Monday, April 9th 2012
Nintendo Wii U Costs Around $300: Sources
Sources associated with the manufacture and distribution of Nintendo products gave ForgetTheBox their estimates of the "Bill of Materials" of its upcoming Wii U game console, including that of its swanky-looking controller. The Bill of Materials of the entire package is estimated to be around US $180, despite its interactive screen, the controller's Bill of Materials is no more than US $50. Taking these figures into account the street price of Wii U is estimated by the source, is "no less than $300."
The same sources told ForgetTheBox, "Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo's main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U's hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition." They went on to mention interesting tidbits such as "The cameras in the Wii U controller are an estimated manufacturing cost of $6. They are slightly better quality than the 3DS and DSi cameras. The touch screen has a manufacturing cost estimated at $14."
The sources also touched on the processing horsepower in use, which a recent report, citing sources among game developers, claimed to be less powerful than that of current-generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. "Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today's current consoles, but keep hardware costs down to maximize profits," said the sources. "Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news," they added.
Source:
ForgetTheBox.net
The same sources told ForgetTheBox, "Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo's main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U's hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition." They went on to mention interesting tidbits such as "The cameras in the Wii U controller are an estimated manufacturing cost of $6. They are slightly better quality than the 3DS and DSi cameras. The touch screen has a manufacturing cost estimated at $14."
58 Comments on Nintendo Wii U Costs Around $300: Sources
Nintendo in the mean time targeted audience other than just gamers. This is how the Wii was very successful.
Reading up on the WiiU as of late, can Nintendo be using the same or similar strategy that made the 1st successful? If so, I think it will be a big mistake, MS & Sony will also now try to target none gamers too, but this time with better graphics.
Nintendo better prepare with and this time better have competitive graphics.
why sit at a desk or even carry a laptop around to do those when a thin light tablet does it for you?
since i got mine (Asus Transformer), i only have to sit at the desktop to play intensive games or do serious work, everything else can be in the recliner or even outside, at the park!
crap? in your opinion maybe.
The gamecube played along with them just fine, the problem with the Wii was the older hardware that made porting games over to it hard for 3rd party devs.
The WiiU will get many more 3rd party game support so if all goes well the WiiU will keep the kids and the elderly crowd and take some of the MS/Sony crowd as well.
The GameCube is lacking in good titles. Super Smash Bros Melee, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 1 & 2, and that's about it. Xbox sold around 24 million units, GameCube shipped 21.74 million (Nintendo was expecting 50 million), PlayStation 2 sold 127 million units. Of that generation, only the PlayStation 2 was a run-away success. GameCube was considered a failure as was the Xbox but Microsoft expected as much entering the market so late with few titles.
2. The Gamecube had TONS of good titles, seriously where have you been?
The Gamecube shared in pretty much every 3rd party title the other two had and in 1st party it had arguably the strongest line up, the bad sales mostly where a result of the PS2 having the the time lead on the Nintendo and MS console by quite a bit.
I would like to see more implementation of touch screen monitors. Sure you'd have to clean them more but it would be a nice way to interact with the system. Would be helpful for elderly and kids. I have an aunt in her 80s that keeps on wanting to touch her monitor. She isn't that savvy with the mouse.
My point is, Nintendo knows wtf they're doing. If they pull out a console with the processing power of a leapfrog handheld, surely they must have a reason. But I seriously, seriously doubt that will be the case. I mean, they've only been in the console market the longest, dominating both consoles and handhelds this current generation, owning the must iconic series, etc... They learn from the mistakes, and if the next generation of Zelda, Pokemon, Metroid, and Mario disappoint, I would be the first to ditch Nintendo and keep playing my PC games. But until then, whether you like the company or not, you should know better. Just sit and wait until E3 for actual, official, and most important of all, NOT ANONYMOUS announcements before making further assumptions. Just a thought.
2. The numbers speak for themselves. Remember, the Wii was Nintendo's last ditch effort at making a console. If it flopped like the GameCube, Nintendo was only going to make portable consoles (Nintendo DS and sons).
and my opinion is that it looks like crap and i dont want to be using some gimmick controller
Once again, it looks like Nintendo will is going to let both Sony and MS fight each other.
Nintendo knew that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were going to be fighting over graphics and Nintendo decided that if they got into that slugfest, they weren't going to win. That's why they focused on revolutionizing the controller.
It sounds to me like Sony is going to be more of the same (better graphics, same old controller), Microsoft is moving in the direction of Kinect, and Nintendo is moving towards a synergy of handheld and traditional consoles. I think it is very likely the Wii U will win again selling on name and demographics alone. Microsoft will likely win in North America again and Sony will win in Japan.
1. Yes, and Ubisoft (read: non-anonymous) also said the system was several times more powerful. It's a rumor, you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. Or else we all could be Nigerian millionaires by now.
2. With that logic, we could argue that the Wii has the best games ever, or that the PSP has no games. GameCube did have many great games. Resident Evil library, Pikmin 1 & 2, Star Fox, Mario Sunshine, just to name a few.