The 3DS launch was nearly an abysmal failure and it was most due to the poor pricing that Nintendo set for it, expecting people would see it as a premium device. President Reggie Fils-Aime has told Reuters that the company doesn’t want to repeat this scenario with the Wii U launch, saying “The initial price on the 3DS was also too high, something that Nintendo will be careful about this time around.”
This could mean that the Wii U will launch at an immensely affordable $250 price point and realistically it will be no more than $350 if they truly do not want to repeat the 3DS fiasco. Though, with that lowered price will mean that prices for these games will higher than what customers have come to expect with the Wii.
Speaking with Time, Reggie Fils-Aime said that “We haven’t announced pricing for Wii U, but you can definitely expect that pricing is going to be different and that the games are going to be different. We do believe that Wii and Wii U will coexist for some time. As we drive the install base of Wii, we’re really setting people up to take their gaming library and be able to transfer it over to Wii U.”
So for those two to co-exist this means that the wallet conscious consumers will not be an early adopter for the Wii U and those same consumers will continue to buy the cheaper Wii games until the Wii U software is at an attainable price, or developers just stop making new Wii games.
