Nintendo cutting Cube prices by 50%?

[Squiffy]

According to theregister Nintendo is cutting GC prices across UK and Europe by up to 50%.

Nintendo today said it will cut the price of the GameCube console in Europe, slashing the cost of the console by up to 50 per cent to £80 ($132) in the UK and €99 ($115) on the Continent.

It also cut the console's price in Japan, by 29 per cent to ¥13,999 ($126).

The Japanese and European price shifts follow a similar move last week to drop the US price to $99.

A pro-active move, or out of desperation to clear their inventory of unsold stock before they restart production?

[Taz]

hmm... £80 in the UK and over the water...
99 Euro = 69.29 UK Sterling
Exchange rate: 0.69989



Just not right eh!

[RL123]

US price is without sales tax though. UK price is with VAT. So it only works out about £6 more expensive for us.

[museumsteve]

official price drop from next Friday..£79.99 good move by Nintendo

[Taz]

Originally posted by museumsteve
official price drop from next Friday..£79.99 good move by Nintendo

Steve, as a man in the know, how much was the SNES & N64 when they were in their prime? More than £80 I bet!

[Miyazaki]

Suits me. I'll probably buy one if they are RRP of £80. Probably translates to £80 plus a free game or two in gamestation / game. To be quite frank, i don't really care if Nintendo go out of the console business, as it's their games i'm interested in, not their p!ss poor hardware. I mean what the heck does the gamecube look like? Some sort of neo-camp handbag with it's handle and lovely purple colour

In the U.S sales have increased by 4 X since the price drop so great move by Nintendo they are surely at a price now that Microsoft dare not match with the current losses on XBOX, and Nintendo have still not taken losses on the hardware

As for gamecube looks, i have the platinum gamecube and i tell u what it looks a hell of alot sweeter than the other 2 consoles

there seems to be alot of talk about desperation, i ask you this what is a bigger sign of desperation? A Console having a price drop to a price where people cannot afford NOT to buy but at the same time still dont sell the hardware at a loss? OR sell the console at a HUGE loss in order to get people to buy it? XBOX


hmmmm thats a tough one

I dont wanna get into any war this is just a simple question

[Miyazaki]

i agree. I don't think microsoft could afford to make the xbox much cheaper. Also i believe they are commited to matching their prices or tying their prices to PS2, rather than Gamecube. Also, the Xbox player is more akin to the PS2 player, rather than the Gamecube player, on average.

That is they tend to be older, more into "adult" gaming such as fps games, and online games which gamecube doesn't provide, but ps2 increasingly does.

Any price drops certainly affect me as i'm more likely to buy any given console at a cheap enough price

Gamecube certainly seems to be the most cost effective for Nintendo. Maybe they were thinking about the stiffer market position they faced after the flop that was the N64, so re-thought the whole price vs features thing, which microsoft obviously favoured in the latter, and Nintendo in the former.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what price the console sells for, as people buy consoles for games, and with Nintendos slim line-up, however good, doesn't bode as attractive to the average gamer who likes a broad range of games, rather than the one or two per genre that Nintendo provides. As reviews of games are highly subjective, one man's Metroid is another man's Halo.

Originally posted by Games Guru
i agree. I don't think microsoft could afford to make the xbox much cheaper. Also i believe they are commited to matching their prices or tying their prices to PS2, rather than Gamecube. Also, the Xbox player is more akin to the PS2 player, rather than the Gamecube player, on average.

That is they tend to be older, more into "adult" gaming such as fps games, and online games which gamecube doesn't provide, but ps2 increasingly does.

Any price drops certainly affect me as i'm more likely to buy any given console at a cheap enough price

Gamecube certainly seems to be the most cost effective for Nintendo. Maybe they were thinking about the stiffer market position they faced after the flop that was the N64, so re-thought the whole price vs features thing, which microsoft obviously favoured in the latter, and Nintendo in the former.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what price the console sells for, as people buy consoles for games, and with Nintendos slim line-up, however good, doesn't bode as attractive to the average gamer who likes a broad range of games, rather than the one or two per genre that Nintendo provides. As reviews of games are highly subjective, one man's Metroid is another man's Halo.

I agree with most of what you said but i will say at £79 people will buy it just for 1 game not for the "Bigger Picture" EG a game like mario kart which many people will want to play, Resident Evil 4 getting alot of people excited, Rogue Sqraudron 3, Metal gear Solid etc if theres 1 big game that catches there eye at £79 they just wont walk away

that being said i still dont think the gamecube has a slim lineup yes some multi format games have not come to gamecube but a very small amount of those are even worthy of play, and theres some very big games on the way

[Miyazaki]

I'll probably buy one if it comes bundled with Rogue Squad 3 at £80. Although i tend to agree with people that say Nintendo is trying to get rid of their remaining Gamecubes and probably won't start producing them again. Just seems more logical to me. Nintendo's strength will always be in their first-party software, not in their hardware. It makes more sense for them to sell their software on PS2 and Xbox, and concentrate their hardware thoughts on the hand-held market, which seems to be far more profitable for them. Looking on amazon.co.uk recently i noticed the Xbox had a higher sales rating that either the gamecube (zelda bundle) or the ps2 (this was before the ps2 became feautred item and xbox was at around 16 and ps2 somewhere in the 20s or 30s). Seems their online gaming is taking off. Best of luck to Nintendo for the future. But for the home console market, it makes far more sense to concentrate on producing quality games, rather than lacklustre consoles.

