Nintendo’s Revolution might come at a cost…

http://www.palgn.com.au/article.php?id=3632&sid=189925ae5c4364e32039136073b6f1b9

Discussing the potential price point of Nintendo’s upcoming console, Iwata was keen to make clear that the Revolution will be competitively priced, and confirmed will be released at US$300 or less. While this is only a maximum price, it is still higher then some were expecting.

Assuming the upper threshold mentioned is at least near the actual launch price, this would mean the Revolution will be about the same price as the Xbox 360 core package, which comes without an external hard drive. Given that no hard drive has been confirmed for the Revolution, and that the same hardware suppliers are providing the key chips for both consoles, will the two consoles be rough equivalents?

This is from an interview with Iwata from Yahoo Japan – and I really, really hope that his comments have been taken out of proportion. I fear that a $300 Revolution would be a death-knell for Nintendo – as a companion console, not directly competiting against the Big Two, it could sell a crapload, but by putting the price up there, people are going to have to choose. And considering that Nintendo have said themselves that the focus isn’t on graphics, selling their fancy controller next to fancy HD bloom lighting would be hard 🙁

Having the price increased like that, people will consider getting a different console for the same price. A core XboX360 set might probably been lowered in price by the time the Revolution gets released, making it a more viable option.

I thought the Revolution wanted to go a whole different direction with their price tag. 🙁

That is mildly disturbing. I’ll wait and see though. No sense making judgements at this point.

200/250€ has always been their launchprice over here so i’d be suprised if they would go over that

then again there’s still details about the console to be uncovered.. atleast thats what they say

i’m hoping they still add a hd or sumthin

Wow. I mean just a few weeks ago, there was talk about the price going as low as $99. While as unrealistic as that was, and maybe downright ignorant in the financial sense, it was still pretty awesome to think about. To me, $150 is what it should debut at. And I’m saying this from the technology in the system that I have seen, not from my love for the company. But I still think it will release at $199 just like the 4 previous home consoles. There is another secret about the Revolution controller that has yet to be revealed, so maybe that has some impact on the price potentially raising that much. But I don’t see what could be so costly with this other secret.

i’d be happy with 249.99

200 even is super sweet.

300….plus tax and warranty is gonna be like 375. ouchies.

You’re insane if you actually purchase a warranty on a nintendo product. They have what is probably the best customer service on the planet. You can smash their merchandise with a mallet and they’ll replace it as long as that silly sticker they put on there is still attached.

Wow. I mean just a few weeks ago, there was talk about the price going as low as $99. While as unrealistic as that was, and maybe downright ignorant in the financial sense, it was still pretty awesome to think about. To me, $150 is what it should debut at. And I’m saying this from the technology in the system that I have seen, not from my love for the company. But I still think it will release at $199 just like the 4 previous home consoles. There is another secret about the Revolution controller that has yet to be revealed, so maybe that has some impact on the price potentially raising that much. But I don’t see what could be so costly with this other secret.

Yeah, even US$199 would be a sweet price point. I can understand the premium price of the X360 and the PlayStation 3, because I know the hardware to bring HD graphics to the mainstream is expensive.

I was sold on the Revo on the annoucement of backwards compatibility with older consoles – I was planning to spend (in AU prices, mind) about $250 on the console, $50-60 on another controller, $100 on a first party game and about $50 on my favourite SNES and 64 games. That’s about AU$450 for a shitload of content – my Xbox 360, on the other hand, is going to end up costing me over $800 ($150 for the premiere pack, $650 for the console, probably $100 for another game).

Nintendo’s usually good with keeping their prices down in Australia, but if they release at a competitive price to the Xbox 360 core system, that’s AU$500. Considering that, and I quote from game developers, it’s about twice as powerful as an Xbox, I can’t justify that price.

Nintendo, please please keep the price down 🙁

Lee.

Australia just sucks big time. Everything costs way too much. 🙁

Well, he did say maximum. That does seem odd though.

