since I'm a cheapskate, I would like to pay around $199.99 USD which seems kind of reasonable (remember no game included, just power cords, wiimote, nunchuk adapter, power cords, sensor bar).

[chukz]

Just read Retroboy's comment lol.

To buy a console just because it might get hacked? Well I'm not sure it took a while for the GameCube to get hacked (to play backups decently) so I don't know how long it will take.

I will buy this console on launch day though, I don't care if it's hacked or not there are games for it I really want to play.

Also Wii isn't just a "vamped up Xbox" ... it's an entirely new console, new controls, new features, and totally different CPU and GPU from the Xbox. It's not an intel 32bit CPU here, this is a PowerPC CPU and GPU is custom made. This is to remove bottlenecks to decrease loading times so you're not sitting at a loading screen for 30 seconds.

If this was just a "vamped up Xbox" it would be the same processor at higher clock rates, same GPU with more RAM and more GPU processing speed. Clearly it isn't just an Xbox with upgraded parts.

That's like saying a Pentium4 CPU at 3.0GHz is six times more powerful than a Pentium2 at 500MHz. That's wrong, a Pentium4 CPU is MUCH more powerful than a P2 at 500MHz, way more than 6x more powerful. Sure the clock speed is 6x faster, but look at all the other things that a P4 CPU has that a P2 doesn't. This is what i'm talking about when I say even a Nintendo Wii running at "733 MHz" (like that article that is/isn't true posted a few days ago) is not directly comparable to an Xbox. The CPU is totally different, right away that throws out ANY chance to compare the two. You won't really be able to compare them UNTIL nintendo releases the FULL CPU specs, then you can see exactly how the 2 CPUs compare to each other.

Would you say a PS3 is 1.5X as powerful as a PS2? (2 x 1.5 = 3)
Would you say an Xbox360 is 360x as powerful as an Xbox ?

Of course not, there is much more than numbers. This is something average people can't see, they are used to big numbers thrown at them. In fact if you dissect the numbers, really get down to the technical details of each console, you will see there MIGHT be something the Wii can do that is more efficient than the XBox360 and PS3, just like there MIGHT be something the Xbox360 can do that is more efficient than the PS3 and Wii, and MIGHT be something the PS3 can do that is more efficient than Xbox360 and Wii. It all depends on how the console is built. The MHz myth has to stop, CPU are getting so sophisticated it's no longer just about the numbers.

[dreary79]

There was a rumour it would come with a game wasnt there? and since wii sports is being sold separately it cant be that?

£149.99 is a good price, but Im going to wait to see how much the controllers are, I think theyre going be about £30 for uk, but if theyre more it will take a shine of the £149.99 price tag.

We have no idea if Wii sports will be sold separately, be a virtual console game or come with the unit. IGN wants and thinks it might come with the unit. I know that retailers have wiisports for preorder, but it all honesty I think that retailers are in the dark as much as wii are. =)

[put4558350]

Well maybe nintendo just keep it's price at 1/3 of ps3

[chukz]

At 1/3 of the PS3 price ($600USD) that's $200 USD which is great.

It's a really great console that looks like it will be a lot of fun too. You miss out on the Hi-Def, and strong horsepower, but again if your only paying $200 USD, you can't go wrong with what your getting.

To me, Xbox, PS2, GC had "very good" graphics, they weren't PERFECT, but it was enough to understand what was going on and get a good deal of fun from the games on there. Now if the Wii is (as most people are saying) 2-3X stronger than those consoles, frankly the graphics should be "great" and if you include that with the gameplay mechanics of the Wiimote, you have a system that is showing a lot of potential.

