Analyst predicts Wii sales will drop soon without price cut

Michael Pachter claims the Wii isnt good enough value while Nintendo are still firm on pricing

Wedbush Morgan video games analyst Michael Pachter has recently commented about the price cut plans for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, suggesting Wii wont be good enough value for new customers.

"Nintendo is the one that’s going to see sales suffer," says Pachter. "They’re going to have to respond. What I actually think is going to happen is Sony’s market share gains are going to come at Nintendo’s expense, and Microsoft is going to chug along the way they’ve been with relatively flat sales and I think Microsoft is going to be OK with that. I think what is likely is that Wii sales are going to drop more. You can’t really justify buying a Wii for $249. You get ‘Wii Sports’ with it but no hard drive, whereas you can get a PS3 with a Blu-ray player and a 120-gig hard drive and built-in Wi-Fi. And you can get an Xbox 360 with a 120-gig hard drive and access to Netflix and Facebook. It just doesn’t make sense to buy a Wii for $50 less."

The thing is, though, do normal Wii buyers dont care about extras like Blu-ray playback, media centre functionality, and whether or not it has a hard drive? Do they just buy it for being a Wii? Will "the Wii Fit" work on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3? Nintendo still have no desire to reduce the price, with Reggie Fils-Aime, NOA president, having this to say:

"As we sit here today, we think we’re in a very strong position going into the key holiday time period. All I can tell you is that our global president (Satoru Iwata), as recently as a couple of weeks ago, indicated that we had no plans to change the price for the Wii console. Essentially Nintendo revenues are effectively flat year-on-year, down minus 2 percent. Comparatively, the balance of the industry — so our competitors combined — is down minus 23 percent. So clearly our competitors are the ones under pressure to change their tactics through the balance of the year."

Do you think the Wii really needs a price cut now to compete? Hit up the forums or comment here article to discuss.

Source: MSNBC