Wii U pricing

[Late]

Who's talking about next gen? We're talking about the U.

[harv]

Even if the U was no more powerful than a pocket calculator it would still be a next gen console.

There's a rumour that Nintendo are going to have 3 different SKUs - $249.99, $299.99 and $349.99. Can't see it being as cheap as $249.99, that would make it as cheap as the Wii was and given the grunt under the hood Nintendo would be making a fair old loss on each system. They would probably break even at $299.99 which would probably make the UK price around £229.99 going by the Wii pricing.

[Late]

Nintendo is holding a press event for the Wii U this Thursday, in New York. Should reveal USA pricing and release date, what's included (eg will you need to fork out for a proprietary hard drive), and hopefully they'll give some more solid details of launch window titles.

Hopefully we'll get some idea of European price/release date then, too...

Nintendo Europe have now announced they'll be having a European presser - also on Thursday.
You will be able to watch it live, if you're that way inclined, here - Thursday 13th at 3 p.m.

[harv]

Cheers late. I reckon, as per usual, we'll get shafted with regards to launch day and price

[styles]

That's a lot of games. Wish I was on the dole so I could get all the consoles/games you get.

Lol.

Anyone watch "trouble on the estate"?

What a life the doleys have.

[harv]

As I've stated before several times, I'd much rather be well enough to be able to get back to work but it isn't possible at the moment unfortunately.

[jman]

Bloody hell.. according to the japanese press event... the gamepad is gonna set you back £105 apparently if you convert the japenese yen directly... and we usually get screwed on these conversions too !!

The japanese release date has been set as 8th December.

Basic SKU converts to £209 and Premium SKU converts to £251

Apparently the Basic SKU (white) has 8GB of memory whilst the Premium (black) has 32GB of memory...

Nintendo Network Premium going to be the same as PS+ it looks like.. except worse (of course)

[Late]

Holy crap, the controller's more expensive than the console.

I'm definitely out. If we'd been looking at the bundle being less than £180 (including a tablet) and additional tablets being less than £50 then I would've had a decision to make. The additional tablet would be necessary because nobody wants the kids fighting over who gets the tablet and who gets the wand. Like I say, I'd then have to make a decision. That £200-£225 price bracket would've been more than I wanted to spend but it would be doable if the kids wanted it.

If they're looking at around £350, though, they're having a laugh.

UK prices still to be confirmed, of course, but they ain't going to be cheaper than a direct yen to sterling conversion. They're going to be more expensive.

[jman]

UK prices are being touted as £229 for the base and £279 for the premium... exact same launch prices as the vita.

I cant see how the gamepad is so expensive though... just imagine breaking one 

Even the Wii U Pro Controller (360 clone) is directly converted to £40 ... such a rip-off.

[harv]

Blimey, Nintendo Network Premium is a bit of a surprise. Sod that, online gaming should always be free. Am also surprised they didn't have their regional announcements at the same time as the others. Also a major pain in the arse that the black SKU is more expensive.

Will have to wait and see what happens with regards to pricing in the UK and the States.

And late, we haven't had any news of any games needing 2 GamePads yet. Everything we've seen so far involves asymmetric multiplayer with 1 GamePad vs up to 4 remote and nunchucks.

[jman]

I think online gaming is free.. nintendo network premium will be a premium service like PS+ for customers who have bought the black premium SKU.  With the limited storage space in both SKUs you have to question nintendos determination to push digital distribution though.. I cant see their online service taking off... forcing customers to buy extra storage space is not the way to go.

And harvs right.. they havent (and wont) make any twin gamepad playable games... not just because no-one would be able to afford it.. but because the gamepads are effectively dumb terminals.. they draw their processing power and any other resources from the console.. having two gamepads doing the same thing will probably reduce framerate in games and cause other problems too...

The final (leaked) specs for the Wii U are a little underwhelming though... Shader Model 4.. so it wont be supporting the equivalent of Direct X 11 and OpenGL4.0 

[harv]

The GamePad streaming doesn't take a great deal of power surprisingly enough, just 12MFLOPS for each GamePad, and the GPU pushes somewhere between 600-800GFLOPS (and for comparison the 360 pushes 240GFLOPS, the 720 1TFLOP and the PS4 1.8TFLOPS. The drop in framerate (from a maximum of 60fps to 30fps) is down to bandwidth, not power.

And those specs aren't accurate, further leaks have stated that the GPU has been updated due to pressure from developers. It's going to have a DX11 equivalent feature set.

[Late]

Nobody wants to play asymmetrically. In gaming a player should have an advantage over others (unless they all specifically decide on it).

Originally it was supposed to support 4 gamepads - which makes sense. They know multiplayer gameplay should be balanced in that way. Then they realised they'd screwed up and it'd only support one at full power. Then they said 2 slates is perfectly possible (with a frame rate drop from 60 to 30fps, which is acceptable tbh, but slightly disappointing).

I'd say widespread support for games where two players use gamepads is inevitable, then. Or would be if the prices weren't so ridiculous.

So for a console with one game and a second controller:
£150 I'm all over it.
£200 Tough call, but I'd probably go for it.
£250 Unlikely, but still possible.
£300 No chance.
£350 You're just being silly now.
£400 Stick it where the sun don't shine. No, really - this is the real price point? Nintendo's lost the plot.
(That's guesswork, based on £230 for the basic bundle, £120 extra slate, £40 game, and I've rounded up a tenner.)

Bear in mind we're talking about a console that's barely more powerful than the 360 and ps3 (yes, Harv, we know the GPU and RAM are decent, but other aspects are arguably weaker than the ps3/360.)
Who, in their right mind, is going to pay £400 to "upgrade" from ps3/360 to something marginally better, when the nextbox/ps4 will be available for about the same price (or cheaper) about a year later?
You'd have to be insane, or on benefits. Or both.

______________________________________________________

Struggling to see what's premium about the premium bundle, btw. Assuming the internal memory works the same way as external memory (ie has no advantages over it) then you're going to end up with a hard drive plugged in to either console - so why would anyone pay an extra fifty quid for a few extra gig and a different colour scheme?...
Oh. It's Nintendo, isn't it. They make a living from squeezing extra money from people for bringing out their machines in different colours. Expect limited editions in new colours next year. For a premium price, natch...

[jman]

Yeah with a bit more info now..

Nintendo Network Premium is not like PS+ - apparently you get it as part of the "premium" bundle and its 10% off digitally bought games... apparently its to run for 2 years.

So the extras for buying a premium bundle over the base one.. extra few gig storage space.. although still very limited compared to the 360/PS3 options.. a few stands for your gamepad and console... a different coloured console.. and a 10% discount on digital games - no guarrantee you'll actually want any of those games though...

...doesnt sound that premium to me either.


One thing to remember though... whatever the RRP of the console price set for the UK.. its mainly our retailers who will set the price as they try and undercut each other... so the RRP might not translate into what you'd actually pay for the console.

[Late]

I seem to recall the Wii didn't include Wii Sports when it was released in Japan, but did over here, so there's still a remote possibility the European version of the U might include a game.

Still looks likely to be massively overpriced, though. We'll see in a few hours' time...