Now, if you want "AMAZING" graphics, well you will need an HD TV set, and Xbox360 or PS3, running in hi-def. This costs a lot of CPU/GPU power rendering it at a higher resolution. And this also requires a hard drive onto the console to cache some files (loading larger maps in real time from DVD/HD/BD drive is slower than from Hard Drive). So you are getting more, but you do NEED more to get there. That's why the PS3 and Xbox360 have to have such sophisticated CPU/GPU then NEED it just to deliver what they promise (a hi-def standard console). If you try to play Xbox360/PS3 in Hi-Def with a game that runs a huge map (GTA or their Flight Sim game) you NEED a hard drive to store data to decrease loading time (and reduce pop-in), and you NEED a faster CPU to control it all, and a faster GPU too.

This is going to make porting games so much harder, you have to worry about how each console handles these things. Like what about the people with Xbox360 without the hard drive in it, if they want to play a game like GTA in Hi-Def, will it be too laggy? (think of GTA games on PS2 with the pop in problem, and PS2 didn't have a HDD to cache the files on there). Also how will porting a game from Xbox360 be to the PS3, with such different architecture, and a different High-Def disc storage (blu ray instead of DVD).
All these factors play into how well the console will be able to show the games. This is why I said in another post the numbers you see are the theoretical max numbers, they don't give you the average or mean values because they would be much lower (although honest) and that would lead people to believe it's not as powerful.

So even if the Xbox360 and PS3 can do for example 1 trillion polygons on screen per second, just to GET to that point (nevermind getting there in Hi-Def ;)) will take MUCH more effort. Many factors come into play, and then you have dual core CPU and all that it just gets harder and harder. The numbers you see on Xbox360 and PS3 (in my opinion) will be harder to achieve than on the Wii. The Wii is a simpler console, easier to get to what you want and do it. Xbox360 and PS3 to get the theoretical max numbers they keep showing you will take a lot of money/time/developing power, and when you are pressed for time to get a game out by a certain date, those are the 3 things you do NOT have.

[thePANICHIOteam]

We have no idea if Wii sports will be sold separately, be a virtual console game or come with the unit. IGN wants and thinks it might come with the unit. I know that retailers have wiisports for preorder, but it all honesty I think that retailers are in the dark as much as wii are. =)
I always thought wii sports would come with it, but if theyre advertising it separatley i guess it wont.

I think that retailers are going to be making up lots of their own packages for the wii? Not like when the 360 came out? From my recolection i didnt see any packages for 360 when i was trying to get one, only the premium and core in the uk.

If its only £149.99. Then they'll end up throwing in an extra controller and 2 games or something for under £250? I think there will be loads of good offers and packages for under £250? or is that just wishful thinking.

[chukz]

I agree for £150 it might come with Wii Sports.

If you recall a long time ago Iwata (or Miyamoto) said the pricing on videogames is bad, and they want to change it. They don't like how a $59.99 USD game would come out and no one would buy it, knowing that in 9-10 months it will be cheaper. He would rather get 1 price and stick with it, and this price is dependent on development costs of the game (and other factors which would eventually lead to development costs, like graphics, gameplay, etc,..). This is why I think a game like Wii Sports can come out for $24.99 USD or even be included WITH the console, as it clearly isn't the most advanced game for the Wii, it's more of a bunch of minigames compared to the rest of the games nowadays.

If Wii Sports isn't included with the console I would be for sure Wario Ware is. Those are the 2 games that are very simply, pick up and play, anyone can get into and don't need you to put several hours of gameplay into it. One of those 2 games for sure, nintendo need a smart way to get people to enjoy the controller, and throwing a game with a lot of depth and complex controls (mario galaxy, zelda, metroid), or a game that doesn't use the Wiimote too much (smash brothers) would NOT be a smart move. But a game like Wii sports or Wario Ware would be really nice to get everyone used to all the things the controller can do.

Also even if the game is sold separately, I think it's more of just having the title and price, so people can see what kind of games they have. It might be included with the console still, but so far retailers know that these games will be out for launch, so they put them in separately (safer than saying buy a Wii for £149.99 with Wii Sports, and then Wii Sports ends up being separate game)

[Retroboy]

Why do you even bother posting in the Wii section. you obviously dont like the console so **** off.

lol, your nintendo attitude is what im expecting, thats why im still getting one, just to prove im not anti-nintendo, ill probably play it but not much sor Fuk off m8.