Originally posted by Games Guru
I'll probably buy one if it comes bundled with Rogue Squad 3 at £80. Although i tend to agree with people that say Nintendo is trying to get rid of their remaining Gamecubes and probably won't start producing them again. Just seems more logical to me. Nintendo's strength will always be in their first-party software, not in their hardware. It makes more sense for them to sell their software on PS2 and Xbox, and concentrate their hardware thoughts on the hand-held market, which seems to be far more profitable for them. Looking on amazon.co.uk recently i noticed the Xbox had a higher sales rating that either the gamecube (zelda bundle) or the ps2. Seems their online gaming is taking off. Best of luck to Nintendo for the future. But for the home console market, it makes far more sense to concentrate on producing quality games, rather than lacklustre consoles.

So your basically saying they should stop producing consoles even though they are making profit from it? i dont know about you but if i was Nintendo i would carry on doing whatever makes me money and if consoles turn a profit i would continue to make them, dont forget sales are still higher worldwide for the cube over XBOX,

If you would think anyone would pull out it would be MS as i gaurentee if the XBOX was made by ANY other company in the world it would be dead and no longer made by now, no-one apart from MS would be willing to lose nearly 2 BILLION POUND on a console, its going to take them YEARS And YEARS and YEARS to make that back in there games division and turn a profit on XBOX/XBOX2/XBOX3 if they ever do.

P.S Are you THE Games Guru from Gamezville?

[Miyazaki]

Thats true. Can you see Bill Gates conceding defeat though? No chance. They have a turnover more than most African countries, so whats 2 billion to Bill? (And where did you get this figure???). He probably sees xbox as a taxloss I also can't see how Nintendo can make a profit selling a console for £80 with a bundled game. That's just crazy to suggest they could.

I don't believe Xbox is competing directly with Gamecube anyway. Like i said PS2 and Xbox have a more common target audience than gamecube. Besides the Xbox and Gamecube are so weak sales wise compared to the PS2, i doubt if they are concerned with each other. I mean what gamer who liked pokemon would be interested in halo, or vice versa? Gamecube's strategy seems to be to get people to buy a second console in addition to an xbox or ps2. And MS strategy seems to be to take a market share away from PS2.

Its silly to suggest gamecube is competing still. Go into any high street shop and see the tiny row at the back of the shop that belongs to gamecube. In comparison to 3 or 4 rows for xbox and the rest of the shop for PS2 / PC

Even if people are buying gamecubes, retailers don't seem to be interested. Fact.

I'm not quite as good-looking as the games guru from gamezville . He reminds me of the warthog from the lion king.

OK we can agree to disagree i think

All i will say is Yahoo reported 2 weeks ago worldwide sales is half a million ahead of XBOX so it is still competing and secondly loads of retailers in Europe and U.S have welcomed the price cut of the gamecube and expect great sales over the holiday season

and lastly the gamecube is NOT bundled with a game at £79 (Correct Me If I Am Wrong) and its rumoured it costs around £60 to produce gamecube.

nice to have a decent discussion for once even if we have different views, although i am a big Nintendo fan i have a PS2 as well which i think is a great console and as you say dominates all in sales/market share

After a little search on google i found this

http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/CPC/a...p%3F0si=-.html

"MICROSOFT EXPECTS TO lose $750 million in the current fiscal year ending June 30 (Thats 2002 BTW) and another $1.1 billion in the next fiscal year (June 2003)"

[museumsteve]

at the same time, there must be some kind of irony that Nintendo are about to announce their first loss since 1962

"As it struggles to score points against larger rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp., Nintendo Co. on Friday warned of its first loss since the Japanese video game maker went public in 1962.

The maker of the popular Game Boy hand-held player estimated a $27-million loss in the first six months of its fiscal year, contrasted with the $100-million profit projected in May.

For the year ending March 31, Nintendo forecast net income of about $542 million, down nearly 8 percent from an earlier estimate of $588 million.

Nintendo executives blamed a stronger yen for the showing but did not cut the company's annual sales forecast of $5 billion.

''The company keeps large cash deposits in the U.S.,'' said George Harrison, Nintendo's executive vice president for marketing in North America. Harrison said the strong yen eroded the face value of those holdings."

[Squiffy]

Originally posted by museumsteve
at the same time, there must be some kind of irony that Nintendo are about to announce their first loss since 1962

And you have to wonder how they make a loss.

Gameboy is undoubtedly profitable. Games production is profitable... So what does that leave to make a loss on? Gamecube.

OK, they might sell it for more than the cost of manufacture, but what is the actual profit per Gamecube after tax, distribution, retail margin, marketing, amortisation of R&D, etc.? Given the fact they are to make a loss, it seems that they are not actually making money on the GC.