IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Wii Needs Another Price Drop to Compete with Natal, says Riccitiello

Posted December 10, 2009 by James Brightman

While third parties have "continued learning to do" on Wii, according to John Riccitiello, the EA chief executive commented recently at the UBS Global Media conference that Nintendo also needs to take action to ensure that they stay ahead of the competition, especially Microsoft's upcoming Project Natal. One great way to do this is by getting pro-active on price, he said.

"If you look at the research at what consumers are spending their time doing, the PS2 is still right up there in terms of time usage,” he commented. "My belief is the first platform that gets to $149 is going to inherit much of that business. And Wii is best opportunity. They've got the lowest cost platform out there – if they drive price I think they can really do well."

He added, "$199 up against an Xbox 360 is a tougher compare especially in a world when Natal comes. The Wii is not gone. But if they maintain $199 and don't innovate they're going to have a hard time competing with what's already been announced from Microsoft and Sony."

As long as Wii continues to outsell Xbox 360 and PS3 each month, we doubt Nintendo will cut the price. That said, as we get closer to the launch of Project Natal and Sony's motion controller, Nintendo might be pressured into introducing new Wii hardware, dropping price, or possibly both. Even if Nintendo does nothing, however, in a worst-case scenario, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich asserts that Wii will still hold on and win the console war.

[Thanks to MCV for the tip]

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.