Oh well. If it debuts at 300, it just means I’ll wait to buy one until the price drops, assuming they don’t ruin Super Smash Bros. for it since that’s probably the only game I will play on it.

I tried to look for the original article, but I guess yahoo news is a pay service?

But if "below $300" means "it will be $299" that will take a huge chunk out of whatever support it will get.

I won’t be getting it at release if it costs any more than $200 unless it turns out to have a super awesome opening lineup that I can’t miss.

I’ll be getting it regardless, just because it looks so fun and neat and awesome <3

If it’s that much they’re obviously over charging. You should just sneakthief it from Walmart.

I won’t be getting it at release if it costs any more than $200 unless it turns out to have a super awesome opening lineup that I can’t miss.
Well Smash Bros is said to be a release title, and I’m hoping that Super Mario 128 and Metroid Prime 3 will be as well. Seems like a good enough lineup to me!

What a humungous surprise this has turned out to be.

you know what would rule? if nintendo is charging that much, because they finally decided to go back to the old days, of packaging TWO controllers and a game all inside!!!

wouldn’t that be fucking awesome?

like when mario bros came with the nintendo and super mario world came with the snes. and always 2 controls and even an rf adapter so you woudln’t have to go to radioshack and buy one. 😀

i can’t wait to see what will develop of this.

Still not buying anything until all are out. I love playstation and nintendo for roleplaying and shooter/first-person action gaming and they do well to those areas within one system per. But the X-box looks like it’s trying to do both..which is like driving and painting your face on the highway. My money’s going to PS3 baby yeah.

Considering the Revolution features a way to download all previous Nintendo console games so you can play them, I think $300 is well worth it.

you know what would rule? if nintendo is charging that much, because they finally decided to go back to the old days, of packaging TWO controllers and a game all inside!!!

wouldn’t that be fucking awesome?

like when mario bros came with the nintendo and super mario world came with the snes. and always 2 controls and even an rf adapter so you woudln’t have to go to radioshack and buy one. 😀

i can’t wait to see what will develop of this.

I never considered that. And considering the social slant that Nintendo has been putting on the Revolution (it always shows four controllers together, all game demonstrations are multiplayer, etc) it might just happen.

A Revolution pack that included 2 controllers, a game, and maybe some classic games thrown in for free would be worth US$300 easily.

It’s better to have a lower price and no game though. Two controllers instead of one would be nice though. I don’t know anyone that has stuck with having just one controller for a system.

Classic games packed in for free would be great though!

They got too proud

I’m not confident they’ll package any with it. I just don’t trust Nintendo after the fiasco that was the classics series.

Fiasco? They did pretty well out of it, managing to sell games they’d been nearly giving away free for years.

Mind you, my imported mini-box version of Super Mario Bros. is way cooler than the boring normal GBA packaging that was released out here.

what was wrong with the classics series?

I’m willing to bet they probably got the best ROI on that whole thing than any other video game series to date

plus zelda ;-;;

I’m not confident they’ll package any with it. I just don’t trust Nintendo after the fiasco that was the classics series.

i know what you mean. in general its not a bad idea. but the prices they were asking for them were just….like wtf?

they could have started something if they did something crazy like make it 5 bucks or SOMETHING!

ps. hey i just noticed my sig ain’t showing up. arg. curse the quick post. :p

what was wrong with the classics series?

Overcharging for old games.

arg >.<

i’m posting just so my sig can show up. normally editing your post makes it show up again, it did yesterday, and now its gone again! someone’s fucking with me. i’ll kill you! i’ll turn green and TACT SMASH!

OMFG NOW I’M FUCKING PISSED! i blame everything on rezo. if not then prak.

tact: your sig shows once per page.

rezo: considering how expensive cartridge based games are, there’s not a whole lot less they could’ve done. the other alternative would have been to offer rewritable non-volitate flash based memory cards and then enabling people to download the games themselves for a minimal fee and upload to the cards. that of course makes piracy a more paramount concern though ! from a business standpoint, there was nothing wrong with what they did. in fact it was probably the best decision.

