Wii U pricing

[harv]

32GB sounds a bit small... and that's the premium package?

Yup, but they needed to cut costs after bunging so much RAM in and having the GPU they've chosen. Heat is also a major factor too. That's why they've also had an external power supply.

For casual gamers even 8GB will be enough for a while, and a fair amount of hardcore gamers will most likely have a spare hard drive lying around. There's also SDHC cards, flash drives and USB drives too, and unlike the PS3 there's no size or speed restrictions to worry about.

[harv]

Fucking hell, demand for the U in Japan is going to be bloody insane!!!

I thought they might launch with Monster Hunter as a bundle but a Beta of Dragon Quest X is going to be very tasty icing on a very nice cake.

You couldn't possibly get a more popular bundle over there, christ on a bike they won't be able to make the things quick enough

You might even find them importing stock from the States and Europe if it's available. And launching with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is going to guarantee that Miiverse is going to be absolutely heaving with Hunters.

[Late]

Heat was a deciding factor in opting to use a 32gb drive instead of a 250gb one? Roffles.

If you've got an 8gb drive you can't install anything. System files, profiles, game updates, and save files will eat through that in no time.
A 32gb drive might last a casual gamer for a couple of months (again, so long as they don't install or download any full games), but to all intents and purposes both are way too small.


The normal Premium set in Japan makes no sense. Who's going to buy it if it has no game included, and is a few quid cheaper than the MH3 bundle?

[harv]

Heat was a factor in Nintendo choosing on-board flash instead of an internal hard drive.

[jman]

Why did they decide to go with USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 or eSata then... the bandwidth limitations of USB 2.0 will effect an external hard-drive in terms of lag and latency... internal hard-drives are far superior..  you'll also find that using flash memory instead of a hard-drive is also slower

Overall, nintendo went for the cheapest option available to them... nothing to do with heat at all... SSDs generate little to no heat, they didnt go with them because of cost too... I fully expect the nextbox to come equpped with SSDs and USB 3.0 as standard...

[Late]

Aye, I'm confused as to why Nintendo have done everything in their power to keep the console cost as low as possible - including cutting a lot of corners - and then have inlaid the gamepads with diamonds. (I'm guessing that's what they've done - I can see no other reason for them being more than £50 each.)

[jman]

Because they are more interested in trying to innovate than building a machine that is capable of great performance... quite simply, thats where nintendo think the money is.. building a peripheral that grabs peoples attention is exactly how they won last-gen... however, how fast did they burn out? - around 3-4 years before every man and his dog jumped ship.... extremely fast!

[harv]

Internal hard drives bung out a shitload of heat, as do internal power supplies. That's why the PS3 has size and speed restrictions for internal hard drives.

And of course they're trying to make the console as cheap as possible. If they had decided to release a console without doing that then we'd end up seeing a console costing £400+...and then you'd all be saying that the console is too expensive lol.

And there isn't a great deal inside the GamePad, it's just a dumb terminal with an NFC reader and motion detectors inside it. It won't be that expensive when it's available to buy separately. Platform holders always have a ridiculously high mark up on controllers but I can't see it being more expensive than a RemotePlus and Nunchuck combination. We're probably talking about £70 each.

Interesting news about the CPU, the general consensus of opinion was that the CPU was a PowerPC but now we have confirmation that the CPU is a custom Power7 after all. PowerPCs and Power CPUs are closely related though.

[Late]

And of course they're trying to make the console as cheap as possible. If they had decided to release a console without doing that then we'd end up seeing a console costing £400+...and then you'd all be saying that the console is too expensive lol.

Indeed.
Amazing, then, that Nintendo have come up with a console that's less than £100* and a controller that's "just a dumb terminal with an NFC reader and motion detectors inside it", have bundled it with one game and have the audacity to ask over £300 for it. (Okay, it's retailers asking that price, not Nintendo. Either way, it's overpriced)

You think we'll complain it's too expensive if it's £400+?
You're way off the mark. We think it's too expensive at £300.



*Based on the US basic bundle being $300 (£185) and the gamepad being ¥13,440 (£107) one can argue the console (plus two ac adapters and a hdmi cable) costs £78. Yeah, that's perhaps taking liberties with cost analysis. But not much.

[harv]

I personally think it's better to have the option of having your own choice of what to use as storage. A great deal of 'hardcore' gamers won't need to buy a USB drive because they already have one or more lying around the house, same with SD cards too.

And as I've already mentioned there's no limit to the size or speed of the drive either.

I'd much rather pay £299.99 for a U with 32GB of on-board flash than £399.99 or more for one with a 500GB internal drive that's twice the size and twice as loud.

Mind you, even if Nintendo managed to release a console with the same spec as the 720 with a 3TB hard drive and people would still find something to complain about lol

Edit: Bah! No surprise but Amazon have refused to reinstate my £199.99 pre-order from June because it was made before the official pre-order date. Oh well, it was worth a go lol

[jman]

I'd much rather pay £299.99 for a U with 32GB of on-board flash than £399.99 or more for one with a 500GB internal drive that's twice the size and twice as loud.

If that was true, then surely you'd rather pay £229.99 for a basic U model with 8GB of on-board flash - LOL you wally 

Oh I forgot your paying that extra £70 for ZombiU which costs about £35 and a Pro Controller - which I dont get why you want.. surely you wont need it seeing as you only play on your own and you have existing wiimotes already... or maybe you think the gamepad and wiimotes aren't as accurate as dual thumbsticks - lol.

[Late]

I personally think it's better to have the option of having your own choice of what to use as storage.

