The local niche game store BT Games has put up pre-order pricing for the Nintendo Wii console that is supposedly being launched at rAge this year and its got some Nintendo fans a little upset. James Francis from NAG magazine has the following to say in his blog post:
Now brace yourself – a Wii console will cost you R2899. That’s with the Sports game bundled in, but as far as I know all Wiis are bundled with one of those titles. You can’t get Wii Sports separately. Okay, it’s more or less what a console costs, except that the Wii is around $100 cheaper than the 360 Core unit (ignoring recent price cuts, which I don’t think have factored into our market yet). But over here you’ll pay R 200 MORE for a Wii than a Core unit.
To compare the prices fairly I checked the Amazon UK site as South Africa typically is grouped under Europe for things such as consoles. The Ninetendo Wii console bundled with Wii Sports retails online for £179.99 (roughly R 2600) and the Xbox 360 Core console is listed at the same price. So the South African pre-order price is R300 more than the UK whereas the current Xbox 360 Core console is only R100 more expensive in South Africa. Not such a huge difference but this is supposed to be pre-order pricing so I would expect it to be cheaper.
So will you be buying a Nintendo Wii instead of an Xbox 360? You can join in the discussion on the pricing over at the NAG forum here.
[tags]Xbox 360,Wii,South Africa[/tags]
I’m quite disappointed to see the prices are so high. I thought it would be a cheap console. Have you seen the prices for the games?! R600 for crappy graphics and gimmicky motion sensoring, I don’t think so!
Personally, I’m disappointed in the games! R650 for Legend of Zelda and Mario hasn’t even been scheduled yet for South Africa. When it comes to pricing and consoles, I believe it’s the price of the games that’s the determining factor. I’m only ever going to buy the console once but I’ll be buying games for it on a monthly basis.
What is the price comparision for games like?
Oh Please! R2900 is very reasonable for a Wii console. The trick is not to give it the same comparison as the XBox, because let’s face it, the gaming experience and the type of audience Wii is aimed at are somewhat different. Wii is still very new, it will be a while before it will get up to speed with the same interaction and playerblity one would enjoy with other consoles.