Wii to Retail for £200 in the UK

Couldn't Nintendo take the hit from their more than somewhat impressive profits rather than screwing UK customers - who always get the poor end of the stick price-wise?

We know you have boo-koos of money now thanks to us Nintendo. Stop with the tomfoolery.

Edit: I was thinking, this is a strange way to counter Sony's price drop... lol

Since the new Argos catalog came out the wii is priced at just short of £200... also they sell 2000 wii points for £25.

I think I will stick to Toys'R'Us who have decided to buck the trend and sell the wii for £160 and still sell 2000 points for £15 which by the way is the price Argos a selling for 1000 points

@Roopa: I suggest that the £/euro exchange rate has changed since the first days when the Wii was on sale, but anyway I agree Europe as a whole gets bummed.

This is perfect timing isn't it.

Nintendo have made so much cash from the Wii, they can't have spent it all on R&D already? Of course they haven't and I don't understand this move, combine it with the PS3 news and palms meet faces. Maybe if they released some 1st party games, they'd have other sources of income besides the hardware.

PS3 just got given a free ride in the UK. Just like the PS2 had. Uhoh.

Doesn't Australia get the worst end of the gaming stick? (well of the countries that actually support the gaming industry)

...but yeah, ouch.
So are Sony the only ones that didn't raise their prices?
Despite how much I hate them, they do seem to share more love with the UK.

For the odd person who really wants a Wii now, that must suck.

I'd gladly sell mine for £450 - not that there's actually many Wii games with it out outside of Wii Sports/Play/Fit and Galaxy, Kart and PES2008. I only ever play DLC (WiiWare and VC - 150 games and counting) stuff and Gamecube games (which are actual good games and not that hopeless drivel that Nintendo encourages people to buy these days)

Kind of glad they're shooting themselves in the foot with this one. I'm sure a lot more people are going to go for a console that actually plays games now, rather than pay a fortune for a cripple that only pretends to.

@Roopa132: Now I'll beat you. Here in Russia Wii costs 14900 roubles, which is like 330€ or 470$. (!!!) That's since February. And the games cost about 2000 roubles, or 65 dollars. Speaking in pounds, that would be 290£ for the console and 40£ for a game.

That would sure cheer up all the European and American guys.

This is a F'kn joke!

Instead of consoles getting cheaper they are getting more expensive.

This is utter bullsh*t!

Nintendo is making billions in profit yet the customer has to pay even more for their outdated technology as time goes on.

WTF!

I think I will stick to Toys'R'Us who [...] sell 2000 points for £15 which by the way is the price Argos a selling for 1000 points

I think I'll stick to buying them through the shop for £7 per 1000 points. Even going to Toys R Us would take most of the day to do and cost a fair bit in bus money. I can very easily just pay for them over the shop so why bother doing anything differently? Everyone should have a Visa Electron card if not better.

@Jimlad: Generally, yeah, we get poop on a stick a lot, I imported, so I don't feel the crunch so much (can import a game from Canada PLUS add the shipping cost and still get it for AUD$20 cheaper than if I bought it here, and usually 1-6 months ahead of my brethren)

The Wii over here is AUD$400, and it has been since day one, I haven't heard of any price hike over here, but then again, apparently we're one of the countries better off in this crisis, thanks to our Prime Minister and his spending ways.

I never in my life heard of a Console going up in price. This is ridiculous. I live in Ireland and argos are selling the Wii for 249 euro which is a rip of, Xtra vision nearly on the same street are selling it for 199 euro. This will have a knock on effect in Ireland. Nintendo need to intervene

While its true that is still less than the mainland Europe price (but for how long) I can't help but feel I'm still getting the short end of the stick.

NOE don't care at all when were paying €300+ for the €250 Wii but when we started to pay €220 oh noes, NOE has no choice but to raise the price else we won't make profits. Shows how far loyalty gets you these days

Pre-owned systems are abundantnowerdays and can be found for cheap as £100...

I think that the undecided consumer may see the Wii at £200 and the fancy new PS3 at £250 and think, hey, I'll stump the extra (I think I would)...and it would serve NoE right.

I've owned quite a few consoles in my time, and the Wii for me has been by far the best. Partly because its so family orientated and partly because of the ace control system which has been further enhanced by motionplus. I currently own 42 wii games and have played a fair few more than that. When I've completed them or when the replay value has been greatly reduced in time I sold them on. I fracking love the wii console!

