Topic: Wii U Games $49.99 USD?

Haha!

I go by the theory that if they don't try to push extra stuffs at me at the point of sale that they are making money on it. When you buy a laptop or a TV at JB or even the BigWs they'll be all "what about a screen protector" or "what about an extended warranty" and so on. Walk upto a counter with a game and they'll say "oh, Tatsunoku vs Capcom? that looks interesting", get the disk, say "have a nice day" and send you on your way.

ummmm..... wat?

I opened this thread again and saw $130 and thought "oh god I hope not..... oh, the console not the games".

Currently EB Games AU has a list of Wii U games and the price on all of them is $108. Ouch. I hope that's not true.

I don't fully understand how console manufacturers make money, and I'm not an economist, but could retail games be a bit cheaper if the Wii U was priced to make profits? As far as I know, Sony's selling their PS3 at a loss and charges $60 per game on average, and Microsoft initially sold the 360 at a loss. The Wii, on the other hand, sold at the "right price" and made profits shortly after, and its common games price was $50. My little hypothesis is that the other two charged more to offset the losses of their consoles.

On Bestbuy.ca they just put up a bunch of Wii U games, and they're almost all listed as $60 except Pikmin 3 is one of the few exceptions at $50. It could be they're just covering themselves and don't have a clue about the real MSRP, because I know last year they listed Skyward Sword at $60 before bringing it down to $50 eventually.

@bobbiKat
The PS3 and 360 haven't been selling at a loss for quite a few years and the 3DS is, or at least was last I heard, now selling at a loss after the price drop. So that argument doesn't hold up too well. Price has more to do with covering distribution/development costs and that silly graph thingo earlier only has $12US going to the console maker....... which I think is probably more-or-less the same across the consoles.

$50 or I'm not buying.

I dare say you won't be buying then. Development costs are going to be far higher than they were for the Wii, and so I can't see them going with a $50 price point.

I assume that all third party games like Assassin's Creed 3, Mass Effect 3, and etc are gonna be priced at $60 but are Nintendo first party games going to be priced at $50 still or are they gonna start selling them at the standard $60 now?

We lucky Brits are going to pay £50 a game.
Well that's what game has listed anyway.

I know I shouldn't be dissuaded by $60, as I paid more than that for a lot of NES games back in the day. The thing is, my most-played games on the Wii were WiiWare, so it really makes me question buying retail releases when I know that $60 can buy me far more games and enjoyment if I use it for downloadable games instead. I already know I want Runner 2, but I'm not 100% sure I want any of the retail releases for Wii U.

Gamestop has WiiU games available for preorder... for $99.99! I'm not sure what their reasoning behind this is...
http://www.gamestop.com/wii-u

Whoa... I think that's a mistake.

Or you can just buy the games used if a Wii U game's price point is too high for you. To me, $50 is reasonable.

The retailers must still have no idea of the MSRP if Gamestop is listing the games for $100. I noticed Bestbuy.ca went and raised the few Wii U titles they had at $50 to $60, and I really doubt $60 will be the lowest price point for the least stellar games: even PS3 has games that release for less than that. If they haven't set a price for the Wii U yet, then they may not have decided the price point for the games either.

Thank you for that. I spent way too long on this for it being as simple as it is.

Maybe it was mentioned somewhere (sorry, I only now noticed the discussion), but, at least according to Wikipedia, Australia has about 1/15 the population of the US.
Could prices be higher because there's fewer potential customers to (theoretically) split the cost?

That + the huge size of Australia and the greatly dispersed population. That is one of the reasons, yes.

Here's how expensive they'll be https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/wii2/wii_u_game_prices1#re...