We have more news about the exciting innovation in video game retail: the Amazon Wii U guessing game. It was only a week ago that Amazon UK listed a black version of the system at £199, before swiftly removing the listing and cancelling any pre-orders shortly after. That product page had stated it'd be available on 14th July, along with some other oddities, so that was hardly a surprise.
It seems that the Amazon counterpart in Germany is jealous of the attention, as it's now joined in with its own listing for the console. In order to play it safe it's leapt to the other end of the pricing scale at €399.99, or around £322, with a release date of 21st December. We'd suggest that it's very unlikely that Nintendo would release the system that late in the holiday shopping period, while that projected price point could potentially see the system struggle to get off the shelves.
All we need now is for Amazon France to estimate an October release at €299.99, and we'll have the likely launch date and price estimates balanced out. Or we could wait for official word from Nintendo, of course.
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Comments 56
@Mahary couldn't agree more.
No offense guys, but this is like the fifth rumored price article I've seen. This is obviously estimated and completely wrong, so why post it?
I'd say that this is just a guess, just as many other retailers have done.
Let's all just wait for the actual price from Nintendo themselves.
I hate all this fake...Come on Nintendo! We want those release dates!
No matter what the price, I'm getting a Wii U, so all I want now is a release date!
I'll be selling the console for $450 beginning on December 31. PM me if you'd like to place a pre-order.
No way it will be that expensive.
What gets totally clear with this is:
> so it will be released between 2. November until 21. December
Just say something already Nintendo. xD
Heheh heheh heheh heheh no.
@BalrogtheMaster It's the third different prediction we've reported in recent times that I can see, the other two being a ShopTo article, and a couple of posts next to each other related to the Amazon UK listing, one for when it went up and the other for when it was taken down and pre-orders cancelled. Two stories essentially, both representing extremes, and in both cases written in a tone to make clear that they were rumours to be chatted about, not official details.
There's been more rumours than that bouncing around, let me say, and it's been interesting to see the range of guesses so far. We're not taking these rumours as fact, as the articles make clear, but they're certainly discussion points. We're also sticking to the estimates of major retailers and not every random guess going on out there, and they don't get much bigger than Amazon. If we didn't post the estimates from prominent retailers for everyone to chortle at (Amazon UK's July release date was particularly crazy), we could also be criticised for not sharing them
It's the end of the world!
Oddly enough, I don't see anyone rushing out to pre-order it this time...
Double post
Amazon have made a complete mess of this
Makes me want to shop somewhere else, completely
I hope its wrong!!! I only have 480$ for Wii U, Games and a Wii U Pro Controller!
So, how much is that in American dollars?
It says on the product page, that Nintendo didn't share any information regarding the price or the release date yet and that all is subject to change.
@bezerker99:
$507
If it's the real price, you'll have to pay $399 though. They always convert it 1:1 from US-$ to €. -.-
@Burning_Spear: Do you accept Paypal?
One reason why I won't be buying a Wii u.
@Bluezealand Oh wow, that's a lot of monopoly moniez!!! D: If this rumour turns out to be true, no way can I afford that...like, ever.
More and more evidence are pointing at this price point. I will be shocked if it's more, and happy if it's less.
ok so heres what im thinking >.> some people who were good friends at one point are now working at amazons all over the world. they came up with this little idea to troll everybody by having eachother make up some random price and random date for the wii u, and then having one person add their date and price to their listings, remove it when the days nearly done then repeat the process in the next week with a diferent person adding their price and date.
>.> five bucks says next week its america.
I had this dream last night that the Wii U was going to be a thousand dollars. Now I know THAT can't be true! But I do wish Nintendo would spill the beans already about price and dates/
That sounds pretty close to a place holder date - in the US it would say Dec 31 - and a legitimate high estimate if a retailer wanted to actually let people order as it's probably less lawsuit inviting to lower the price later than raise it and release something earlier rather than later. So I don't have any problem with that listing from a sellers perspective. BTW Amazon US still has the email notice up.
Does anybody else feel the later the announcement the higher the price? I've been saying $300 since last last E3 but now I'm thinking $349 just b/c they haven't announced it yet.
OTOH - maybe it will be really cheap and they don't want to cut into current Wii sales?
I really do hope when they do finally feel like announcing something - whenever the frak that will be - we get both price and date as well as what's bundled in the box - and they don't drag this out any further. A few game dates and prices would be helpful as well but they'll probably drag those out even more.
I'm going to go on record and say that isn't true. Nintendo have stated that they learnt lessons from the 3DS launch. The lessons I imagine they would have taken would have been to launch hardware with appealing software and to launch at an affordable price point.
Why is it gonna be released on the last day on Earth? Oh well, I guess they save the best for last!
$500 in US dollars.