[MadonnaProject]

Whatever the price, ill buy the console once its hacked, chipped and ready to pop the cherry of. the hype behind the damn thing is already dying down. and like the n64, and the gamecube, its preceeded by INCREDIBLY FANTASTIC hype. then after the first year it starts to hurtle towards death.

this time around im waiting for it to be hacked. then im going to get its games pirated or downloaded. just like the gamecube.

[Radiozo]

Whatever the price, ill buy the console once its hacked, chipped and ready to pop the cherry of. the hype behind the damn thing is already dying down. and like the n64, and the gamecube, its preceeded by INCREDIBLY FANTASTIC hype. then after the first year it starts to hurtle towards death.

this time around im waiting for it to be hacked. then im going to get its games pirated or downloaded. just like the gamecube.

Well. Be prepared to wait a few years then. It took about 3 years to get a chip out for the gamecube.

[Robotron]

Let them slap whatever price they want on it. That doesn't mean this is the release price so why is everyone acting like it is?
I see retailers listing Wii games at $70 that doesn't mean that you'll be paying that. I can find retailers listing PS3 games for $75 as well
here's an example:

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10075753&catid=24298

Retailers have the items in their database so they attach a high price to them. Hell I remember seeing 360 games listed for $80 before their release and no game site ran out and said "here's the final price".
The odd part about the 360 was so many people were screwed by places like Best Buy being forced into "package" deals.

I'll wait for the actual price point from Nintendo and not some retailer.

[thePANICHIOteam]

What do you mean robotron? I think this is a fair price. I imagine this will be the release price in the UK. There is no chance it will be less than £149.99 in the UK. The DS Lite is £100 in the UK, PS2 £100, xbox £100. Its not going to make the product look too good if its less than £149.99. It wont give the right image will it?

[Robotron]

Sorry for the rant, but I don't think people should believe any price until it is announced (because you'll either be happy or mad after the fact).
That's in GBP right?

[thePANICHIOteam]

Nothing wrong with a rant now and again. Yes it is in GBP.

[Havok154]

Why do you even bother posting in the Wii section. you obviously dont like the console so **** off.

We keep him around so I have someone to argue with when I'm bored out of my mind at work. Keeps me busy for a while. While I'm home, I just ignore him. :D

[Retroboy]

rant maybe, but if it was sony youll all be slaging it.

How much does it cost to buy a xbox now?

the Wii isnt really much powerfuller and your getting charged nearly 150, i think its only worth 99quid.

[thePANICHIOteam]

Idont want to start talking about nintendo/sony/ms comparisons. None of them are any better than the other. They look after their own interests not ours. Whatever keeps the shareholders happy.

I think all 3 have been priced as you would expect them to be. Im not complaining.

I mean they have to make some profit on the wii, its not 100% identical to the GC it will have the technology to do what theyve said it will do.

I think the 360 is about fair.

I think the PS3 is fair. Blu ray is there its for the games primarily, but it also reads DVDs and CDs anyway, HDMI, 60 GB HD, cell processor, 256mb XDR main ram, 256mb GDDR3 VRAM etc..... You pay for the tecnology in the PS3, theyre not going to be making huge profit margins on PS3 sales.

Im not saying any of the consoles is better than the other. I just think the pricing is to be expected and is quite fair really. They are inline with other consumer electronics. I mean a an ipod nano 4gb is about £169, the wii will be cheaper than a 4 GB ipod nano lol.

[Retroboy]

That i will agree, sorry if i may have sounded well was a prat:o

[excrime]

If it cost £150 then i can buy it but i wont be able to buy a game so ill just take it home to admire for a while till i get more money i relly hope it comes with a game at that price