Struth! (..as Alf Stewart would at one time exclaim). Have you seen the asking price for a Nintendo Wii U in Australia, mate? With clichés done and dusted, hop over to retailer EB Games’ website right now and look up the marker page for next year’s Wii HD offering and you’ll be knocked back by their given price. Weighing in at almost $600 Australian dollars- that’s around £390 British Pounds – the Wii U with the new tablet controller looks set to eclipse the cost of owning one of the ‘serious’ gaming consoles, such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Computer and Video Games website contacted the Aussie games retailer and received a reply from the companies Media Manager which stated that the price is purely “an estimated price” and that this is where price has “not yet been confirmed by the vendor”. Listen now for the collective sigh of relief from us Nintendo fans, who in fairness were not overly impressed by the E3 coverage of the Wii U’s launch back in June, but will still probably be first in line when the console is released for sale in 2012. We know that a large part of the Wii U pricing will be based around the HD touchpad controller which at this time will not be made available separately because of the costliness that would be involved.
Even is just a wild guess, EB Games still list the Wii U as a pre-order at that price with no payment taken until time of shipping, but we don’t know any gamer in their right mind which would place down such a high stake for such a lacklustre looking console, with no fixed release date, no capacity for a second HD controller and no games included while there are existing consoles which will still be superior in graphic quality when the Wii U launches and undercutting the cost by up to £200 (not including add-on gadgets such as Kinect). You could pretty much buy both an Xbox 360 AND Playstation 3 for the cost of a Nintendo Wii U at the estimated price!
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.