NOT EVEN WORTH THAT MUCH MONEY.
... about $50 cheaper... in US dollars. No more, and possibly less.
@X-145 LOL, didn't realise that! I know how I shall be spending the end of the world: playing the first (and last) HD Mario game.
Nintendo needs to say the release date and price now I think. Everybody seems to be very impatient with them, especially when the system is suppost to release this year, not alot of time left to announce the price before the actual launch oO
So far, really stupid move from Nintendo
@Bluezealand #20
That's because 'Murica is the best country there ever was XD.
I really wish they had a set price and release so I know how much money I need to set aside a month.
Yeah, they really should announce the price and launch date already. It's going to be hard for Nintendo to get their message our or for the hype machine to gain traction without those two crucial pieces of information.
@Bluezealand
That's partly because in NA, the price is before sales tax, whereas iirc in most of Europe the retail price includes VAT.
Ouch!
i´m from germany so don´t worry. it´s just to take pre-orders and now wiiu is on 1. place in pre-order charts along with the already listed games. there´re 12 with the price of 70€. amazon germany itself said that it is not the actual price and release-date. they said that the people who will preorder it will get the console for the cheaper price. of course it is the price that nintendo will announce.
almost as bad as their misconception of video game prices http://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Bros-U-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002I0K3CK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340222860&sr=8-1&keywords=new+super+mario+bros+u, not to mention they got the release date off by a whole year why do retailers have to make wild assumptions about console and game prices before they are even announced? i'd rather wait and see what Nintendo says in a few months~
Its not even gonna be 500$ Nintendo knows that no one would buy it if it was that much. At least from around 200-300$ maybe around 100, but i doubt it
My guess would be a lauch price of $349.
The rationale is the wii 249 lauch-price in 2006 + inflation + percieved added value of the controller + affinity for prices ending in 49, 79 and 99,
I think like many others that the launch price will be 349,99$.
Because 400$ it's a bit expensive, because the system is not that munch more powerfull than an Xbox360 or a PS3. Well if we look at the games now, maybe it's more powerfull than we think. So yeah 349,99$ it should be a good price.
I just pre-ordered it together with New Super Mario Bros. U
Yep, and at E3, some of the launch games had signs saying "fall 2012". December makes those signs moot. What was the tear down price of all WiiU components? Wasn't it like $150? So double that price for marketing, third world labor, retail markup and a slim profit. $300 bucks. $350 if they're pushing it. 399 and up just doesn't sound reasonable. $500 bucks would be a company killer as they sit on the shelves and slowly convert the Nintendo name into a fossil.
Isn't December 21st 2012 supposed to be the end of the world or something? Damn... Wii U better come out before then!! Lol.
Wait, but how much it is in US money?
@Mr.Thomas Whitehead Americans use this site too, ya know. It would be nice to have our currency in the article, but luckily, someone converted it in the comments. I guess you could say I'm a lazy american for not looking it up on google though...
@Andrewroxsox: if we were to convert a given amount of money from one currency into the currency of every other user here visiting Nintendo Life, I'm afraid our articles would be nothing but a list of numbers. We've made no secret of the fact that NL is UK-based, and it's not hard at all to pull up a currency converter via Google — in fact, in the time it probably took you to type out that comment, you probably could've had your answer from three different converters.
@theblackdragon I wouldn't expect this site to tend to all of its users, but America is infact one of the leading countries in the world. Like I said, I could have looked it up on google, but It would be more convenient if the conversion was in the article.
No chance in hell it will be that expensive!
I am expecting $250 - $300 US (so the same amount in Euro's) or in Australian dollars around $400 - $500!
Nah, don't worry guys, it's not as it seems. You know what I love about Nintendo? That their main goal is to entertain gamers with their consoles so I'm sure it will be £249 max £300. So don't worry guys.
That's cheap as chips.
This still means nothing. Amazon UK only pulled their much lower price because Amazon follows a price guarantee. If the price goes down, they just adjust, but if it officially retails higher they're screwed (because nobody wanted to play it off as being super generous). Germany is bidding high to cover their ass.
@Andrewroxsox: you may as well say that we should always provide conversions into yuan because China is also a leading country. do you see how silly and entitled you're presenting yourself at the moment? it's not the end of the world if you have to Google up a price conversion (or, god forbid, read through the comment thread to see someone else has posted the answer for you).
in short, you don't have the right to speak for all of us. the rest of we Americans have the knowledge and ability to search particulars for ourselves when a foreign website naturally posts information relevant to its dominant userbase. :/
Ah, those Amazon people! They are so clever! What a beautifull price (NOT)!
But seriously: What does Nintendo think about their "partner" Amazon? Amazon is spreading downright lies!!
I would be happy with $350, but i do believe the release date would probably be around November 18!
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