Beginning on September 20th, the Wii U Deluxe model will be getting a $50 price drop, bringing the price to $299.99. This is in addition to the already announced Wind Waker HD bundle, which will also retail at $299.99 and include a 32GB hard drive, a Zelda-themed GamePad, and digital copies of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD and the Zelda Hyrule Historia book.


According to Kotaku the basic model is being phased out:

Kotaku said:

Nintendo has all but phased out the white 8GB version of the Wii U, a system that retailers seemed to begin dumping this past spring. That "basic" version of Nintendo's console had originally sold for $299, sans pack-in game. "That has largely sold through in the marketplace," Fils-Aime said. "There is not much of that particular configuration out and we don't expect there to be much at all come September 20."

SOURCE: Nintendo.Com, IGN, Kotaku

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@Zero

HA! I guess thats true.

@Hinph

Makes sense. I think when I got my Gamecube, I played Luigi's Mansion first (can't confirm), and then played Rogue Squadron FOR HOURS. I was hearing TIE fighters even when I wasn't playing. GREAT GAME.

Posted by

Mr_Mustache

on: 08/29/13, 02:19

The market has never been so roundly priced in such sharp tiers.

Wii: $100
Xbox 360 / Playstation 3: $200
Wii U: $300
Playstation 4: $400
Xbox One: $500

Could Nintendo sell a Wii U with a Pro Controller sans Gamepad for $200 to directly compete with the 360/PS3 and start selling the Gamepad separately for $100?

Posted by

RAW

on: 08/29/13, 02:41

A cheap 480p touch screen doesn't add $100 to Wii U's manufacturing costs, people. The system needs to be bundled with a controller regardless so the only money to be saved is the difference between a normal controller and a wii u gamepad. Which is nothing but a cheap screen and a little extra plastic.

Posted by

Renjaku

on: 08/29/13, 02:54

Edited:

08/29/13, 02:56

@DeputyVanHalen

Dude! Rock on!

They'll match the price if they lower the price within 15 days of my purchase. I just found the receipt. Bought it on the 20th. So that gives me 7 days. If they lower the price in those 7 days, maybe have a sale prior to the price being reduced, I can get some $ back.

Thanks.

Posted by

chrisguy

on: 08/29/13, 03:12

Renjaku said:

A cheap 480p touch screen doesn't add $100 to Wii U's manufacturing costs, people. The system needs to be bundled with a controller regardless so the only money to be saved is the difference between a normal controller and a wii u gamepad. Which is nothing but a cheap screen and a little extra plastic.

I've been saying this for day one, it adds maybe $15 - $20 to the cost, and the video streaming is just a modified wi-fi chip that cost practically nothing (not counting the licensing fees and R&D cost it took to develop, that was probably considerable).

Posted by

deathly_hallows

on: 08/29/13, 03:19

Edited:

08/29/13, 03:20

Renjaku said:

A cheap 480p touch screen doesn't add $100 to Wii U's manufacturing costs, people. The system needs to be bundled with a controller regardless so the only money to be saved is the difference between a normal controller and a wii u gamepad. Which is nothing but a cheap screen and a little extra plastic.

But the Gamepad is much more than a 480p touch screen. It has a ton of tech in it. I'm sure it doesn't cost Nintendo $100 to manufacture it, but R&D costs factor into pricing, and its value as a consumer product is probably pretty close to $100.

The Gamepad has a 6.2 inch 845x480 resolution touchscreen, a microphone, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a front-facing camera, and proprietary wireless near-field communication. It's like a smartphone without the CPU and RAM--a smart-terminal. I think you're tremendously underestimating its value.

Posted by

RAW

on: 08/29/13, 03:20

Edited:

08/29/13, 03:26

@RAW
But most of the cost of the WUG was offset by cheaping out in other areas like HDD, RAM, and graphics hardware, so I still think Wii U has suffered from a "value proposition" standpoint since day one, it's always seemed to expensive for what it is. Now that the price has dropped (to me at least) it seems like a much better value.

Posted by

deathly_hallows

on: 08/29/13, 03:35

Wiimote+ has a speaker, gyro, accelerometer and R&D costs too. So there's only the pure manufacturing costs of mic, magnetometer, camera, NFC, and the 6.2 inch 845x480 touchscreen to consider. A normal controller could use a magnetometer, mic, camera, NFC too. Or you can make a gamepad with those features removed.

Posted by

Renjaku

on: 08/29/13, 03:36

Edited:

08/29/13, 03:48

If Wii U sells 50 million and its R&D was $500 million, then that adds $10 to do the cost of the system in order to recoup. R&D costs don't add much.

Posted by

Renjaku

on: 08/29/13, 04:02

Edited:

08/29/13, 04:03

Renjaku said:

If Wii U sells 50 million...

That seems VERY optimistic to me.

Posted by

Koovaps

on: 08/29/13, 06:37

@Koovaps
Longer gens.

Posted by

Renjaku

on: 08/29/13, 07:02

@Renjaku
Sadly, I think 50 million is still optimistic with longer gens, and I don't expect Nintendo to wait another 6 years for their next go-round.

Posted by

Koovaps

on: 08/29/13, 07:08

Edited:

08/29/13, 07:09

So, how much space should we expect Wind Waker to take up, seeing as how the 32GB model actually has 24.8GB out of the box?

Posted by

sirmastersephiroth

on: 08/29/13, 07:14

@Koovaps

That doesn't seem so to me. I'm pretty confident once the games start rolling, Wii U will sell a lot more. I think it'll probably sell 60-70 million (after another price drop) when it is all said and done

Posted by

Tranquilo

on: 08/29/13, 07:20

Wiimote+ is the last frontier in controllers. What could a new system do that Wii U can't?

Posted by

Renjaku

on: 08/29/13, 07:30

@Koovaps
I agree. Even if it does sell 50 million, I think around 2017 or 2018 Nintendo will put out another console that is more powerful than the PS4 and Xbone. Things could get real interesting then, because I really think Sony and MS don't want to release another console for 10 years or so.

Posted by

DeputyVanHalen

on: 08/29/13, 14:49

DeputyVanHalen said:

@Koovaps
I agree. Even if it does sell 50 million, I think around 2017 or 2018 Nintendo will put out another console that is more powerful than the PS4 and Xbone. Things could get real interesting then, because I really think Sony and MS don't want to release another console for 10 years or so.

Didn't they say the same thing about the PS3? I think as long as someone releases a new console, the pressure will build and everyone will need to release one anyway, around the same time.

Posted by

TriforceBun

on: 08/29/13, 14:51

@sirmastersephiroth
It originally fit on one GC disc, so it couldn't have been more than 1.5 GB. Adding HD textures will raise that, but with no voice acting or HD movies added I'd be surprised if it's more than 5 GB or so.

Posted by

DeputyVanHalen

on: 08/29/13, 14:54

Edited:

08/29/13, 14:54

I'd think it'd be in the realm of 2-3 gigs, no?

Posted by

carlosrox

on: 08/29/13, 20:08

Just for comparison, MGS2/MGS3 HD on Vita is 3.8GBs.

Posted by

missypissy

on: 08/29/13, 20:12