Nintendo America announce price drop for the Wii U, Wind Waker Bundle Confirmed

Nintendo this evening (or morning, depending on where you live) have announced that they will be cutting the price of the Wii U console.

Confirming previous rumours – the console will be offered in an already existing black deluxe model, bundled with NintendoLand. In addition to this, there will be a new Zelda model – which we reported on last week. This bundle is also black, but has gold etchings on the GamePad and also includes vouchers to download a digital copy of the Hyrule Historia art book as well as a copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD

The new Zelda model remains in line with previous black models of the console, with 32gb of on-board flash memory.

Speaking of the price cut, Reggie Fils-Aime discussed with Kotaku Nintendo’s rationale: –

[quote]Obviously we want to drive Wii U momentum, We’ve been very clear that software is what drives hardware. And we feel very good about the line-up of software for Wii U. Taking the added step to improve the value just reinforces our commitment to make sure that Wii U has a strong holiday this year and is set up to be a strong platform into the future.

All you need to do is look at the numbers, At this point in time the Wii install base was beginning to approach three million—this is U.S. numbers—and as we sit here today, the Wii U installed base is at about 1.5 million. So clearly the sales pace is different. But I will also tell you that the focus on making sure that this holiday—its second holiday—is really strong is actually quite consistent with the way we’ve always thought about our hardware launches.[/quote]

Come September 20th, when the price drop is planned to hit, Reggie doesn’t foresee there being many (if any) white basic editions of the console left.

The price drop for the Wii U is sitting at around $50US, but once we have local details we’ll be sure to let you know.