Nintendo will not be cutting the price of their new WiiU console, even if they are anticipating a loss in the sales, Eddie Makuch writes for Gamespot on Jan. 31.
Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, said during a financial call, "With Wii U, we have taken a rather resolute stance in pricing it below its manufacturing cost, so we are not planning to perform a markdown. I would like to make this point absolutely clear."
He further admitted that Nintendo has not done the best of jobs marketing the console and showing off what makes it special and worth owning (“the value of our product,” he words it as). He says that in the future Nintendo will be pushing themselves to better market the console, with the release of such games as “Mark Kart” and a new “Legend of Zelda” game in the near future.
“Iwata admitted that unlike the Wii, consumers have had difficulty instantly understanding the appeal of Wii U,” Makuch writes. He then goes on to illustrate that Iwata has noticed that consumers who have purchased the WiiU have shown a “certain degree of satisfaction.” But this degree of satisfaction has yet to pass over to a wider audience and attract new consumers.
"But since its value by nature is something that takes time to appreciate and hence cannot be spread amongst society instantly, we have yet to communicate its value to the wider public," he said. "To put it another way, we delivered Wii U to those consumers who we thought would be the first to buy it, but information has not successfully been passed on to those consumers who we think will be the next people to buy it. This must be one big factor with which Wii U could not maintain its momentum."
In the call, Iwata went on to the confirm that the Google Street View compatibility with the WiiU—known as “Wii U Street”—has also been delayed. It was announced in Dec. 2012, and was forecasted for a Jan. 2013 release; now it is being pushed back to Feb. 2013 in order to develop it further.
“Another service yet to launch for Wii U is TiVo. Previously targeted to launch in January, Nintendo has confirmed with Polygon that the feature will not release until later this year,” Makuch concludes.
For more information, check out Eddie Makuch’s original article on Gamespot.
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