Nintendo Says Wii is Too Hot to Drop

Company won't follow Sony and Microsoft down the price-drop path.

A year after the launch of the Wii, the console is still proving not the easiest of finds, with supplies still running low from time to time. Little wonder then that Nintendo has no plans yet to bring down the price of the popular system.

In an interview with this week with the Associated Press, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company was still trying to cope with what he called "booming demand" for the Wii.

"We're absolutely not considering a price cut," he said.

In the UK, the Wii sells for £180 compared to £200 for the low-end Xbox 360 and £300 for the cheapest version of the PlayStation 3.

Iwata remarks are in opposition to those from his counterparts at Sony and Microsoft. The last month has seen both companies revising their hardware, offering new versions and lowering their prices too.

Something of a gamble at first, the Wii has been a massive success for Nintendo. Since the console launched last November, it has sold more than 13 million units around the world. By March next year the company expects that to stand at more than 17 million.

Software sales have been high too. Worldwide Nintendo and other publishers have together sold 65 million Wii games. In Japan, that works out at about about three games sold per console, a ratio that jumps to five per console in Europe and more than six per console in the Americas.

Nintendo and other game makers are planning to release dozens of games for the WIi over the coming months. The biggest of these is undoubtedly Super Mario Galaxy, the first traditional console platformer for the Nintendo mascot since 2002's Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube.

Super Mario Galaxy will be out in Europe on 11 November with Nintendo's other big in-house game, Super Smash Bros Brawl, due sometime during the spring.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo