Well it’s not been a good week for Nintendo, as the company are starting to realise what everyone else in the world already knew… they are in trouble. However, what this means for consumers is a bit of a bargain, as in the UK the Nintendo Wii U Premium consoles have taken a sudden price tumble to just £179.99.
This price drop fellows the earlier news that Nintendo has slashed its predicted sales figures for the Wii U next gen console due to poor sales since its release. Nintendo had previously expected to sell 9 million units to 2.8 million on its annual sales. This has caused a bit of a drop in Nintendo stocks and see’s the company forecasting a net loss of 25 billion yen (£147m) for the financial year ending March 2014.
To fight this Nintendo have placed a big discount on the Wii U Premium black consoles to try and sell a few more units in light of the PS4 and Xbox One Christmas domination.
UK retailers Amazon and Argos are now selling the Nintendo Wii U deluxe edition at £179.99 (a £120 saving!), marking a huge discount for the console. Argos has also discounted down the white Basic Wii U to £179.99 marking a £70 price decrease.
Nintendo have always been a games dependent retailer (discounting the original Wii console) with Quality of games selling consoles more than the Console specifications, but with the Wii U Ninty have hit a bit of a problem, as even though the Wii U was released a full year before the Xbox One and PS4 it failed to grasp the same type of audience as the Original Wii Console. Then to top it off many of the big named games for the Wii U see are still waiting for release dates.
Super Mario 3D World was released before Christmas and was thought to boost sales, but as Nintendo are now seeing, this was not the case. However a drastic price decrease such as that by Amazon and Argos could send sales of the next gen console higher.
So far Nintendo has confirmed that the price cuts are not an official new pricing, instead they are the result of “retailer activity”.