Wii Launch and Price Revealed

Jonbo298 · 09-15-2006, 10:58 AM

I saw this tidbit on TheInquirer.net and just kinda laughed at it

Quote:

Nintendo have also announced that the Wii console will not offer DVD playback, stating that most people already have a DVD player, whilst also allowing them to reduce costs

So to cut costs they removed DVD Playback? How much would it have been if they left it in then?

ahh, the smell of bull**** in the morning

Dyne · 09-15-2006, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonbo298

I saw this tidbit on TheInquirer.net and just kinda laughed at it

So to cut costs they removed DVD Playback? How much would it have been if they left it in then?

ahh, the smell of bull**** in the morning

Well if the Xbox is any indication, $30-40 per console. Remember the ridiculously expensive DVD playback remote and sensor that "automatically" triggered DVD even though the console didn't technically need it? Yeah.

Perfect Stu · 09-15-2006, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyne

Well if the Xbox is any indication, $30-40 per console. Remember the ridiculously expensive DVD playback remote and sensor that "automatically" triggered DVD even though the console didn't technically need it? Yeah.

i think he's talking about cost, not price...but I could be wrong

DeathsHand · 09-15-2006, 05:45 PM

It couldn't possibly cost much of anything to stick a DVD drive in... Hell, they could probably add in DVD capabilities, keep the price at $250, and still be making a profit on each console sold

But quite frankly it don't mattuh... Last generation it was somewhat of a selling point, but I'm sure every house has a DVD player by now... Hell, multiple DVD players... There are probably very, very few people out there who can honestly say they're dissapointed with the lack of DVD playback on the Wii (not to say that people would be happy... Just more along the lines of indifferent)...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyne

Well if the Xbox is any indication, $30-40 per console.

But if the PS2 is any indication, $0 - $??, since the system launched for $300 (same price as Xbox a year later) and didn't require an extra device to activate it...
SPIN!!!

thatmariolover · 09-15-2006, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeathsHand

But if the PS2 is any indication, $0 - $??, since the system launched for $300 (same price as Xbox a year later) and didn't require an extra device to activate it...

Right, but if you'll think back, Sony also lost hundreds of thousands of dollars within the first couple months of releasing the PS2 in Japan. Sony was underselling the system and expecting to make the money back on game software; but since the PS2 was cheaper than most available DVD players in Japan at the time people were just buying the system and not buying games (a situation that became worse during the two day period that people found out they were region free "by accident" before they could pull them from retail shelves).

Obviously this wouldn't be echoed with the Wii, but it is an indication that it costs a bit. I mean, it's not the actual cost to make Wii's play DVD's, it's the cost of buying a license to be allowed to make millions of Wii's that play DVD's.

Perfect Stu · 09-15-2006, 06:54 PM

only having tons of PS2s in Japanese households payed off like a mother****** after a few years...

and even then, your point holds no ground because DVD tech was a million times more expensive in the late 90's than it is now.

i dont think its a big deal at all whether or not the Nintendo Wii has DVD playback...going with what has been said, pretty much everyone has a DVD player by now. thing is, i like having more devices with DVD playback so that I dont have to have a DVD player hooked up to whatever TV the game system is hooked up to. that helped quite a bit living in residence last year...used my PS2 as a DVD player.

thatmariolover · 09-15-2006, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfect Stu

only having tons of PS2s in Japanese households payed off like a mother****** after a few years...

and even then, your point holds no ground because DVD tech was a million times more expensive in the late 90's than it is now.

i dont think its a big deal at all whether or not the Nintendo Wii has DVD playback...going with what has been said, pretty much everyone has a DVD player by now. thing is, i like having more devices with DVD playback so that I dont have to have a DVD player hooked up to whatever TV the game system is hooked up to. that helped quite a bit living in residence last year...used my PS2 as a DVD player.

There are two costs associated with creating a machine that plays DVD movies. The first is the actual cost of the technology to read DVD's and display them. The second is the licensing permissions to create a machine that's allowed to play DVD movies. There's a patent on it, you have to pay your royalties.

Referring to my post holding no ground, if you had read my post in its entirety I stated that "obviously [the PS2 phenominon] wouldn't be echoed with the Wii." Back in the early 90's the actual technology was expensive, but since the Xbox and PS2 were already using the technology (and the fact that DVD players were still relatively rare) it made sense for them to also invest in the semi-costly license to be allowed to run DVD movies. Now that DVD technology is cheap, and the actual costs involved are with the rights to make the machine and not the machine itself; coupled with the fact that most people already have DVD players, Nintendo just decided to leave it out for now. I have no doubt that Nintendo could later offer a firmware update over their online service that you purchase for DVD playback.

manasecret · 09-15-2006, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfect Stu

thing is, i like having more devices with DVD playback so that I dont have to have a DVD player hooked up to whatever TV the game system is hooked up to.

