Topic: Consumers Looking To Sweep Up A Wii U This Autumn/Winter Fall

Actually I think Wii U is going to have some sweet deals.. I am not sure about a total price cut.. but considering it will be out a year.. by this Black Friday.. it will probably have the best bundles and deals etc.. heck right now Wal Mart Online is selling the Wii U (Either Black or White your choice) with one game of your choice and one access.. your choice.. (For Instance a Wii Mote or whatever you like) for only 399.99 (Which is a pretty good value overall) and the Wii U with Zombie U is going for 379.99 ( I also question if Wii U is doing as bad as NPD says.. because while I think it's doing bad.. I noticed when I read up on them.. that they do not do figures on Wal Mart, Sam's Club, or Toy R Us.. three places that would push the Heck out of Wii U.. and Nintendo in general.. I also noticed that none of the Games on WIi U in the stores are below 59.99 except 007 Legends which I find weird considering if they were having a hard time selling anything Wal Mart will usually be the first ones to mark it down.. or get rid of it.. )

@Sony_70
That's all fine and good. I'm not really impressed, honestly, but it's whatever. Like what you want.
Also, I have another point to make regarding Netflix on Xbox 360. Chances are, that you bought an Xbox 360 to play video games. Most people will just pay to play video games online, then get Netflix later. That's actually why my family started getting Netflix.
I was using Netflix on PS3 and Wii when they still had the startup disc. I'm sure people don't buy a game system for Netflix.
They just figure Xbox Live will be paid for gaming, so it's not that big of a deal and Netflix is an extra feature mainly.

If people are buying the system to play games then why charge for the non gaming dunctions. Despite having to pay for online play on PS4 stuff like netflix can be used without PS+.

@Sony_70
Xbox Live is system wide. No one buys an Xbox 360 to play DVDs or watch Netflix. They buy it to play video games.
They figure if you play video ganes online, you'll have the service. They aren't trying to keep people from buying Netflix on their system. It just turns out that Xbox Live is an all or nothing deal.
Netflix wasn't even relevant until like 2009, so their network wasn't set up to allow more flexibility. Without services like Netflix, no one would even tell the difference.
Xbox One will probably let people watch Netflix this time around without Xbox Live.

PS3 was $600. It would have been stupid as hell if they didn't have free online and more options. It also turns out that they had to sell at a loss for basically 4 years on the console itself, and that affects maintenance on the servers, too. Then Move was useless, and now the camera isn't required which will probably lose Sony even more money.

In conclusion, streaming services and digital have become popular. This is a new generation and they will tackle it the best they can for today's trends.

What do you mean they're network isn't flexible. That's really not how it works man. Microsoft has even had weekends where the unwashed silver masses could play on Gold. Also I know quite a few people who have 360's only for non gaming functions. Hell microsoft had should stats that media stuff has outpaced game playing.

The camera not being required isn't a bad thing. The Kinect being included with the One has upped the price by around $150 making it unprofitable.

I meant more like price drops rather than stuff like that. That's really not much of a deal, since you're still spending a lot of money at once.

The bundles will definitely be coming, but I'm one of those who still believes Nintendo will enact a last-minute, unannounced price cut around the holidays. I have to agree with the analysts: a price cut at the perfect time, with the perfect number of games available, could possibly "save" the Wii U in the mass market.

I don't think its last minute. They probably want to milk as many sales they can get with the current line up and drop the price closer to the announcement of the PS4/One release date.

@Sony_70

They probably have it planned. I meant "last-minute" as in we, the consumers, may very well NOT know about any sort of price cut until the day it happens.

It's no worse than what they are offering for the PS3/360.. and actually is a better deal than some places have for those systems.. also.. a Price Cut would not help the Wii U right now.. or during the Holiday Season.. Games will.. and they are getting that.. but an actual price cut... may not happen till early next year.. or if it does.. it would be shortly before Christmas.. whenever they get all their titles out (Nintendo I mean) But by then we'll have two more systems launched.. and the 8th gen will be in full swing.. and of course it will be more than likely.. Wii U will be the best priced 8th Gen offering.. and most likely get really good sales.. so it would not be required for them to drop the price.. until Next Year... (Though it would not surprise me if they did it this year.. but I just don't see that happening.. they would not want to lose more money than they already have.. )

@Sony_70
So what? Why does it matter? Nintendo could overhaul the OS this fall, and everyone that has a Wii U will be like, "Why the hell do Xbox One and PS4 pay for online?".
As long as the machine plays video games online for free, people are going to take notice.

Even with Xbox Live. I've had a better time on that than PSN. Ya, PS3 had good free online, but it didn't measure up to Xbox Live, IMO.
There were more people playing online and the servers were better based on consistency.