Anyway, £200 is too much money all things considered but the actual value for money that you get with current pricing is very good IMHO. Besides, the Wii is far more reliable than the xbox and ps3

Weren't Toys R'us selling them for around £156 few months ago?!

Nintendo is as greedy as ever, they need to LOWER the price of the Wii rather than raise it.

Surely these aren't the only goods seeing a price spike with the softening of the pound? Until things start to look better you'd probably better get used to companies raping your wallet harder than a drunk girl at a frat party.

To be fair, it's not really a price increase. If they left the price the same, it would actually be a price decrease due to inflation. This is just putting the price back where it was supposed to be in the first place. I'll shut up now.

I hope the gorgeous Slim PS3 rips it apart. That'll teach them a lesson.

@bestbuck: the problem is that ninty did intervene - by raising the price of the Wii for retailers. Retailers are already struggling and their profit margin is already small, so of course they're going to eventually find it necessary to pass on that raised cost to consumers. I'm merely surprised that they managed to keep the price the same for 5 months after Ninty raised it.

@Gabbo: wow, you really oughtta get a corporate job. According to this, though, inflation remained flat for July and below 2%. I'm not sure how Ninty decided that inflation of the pound required a price hike but inflation of the US dollar did not, nor do I know how they calculated how much to raise the price by.

And to answer Fox, other goods seeing rising costs are housing, cars, and alcohol, while goods seeing declining costs are clothing and food. Oh, and you probably shouldn't joke about girls at frat parties and rape.

Games and hardware is also very expensive here. So while I hardly ever buy games locally anymore and thus not support sales from my country at the same time I'm not gonna support ridiculous prices. I import mostly from the U.K.

The Xbox360 Arcade Unit ($199.99USD) has been cheaper here than the Wii (still $249.99 USD) for some time now. Consoles are s'posed to drop in price, not go up

See, people? As I said over a year ago (22 June 2008),

"If you want to help out [the American economy], then do us a favor: Stop complaining about [prices] and start importing our cheaper, better selection, non-crippled 60hz games. PLEASE, SEND US YOUR HARD-EARNED POUNDS AND EUROS..."

View the full rant HERE: http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/news/2008/06/david_jaffe_personally_insulted_by_nintendos_geeks_and_otaku_comment#comment4307

This actually doesn't make much sense at all. For the year of 2009 the pound is strengthening against the yen (one pound buys MORE yen now than it did in January). The American dollar on the other hand is weakening against the yen (though still stronger than it was in January). You would think that they would be raising the price here and not in Britain. Of course, if the decision was made in 2008 when the economy was super volatile, things could have been different. The charts I'm looking at only go back that far.

Edit: Amen Stardust - Import individually and avoid the tariffs Europe...we're happy to help!

@Token_Girl:

Nintendo has made an very poor decision to raise price in the UK when we are in a econmic recession! More problems with that statement is that Sony made a price cut with there PS3 Slim. For 120 GB and every major feature in it, it's only $299!

Hopefully, Sony will kick Nintendo *** in Europe to teach them a lesson about not being greedy.

Couldn't Nintendo take the hit from their more than somewhat impressive profits rather than screwing UK customers - who always get the poor end of the stick price-wise?

I don't know if you've checked lately but the devalued GBP means the UK prices are the lowest in the world.

@KDR_11k: What?! Good value for people who want to export stuff from the UK, then, but makes not a lick of difference to those stuck with earning/spending this lousy currency in its country of origin.

Meh,most of us have one anyway...

Why not reduce the price of the wii in the eurozone instead?

What's the jobless rate in the UK?

Gamescom conference hall.

Sony rep: We're reducing the price of our console to £250.
Nintendo rep to Microsoft rep: What did he say? He's increasing his price to £250?
Microsoft rep to Nintendo rep: That's what I heard.
Nintendo rep: Due to the economy, we're increasing the price of our console to £200.
Microsoft rep: We're also increasing the price of our console to £160 due to the economy.

FAIL.

Er, was'nt the Saturn £400 when it came out, and the Megadrive something like £180, some years back..?
Anyway, I don't need to buy a Wii and retailers will probably still do 'special' bundle prices and trade ins if you want to buy the console and some other stuff with it...

Ouch...well not for me cuz im selling the WIi for a PS3. lol

It's like that about Wii/Nintendo Points cards too it seems and for awhile at that . I wouldn't be bothered but since we're in tough times they should take that into consideration. Retailers never make it easy do they?

@Raptor78: Really? Toys R Us selling Nintendo Points cards at £15? Thanks .