[Wal-Mart Wii Preorders] I hope this isn't a sign...

[AtmaWeapon]

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5303669

So before going to bed last night I noticed that my favorite deal site was indicating that Wal-Mart would be taking online Wii preorders November 1st, though no time had been announced. I checked a few times between midnight and 1:30 AM and didn't see any indication, so I figured it'd open up at some retarded time like 6 AM so I just went to bed.

I wake up and check and lo and behold at 8AM central it was already sold out, but this was expected and I'm not too concerned about that. But look at that price tag: $533.56!

At first I was like "Where's my $250 price?", but it looks like to preorder they are requiring that you to buy 4 games. Do you think they are going to carry this over onto launch day with the extras they have? If so WHY??? I'm not paying $500 at one time for a video game system, in fact the $250 price is the only reason I'm buying the Wii. If they force bundle purchases looks like I'm stuck with the people who have to read forums posts of others to see what owning a system is like again. :(

[Breaker]

lol, I hate Wal-Mart. I'll probably wait until around Christmas time or even January before buying one. I don't have to have it right away.

[Warlock]

I hate Wal-Mart

ditto, but not because of this - just in general :P

[Grasshopper]

I don't like them either, but I don't see it being just Wal-Mart as much as online retailers in general. I hate how any online retailers selling systems at launch make you buy bundles.

[Cloral]

Then don't. They won't stop doing it until people stop buying them. Forcing people to buy more merchandise is good business sense in that they make more money and it clearly doesn't decrease sales.

[ZTC]

lol, I hate Wal-Mart. I'll probably wait until around Christmas time or even January before buying one. I don't have to have it right away.
indeed =/

I'm planning to get one early next year. Screw the bundle pack. :mad:

[Grasshopper]

Then don't. They won't stop doing it until people stop buying them. Forcing people to buy more merchandise is good business sense in that they make more money and it clearly doesn't decrease sales.

You're preaching to the choir. :)

I don't believe many of us here even touch the bundles. It still doesn't meant I cant dislike the action. I only don't like it because they seem to take advantage of the consumer, such as the Gamestop Xbox 360 bundles online last year that cost twice as much as the system.

[biggiy05]

What about Target or other stores that sell game consoles? I'm sure they are going to have plenty on hand.

[MottZilla]

You're preaching to the choir. :)

I don't believe many of us here even touch the bundles. It still doesn't meant I cant dislike the action. I only don't like it because they seem to take advantage of the consumer, such as the Gamestop Xbox 360 bundles online last year that cost twice as much as the system.

You have to agree to be taken advantage of though. People seem to forget there is the option of not buying from places. And they don't realize that as the buyers, their only power is to choose not to buy from someone to influence change. But most people are just morons and stupid so ofcourse Walmart is still around.

[AtmaWeapon]

Looks like Gamestop's doing the same thing. I got an email this morning confirming that at some mysterious time Thursday evening an unknown number of Wii preorder bundles "For less than $699!" will be available until they sell out (probably minutes).

I really really hope they don't do this with the systems they have left over after filling preorders; if so I think there's ground for suspicion that a corporate torpedo was fired in an attempt to undermine the Wii's smaller price point.

More likely Gamestop just figures since suckers are paying that much for PS3s they'll be glad to shell it out for Wiis.

[ShadowTiger]

The good news about all of this is, (And I'm pretty sure that I say this with the release of every single new console and $59.99 game.) that if it's too expensive now, we can always just wait a year or two for the price to go down. With the wait, many, many more choice games will be out, thoroughly rated, reviewed, and GameFAQ'd out, and probably even lower in price themselves. Plus, you get to play all those (Now cheap!) games that you've already missed out on and haven't played yet for the current console that's out yet.

I really don't see what's so nice about having a new console the day it comes out. Too expensive, too few games out for it, and everything is so much more expensive than it's going to be in one or two or three years. Then there's the long wait in the stores, and trying to get out of the store with all of your limbs intact, ... ... ugh. It's a mess.

[Kairyu]

From the looks of it, Gamestop is also missing the point of having a system selling at ~ half the cost of the competition.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6161239.html
I mean, come on. At least Wal-mart tells you WHY you need to tack on an extra $250- these guys just jack it up to $700 and say, "We'll tell you why we did that later!"
Screw it. I'm not gonna pay more than $400 total on next-gen systems for myself before the end of the year.

[AtmaWeapon]

The good news about all of this is, (And I'm pretty sure that I say this with the release of every single new console and $59.99 game.) that if it's too expensive now, we can always just wait a year or two for the price to go down. With the wait, many, many more choice games will be out, thoroughly rated, reviewed, and GameFAQ'd out, and probably even lower in price themselves. Plus, you get to play all those (Now cheap!) games that you've already missed out on and haven't played yet for the current console that's out yet.

I really don't see what's so nice about having a new console the day it comes out. Too expensive, too few games out for it, and everything is so much more expensive than it's going to be in one or two or three years. Then there's the long wait in the stores, and trying to get out of the store with all of your limbs intact, ... ... ugh. It's a mess.Yeah except there is a problem with the "I'll wait until the price drops" concept.

See, developers don't really have many metrics by which they can judge whether their game will sell very well (unless it's of a franchise successful enough they could just tack the name on and sell 3 copies to everyone in the world anyway) so one important metric is system sales. If a system doesn't sell very well, odds are you won't be convinced to spend a year or more developing a blockbuster game, as you'd have to sell the game to a high percentage of system owners to turn significant profit.

So an artificially high launch price will tend to reduce system sales, which creates a perception of lackluster consumer interest. This leads to reduced system development, which decreases the system's perceived value. If there still aren't any decent games around when the price drops, would you be motivated to buy the system?

I don't really know what the industry perception of the Wii is, but I do know that consumers seem to view Nintendo with disdain. This, coupled with artificial price increases, causes me to worry about the fate of the system.