True that. This is dissapointing news to me. It would have been nice to know that I could just stick a movie into that sleek machine if I ever needed to. I would have even been willing to buy a $40 dongle (eventually) to get DVD playback. But oh well, it won't keep me from buying mii Wii.

Dyne · 09-16-2006, 06:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfect Stu

i think he's talking about cost, not price...but I could be wrong

So how else are you going to justify that price. I heard that straight from the horse's mouth and that's literally what all of the EB employees were told: if you want DVD, then you're going to pay for this item to cover the cost of DVD licencing. And hell, you couldn't compare the cost of a crappy PS2 model to an Xbox back in the day, so cost of the machine is irrelevant. Xbox would've cost at LEAST $20-30 more if it included DVD playback and that is a fact.

But damn, it just makes sense, so why are you making a snide comment like that? Even if I was $10 over or whatever, I still pointed out a fact.

fingersman · 09-16-2006, 08:39 AM

*cough*I believe I told BAB that the price would 249.99 *cough*

Spasmolytic · 09-16-2006, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyne

So how else are you going to justify that price. I heard that straight from the horse's mouth and that's literally what all of the EB employees were told: if you want DVD, then you're going to pay for this item to cover the cost of DVD licencing. And hell, you couldn't compare the cost of a crappy PS2 model to an Xbox back in the day, so cost of the machine is irrelevant. Xbox would've cost at LEAST $20-30 more if it included DVD playback and that is a fact.

But damn, it just makes sense, so why are you making a snide comment like that? Even if I was $10 over or whatever, I still pointed out a fact.

I believe Stu pointed out (by clarifying what Jonbos quote said) that DVD playback would raise production cost, but not necessarily raise price.

Yes XBox did cost at least $30 more, because that remote cost at least $30 (as its current price is $29.99). However, if the Xbox did play DVDs without the remote, I would not suspect that the XBox would have raised its price over the PS2's release price. I think the remote was included to raise the overall price while still keeping the console competitively priced. .

Nintendo had a target price, and they weren't going to miss it. They didn't remove DVD to avoid raising the price of the machine; they did it to change the difference between price and cost in their benefit. I believe the order of worst idea to best idea is as follows:

Plays DVDs: $300 -> Plays DVDs: $250 -> Doesn't play DVDs: $250

I think they either ruled out option number one first or didn't even consider it.

...

You said crappy PS2 model.

Perfect Stu · 09-16-2006, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyne

But damn, it just makes sense, so why are you making a snide comment like that? Even if I was $10 over or whatever, I still pointed out a fact.

what the hell are you talking about?

i was talking about cost vs. price...were you saying that DVD playback cost Microsoft $40 per system to play DVD movies? I thought you were referring to the price of the DVD remote that consumers needed to buy in order to play DVD movies.

If I'm wrong, my mistake...

...but get a ****ing grip.

Dyne · 09-16-2006, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perfect Stu

what the hell are you talking about?

i was talking about cost vs. price...were you saying that DVD playback cost Microsoft $40 per system to play DVD movies? I thought you were referring to the price of the DVD remote that consumers needed to buy in order to play DVD movies.

If I'm wrong, my mistake...

...but get a ****ing grip.

No. I won't get a grip until you understand what I'm talking about. It didn't cost microsoft anything. If the consumer wanted DVD playback, they payed for it. The remote TRIGGERED DVD playback, and once microsoft got the money from you, most, if not all of it went straight to DVD licencing. That is the logic I'm presenting.

Microsoft set up a contract with the DVD licencees that they wouldn't pay a damn dime because the Xbox wouldn't ACTUALLY play DVDs until you bought the remote. And when you did, all that money went to the DVD licencing. Am I making sense yet. DVD playback cost them nothing. It cost the consumer. That is price. Of course the actually cost of the remote was $5, but the rest of the $30-40 went elsewhere. Look now, 360 universal remotes are not even more than $15, because microsoft pays fees for licencing on every 360 model now.

And so, I posited that DVD playback would PROBABLY cost Nintendo $30-40 per console for licencing, except it's probably cheaper nowadays. My point is, I'm concluding it COSTS Nintendo $20-$40 because of the Xbox Remote fiasco, and that is a bit of a hefty number, so I can see why they would skip on it to make some profit.