Toys R Us Chief Says - More Wii Colors, $50 Price Cut coming

[bignige]

A Toys R Us fatcat has said that the Wii will soon have multiple colors available and also experience a $50 price cut.

quote:

According to a loose-lipped Toys R Us manager, Nintendo has some big plans slated for the Wii. In addition to a $50 price drop, Nintendo plans on rolling out multi-colored Wiis in as little as 3 months. The store manager also referred to a "better system" being on the horizon, but exactly what he meant by that could be anyone's guess.


News Source: Gizmodo.com

[Fuddle]

there was a story a while back where they thought wii sports could be sold seperately, so if that was excluded it would reduce the price.
different colours is a certainty.
i assume the better system is the one that plays DVDs.

none of it is especially far fetched, just depends what time scale we're talking. new colurs cant come fast enough though, as i dont have one yet.

[Junko]

I thought the better system was the much rumoured Wii with DVD playback

[Ouenben]

I hope they still make a addon to play dvds, it's not essential but i'd quite like watching dvds from my wii

[Yakumo]

I think the DVD playback will be software driven so expect normal Wiis to be able to play DVDs as well with a download from the Wii Shopping Channel.

Yakumo

[kernow]

They've already said it can't just be accomplished with a simple download or firmware upgrade though.

[Resonance]

I am not uber interested in playing it playing DVDs, it however would make a great little box for streaming media to!

[Radirgyman]

i wonder what the mystery is!???

[IanE]

there was a story a while back where they thought wii sports could be sold seperately, so if that was excluded it would reduce the price.
different colours is a certainty.
i assume the better system is the one that plays DVDs.

none of it is especially far fetched, just depends what time scale we're talking. new colurs cant come fast enough though, as i dont have one yet.

Wii Sports is sold separately in the US and Japan, isn't it?

[Yakumo]

It is in Japan.

[mr_sockochris]

Wii Sports is sold separately in the US and Japan, isn't it?

Only Japan, it's bundled in USA/PAL regions.

[gIzzE]

A store manager said this?? It must be true then.
A Toys'R'Us store manager told me that there is no point in getting a component cable for the Wii as it is not an HD machine, and RGB scart would give the best results.

Seriously, I can't believe they even put this on their site, we know a new version with dvd playback is coming in spring, we know there will be new colours, and you can guaruntee the of the non dvd system will drop when he new one arrives, did we need some bloke who works in a Toys'R'Us store to put all that together for us??


You can buy a dvd player from Makro that has progressive out for ?19.99, why would you want to pay extra for a games console to do it? Nintendo wanted this to be the $99 machine, they didn't manage that and now they are adding loads of useless stuff to it, which is only going to make it more expensive.

[Shinebi]

Well, if Ninty wants to keep a share of the gamers, think they best follow and add some usefull (read: common) technology.(why have a remote when you can't even use it as one?).

Any news about the different colors? My GF wants a black one, but not an extra case to slap on.

[Strolls]

They've already said it can't just be accomplished with a simple download or firmware upgrade though.

Do you have a citation for that?

There was a lot of talk of this last year (perhaps around August time?) and it boiled down to a statement by a Nintendo employee at a show (possibly E3?) who had said that "an addon" would be offered for DVD playback. This was widely interpreted by the gaming "press" as a hardware addon and meaning that the Wii is incapable of playing back DVDs itself, but that was just basically chinese whispers around all the same old gaming websites and blogs.

If you look at the original source it's quite easy to dismiss it as a throwaway comment or as poor English by a Japanese employee - it's quite possible he meant the "addon" would be a download, although native English speakers would tend to assume from the use of that word that an "addon" was a physical part. We don't know who that employee was or what his position was within the company - he really could have no insight into the matter.

My Pentium II 400mhz was quite capable of playing back DVDs in standard def 5 or 7 years ago, so IMO it's daft to suggest the Wii wouldn't be able to play back DVDs in software. The Wii has less overhead than the Windows 2000 I was running at the time, and is surely (??) a more powerful machine.

Stroller.

[Number45]

Doesn't it strike you as odd though, if it can play DVDs, why they didn't have it ready for launch? I mean, it's another selling point (As if it needs one) and I'm sure people would use it.

I also don't see the wisdom in a price drop at the moment. Not as if it's needed.