Now PS4 has paid online, and it still won't measure up because they didn't charge in the first place.
It's one of those deals where free online is ideal, and do everything you can with it, with the other option being paid, and I want the best service available for what I pay.

There were still deals on Xbox Live. I'm pretty sure Gears of War is like $5 on the Xbox Live marketplace. PS+ is just deals you would have had anyway.
I bought Borderlands on PS3 when I had PS+, and the game went down even cheaper in like 1 month.

EDIT: You can't choose what games to rent. I filled up my 250GB HDD in like a half a year on games I didn't really care for. I could have bought like 7 or 8 PSOne games for the price of PS+ and been able to keep them.

It's a better value to be able to keep what little you have, vs. getting alot and never owning it. By the time you've spent enough to make PS+ worthwhile, you've already laid down a ton more money.

I think this is a very US centric thing if it's not just some sort of bullpoopiedoodlecacabumbum you just made up. Here in Aussieland where there is no Netflix or Hulu and a pretty average internet infrastructure (and people wonder why we're the piracy capital of the world) the consoles are just DVD/Blu-Ray + DLNA + Youtube machines. So this purchasing just for media really doesn't happen at all. Happened a while there when the PS3's BluRay + DLNA thing was unique, makes less sense now that decent Blu-Ray players are <$100AU.

Plus there's the fact that the US is getting ChromeCast now which is a "SmartTV features killer". I paid something like $200AU at the height of the last console generation for a WDTV and it didn't even have any online connectivity. All to sneakernet HD media on a portable HDD from my computer to TV. Now if your TV doesn't have that functionality built in or is kinda clunky in its implementation you guys can pay $35US for a thumbdrive sized HDMI plug that does that and more. The days of a gaming console being able to get itself into your media setup for something other than games are numbered.
_{watch the profanity — TBD}

@Skywake

Its totally an american thing made moot by the chromecast which is the future of these types of products. Mine in back ordered on Google Play. Now just have to decide on getting a Vita or the new nexus 7 first.

"Why the hell do Xbox One and PS4 pay for online?".

PS3 had good free online, but it didn't measure up to Xbox Live, IMO.

You said it yourself the PS3 as it is free lacks towards a paying service, there is no way on earth you can have an excellent online network unless you put money into it. And i'm sure over the next 5years Nintendo online network, will be roughly as it is now unless Nintendo themselves are willing to put money into it.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/stock/meeting/120628qa/index....

Nintendo has another strategy on online, and when I think about, with everyone else charging for online now, theirs might end up being the best:

" We have a wide variety of consumers, from the ones who enthusiastically play video games to those playing more casually, who are not always interested in them but try to play a game only when it has become a public topic or play it just during certain periods, like a year-end season and summer vacation. We therefore believe that services which ask our consumers to obtain paid memberships are not always the best. We cannot promise here that Nintendo will always provide you with online services free of charge no matter how deep the experiences are that it may provide, but at least we are not thinking of asking our consumers to pay money to just casually get access to our ordinary online services.

On the other hand, some of you attending here must naturally wonder if the company can afford to say such a thing when it is attempting to improve profitability. However, our aim is that network services will eventually contribute to our overall profits even if they are available for free. More specifically, network services will let you communicate with other people, visualize what they are interested in and tell you something you did not know. Haven’t you ever had an experience that one of your friends introduced you to a song or a movie and that you regret not watching the movies by a certain director or listening to the songs by a certain artist in your life until then? If we are not aware of them, they are virtually nonexistent to us. Exactly the same thing can be said about video games. In developing a network service called “Miiverse” available for the Wii U, we are pursuing how to amplify and transmit consumers’ empathy about a game. For example, when you see another user enjoying the same game you also play say, “I enjoyed another game like this and that too,” you might be interested in a game which otherwise would not be on your wish list at all. In other words, even if we will not directly get paid by such online services, they will help build the circumstance where consumers are more constantly playing games on our platforms, which will increase the sales potential of new games, or a consumer who has played two games a year would be inclined to try three or four games a year. In short, we expect that online services will contribute to our profits in the form of increasing the number of games to be sold for one platform. From an economic standpoint, with that as an objective, the company is considering the necessary and appropriate services."

I would also like to add, that Nintendo can still gain revenue for their online network in others ways. Buying digitally probably contributes to their servers.

The extra little bits of money they're making on digital buys from people who just want the game is probably going towards NN right now. Plus, they said subscriptions and other things are being considered.

They'll still be able to pay for servers. Even Flipnote 3D will cost $1 a month if you don't contribute.