Reggie: People will be surprised by Wii U price, the system is “tremendously” powerful

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed that Nintendo believes in mass market pricing, and this has to be, undoubtedly the biggest hint as to what they will price their latest system – Wii U.

There were some rumours earlier that pegged the Wii U price at 30,000 Yen, which in dollar terms is 300. Not a bad price for a next-gen console, is it? The Nintendo 3DS was priced at 25,000 Yen and ended up being $250 in the US, so a $300 price for the Wii U doesn’t seem far fetched.

“Nintendo believes in being a mass market product, so unlike our competitors when they’ve launched historical systems to maybe start at a really high price and work their way down, we don’t believe in that. We want to launch at a price that’s going to represent an ongoing great value,” he said to IGN via GamesIndustry.

“You look at the Wii; Wii stayed at $250 for a really long time, and so we’re going to give that same level of thought to the Wii U. How do we launch at a value that we’re going to be able to sustain for a long time? I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised, if you will, about the way we’re managing the value equation.

“We’re about to launch a tremendously powerful system – a system that pushes out great graphics, a system that has an opportunity to do a lot of things.”

He believes that Wii U will provide all the Nintendo first-party franchises, and also the big third-party ones that eluded the Wii.

“What I’ve heard the fan community say is, ‘I want my Mario, I want my Zelda and I want the best of third party’ and that’s what we’re looking to bring to consumers,” he said.

“So in the end, the consumer choice is going to be once I buy my Wii U that satisfies my Nintendo cravings, cravings for all these other great multiplatform franchises, then what is the role of a competitive platform? And to me that is the million dollar question. Of our potential competitors down the road, who’s going to have that compelling content that’s going to say, ‘Now I need to branch out and pick up this additional system.’ I think it’s for them to answer.”