Well of course you do. Nintendo did it so you think it's the best thing to do.
If, instead, they'd announced they were releasing the machine with a reasonable amount of storage you would be telling us how that was the right thing to do.
A base model with a small drive makes sense. A premium model with a reasonable amount of space makes sense. Nintendo eschewed that logic, though, and made a base model with a small drive and a premium model with a small drive.
The 32gb model makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

And as I've already mentioned there's no limit to the size or speed of the drive either.

Of course there's a limit to the speed - they've opted to go with USB2.
It's just like last gen when they gave the wii an SD slot - which was limited to SD and wouldn't take SDHC. They had a proper brain fart there.

I'd much rather pay £299.99 for a U with 32GB of on-board flash than £399.99 or more for one with a 500GB internal drive that's twice the size and twice as loud.

a) I'd much rather pay £200 than £300. Because the bundle's worth about £200.
b) Why not save yourself £70 and get the base model instead, then? [heh - I see Kieron beat me to that point while I was typing]
c) And how on earth do you come to the conclusion that using a 500gb 2.5" drive instead of a 32gb flash drive would add a hundred quid to the machine?! It'd add about £30, not £100 (based on 32gb flash drives being about £10 and 500gb portable drives approx £40. I've seen models of both retailing for around those prices. Nintendo could presumably get them a lot cheaper - the real price increase of putting a 500gb drive in instead of a 32gb one is probably closer to £20, but I'll round it up to £30.) Also, the drive would not double the size of the console, nor make it noisy. I use portable drives every day - they're small, generate no heat, are completely inaudible even if running non-stop for hours, and have perfectly adequate transfer speeds.

Mind you, even if Nintendo managed to release a console with the same spec as the 720 with a 3TB hard drive and people would still find something to complain about lol

Yes they would. I'll even tell you what it is they'd complain about. It'd be the price - because Nintendo would be asking for two hundred quid more than Microsoft would.


Look at it this way. Since the 360's release in 2005 we've effectively now been asked the question:
do you want to wait 7 years for something that's twice as powerful - and costs £300; or
do you want to wait 8 years for something that's eight times as powerful - and costs £400?
If there was any sense in the world nobody would go with option a. There's a lot of idiots, though, with more money than sense; and there's a lot of parents under pressure to get the latest toys, so the U will sell - despite all rationale.

[harv]

I'd much rather pay £299.99 for a U with 32GB of on-board flash than £399.99 or more for one with a 500GB internal drive that's twice the size and twice as loud.

If that was true, then surely you'd rather pay £229.99 for a basic U model with 8GB of on-board flash - LOL you wally 

Oh I forgot your paying that extra £70 for ZombiU which costs about £35 and a Pro Controller - which I dont get why you want.. surely you wont need it seeing as you only play on your own and you have existing wiimotes already... or maybe you think the gamepad and wiimotes aren't as accurate as dual thumbsticks - lol.

I'm getting the Pro controller for when I have friends and family around. And buying one with 32GB of flash instead of 8GB means that I'll have enough storage to be getting on with.

As for late's points regarding the size and cost of the drive, it would cost an extra hundred quid or more because drives do produce heat. They're not magic lol. You'd need extra cooling, heat sinks and a redesign of the case for adequate air flow. And that's where the extra noise comes from too. If they could produce a SKU with a hard drive for an extra 20 quid they would have done so.

And the speed I was talking about was rpm, not data transfer. I'm also fine with USB 2.0 as well, although I would prefer 3.0, again, it's not a disaster.

[Late]

I don't claim to be an expert (unlike some) but you have some funny bloody ideas, you, Harv.

If a drive doesn't produce much heat it's got nothing to do with magic.
A 2.5 inch drive produces barely any heat, would not require a heat sink, and would be extremely unlikely to need a fan. Portable drives don't even have vents, and they don't get warm. It's possibly different if a drive's inside a hot machine and disrupting the air flow, of course, but would be unlikely to make any actionable difference and is going to be mainly down to poor design - ie don't put it where it's disrupting air flow.
And of course there are other options, such as solid state drives. (Yes, they produce heat - but you'd need an accurate device to detect it it's such a small amount.) I'd imagine Nintendo could get 64gb drives for about £20 each. They often retail for less than £30, now.
I think 64gb too small, tbh, but it makes a lot more sense than 32gb.
They could easily have put more storage inside the U without it becoming massive and noisy. I'm at a loss to see why they didn't.

Also don't get hung up on the size of the machine. Some people would prefer the machine to be fractionally bigger if it meant less wires and drives on their TV stand...

Nintendo are cutting corners on important things, and being frivolous on others. A reasonable sized drive was definitely a realistic option, without much cost etc. but they decided to save a few quid (not loads - literally just a few pounds) and go with something ridiculous instead. It should definitely support usb3.0 but again they've skimped on it to save pennies.
Why cut corners to save a few pence here and there, and then have the gamepad cost about £130? It makes no sense. How can a small low res screen strapped to a controller possibly cost that much?

Make your console a reasonable price and earn your fortune from games, Nintendo. That's how it's done. You've been in the game long enough to know that.
Don't try to make a massive profit on each machine. You tried that with the 3DS. See how well that turned out...

[harv]

We don't know how much the GamePad costs to buy because they aren't on sale yet. We've only been given a price for them in Japan. And you have to remember that platform holders normally have a huge markup on controllers. The BOM isn't that much, all you've got are the usual buttons, plastic casing, gyroscope, accelerometers, magnetometer, NFC reader, microphone, camera and a 6.2" resistive touchscreen. You're probably talking about 40 dollars at the most. They'll probably have it retailing in the States for $80 and over here for £70, which is around the same price as a remote and nunchuck combination when the Wii launched that absolutely nobody had a problem paying.