Wii U Price Drop Not the Solution, Nintendo President Says - 'Lack of Software' is
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata does not think the Wii U's price tag is the reason for the console's problem and feels claims to lower the price are not going to help because of the system's sales numbers.
"If the price is actually an issue [with Wii U], then there is some contradiction between the current sales balance between the Basic and Premium versions of the Wii U," Iwata told CVG. "The basic version should have sold a lot, but the fact of the matter is that people are buying more of the premium version. So the issue is not there," he said.
The console originally launched a basic set for $300 with the deluxe going for $350. Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata feels calls for lowering the price of the Wii U is unwarranted because, "we are already offering [the Wii U] at a good price."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
He knows the biggest problem is in development, which is the company's fault.
"I understand that the real issue is the lack of software, and the only solution is to provide the mass-market with a number of quality software titles," said Iwata.
Wii U only sold 160,000 units between April and June -- a number that is less than half the amount of the previous quarter.
Altogether the console has sold 3.61 million systems since November, netting them a profit of $88 million, reported Joystiq.
At this time last year, Nintendo was reporting loses of $174 million, and claim they are already selling the console at a loss.
"We launched the Nintendo 3DS on February 2011 and sales were strong," Nintendo said recently in a statement. "Two weeks later we were hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and that stopped the momentum. In August of the same year we lowered the price from the initial 25,000 Yen to 15,000 Yen, and enhanced software development at the same time, to enrich the game line-up."
"That paid off and we regained momentum in Japan, but due to that we could not spare many developers for the Wii U (released in November 2012), and that led to the slow start of the console," they continued.
