Wedbush Morgan’s resident video game industry prognosticator Michael Pachter is continuing his current streak of actually making sense, by saying that Nintendo needs to price its Wii U at under $300 to be successful.
"The console must be priced below $300 to succeed, in my opinion, and best at $249 or less," he said to CVG. "Nintendo is intent upon repeating their success with the Wii," he affirmed – before saying that the system is still missing the vital “killer app” that’ll bring in buyers.
"While I agree that the Wii U controller is sufficiently novel and different from traditional controllers, I am not sure that there is a killer app that will drive Wii U adoption the way Wii Sports did for the Wii.
"At E3 I was not particularly impressed with many of the games, and in particular found Sing baffling. I don’t understand why I need a tablet to read Karaoke words rather than reading the words on the TV screen instead."
The Wii U will be the first Nintendo system in ages to launch with a Mario Game – but will it be enough to convince people that they have to own one? I’m not sure – but I do think that the system needs to launch at an attractive price. I’m hoping for $249, but anything over $300 and I think the Wii U could end up being the next Dreamcast.
Last Updated: June 12, 2012