The games are 32 to 256k, nearly two decades old, and they’re emulated. They could have fit them all on a single cart with plenty of room to spare. Instead of doing that, they sold them for $20 and sold 10 packs for $200(japan only?).

Backwards compatability will be great unless Nintendo do as you’re saying rezo and include a bunch of old games on a revolution disc for like, AU$50 or something. Or if they add one little feature to the game and charge for it (like FFTactics Advance). Nintendo have a nack for re-releasing games with a little something extra and ripping you off 🙂

Well seeing how they said you will be able to download the games I don’t think it is going to work the same way.

Nobody would pay ridiculous amounts of money to download really old games. It’s ridiculous to think they could sell them at even 10 bucks a pop and still be remotely successful with that—the whole point is that people are supposed to have whole libraries of past games available, and I don’t think anybody would pay thousands of dollars for them.

I don’t think it’s really even debatable what they’ll do. They either make them really cheap or free, or nobody is interested.

I’d still be interested, just not interested in downloading them en masse.

are you really saying you wouldn’t pay 9$ to replay a few of your favorite games?

that being said though, I sure hope it’s cheaper !

9$ is a decent price especially if they would add extra’s like online multiplayer
i’m just wondering on what the hell we will keep’m

Or if they add one little feature to the game and charge for it (like FFTactics Advance).

What are you talking about? FFTactics Advance was a completely new game. Was there a "FFTactics Advanced slightly updated edition" that came out or something?

And at $9 per download they’d be fleecing the customer.There are a few arcade game collections that have a fairly large number of games on them and still sell for the amount of a regular new game which puts it somewhere at $1 – 2 per game on the disk. There is no reason for Nintendo to sell individual games for $9 other than thinking that people will be silly enough to let them get away with it… which is very possible.

Extras like online play would be great though, and I hope they include it. But it’d have to be something implemented in the same way some emulators do it on PCs rather than something they create especially for each game. If they’re going through most of their back catalog that’d be too many games to expect them to make special features for.

games like super mario world, chrono trigger, f-zero, mortalk kombat II, ultimate mortal kombat 3, samurai showdown, fatal fury, and hundreds of other timeless classics, (mostly on the snes) for 9 bucks each? i’d pay.

now if were talking nintendo games, like contra, bubble bobble, mario bro, mario bro 2, mario bro 3, and so on. i’d say maybe 4 bucks. i mostly want contra though. :p

still. i’m wondering what they’re gonna do cause a lot of classic snes (or at least the most popular) have already ported to the gba. which is double awesome. why be stuck at the house? i was hoping they’d make chrono trigger for the gba. so its like…will they really have them all, or only thsoe which they know they already ported or plan to move somewhere else.

also. rezo is right. i’ve seen those cheapy 10000 millions games in one thing. it looks like a n64 controller, and its got pacman, super mario bros, and a crapload of nintendo graphic (as in, graphics equal to the nintendo) games, and its like what? 15 bucks? were talking 9999999 games in that little thing.

heres the bottom line for me. nintendo games, will prolly not sell so well in this pay to d/l idea. but those snes games, dude…those are gonna go fucking FLYING!!! the snes is the most beloved system of all time. shit. all the systems of today WISH they could be like the snes. and if they are still hubby hubby with sega…whao. maybe classic sega games. shit man. they’re gonna rule the world. O_o (yay for nintendo)

but then again, i’m just dreaming. 🙁

heres what i hope DOESN’T HAPPEN.

they employ a strategy where they offer the games really really cheap, (like 1 dollar) only to find out you can play it for a limited time, (like…a month or so) before you have to buy again. or pay full price, (the crazy price nobody will pay) to "OWN" it.

i hate this cause that’s what cell phones do with ringtones and games you d/l. i fucking hate those fuckers.

but like i said, nes games, its debetable. the snes games on the other hand, shit, they could charge me 20 bucks and i’d be happy. (but lets not tell them that. lol)