Nintendo has a Wii price compared to rivals

Stan Beer
Friday, 26 May 2006 17:23

Your IT - Home IT

Since everybody who's sniffing around the games market seems to be obsessed with the cost of consoles, it will gladden the heart of more than a few to hear that the new Nintendo Wii will have a price to match its name.

At US$250 or less when it comes on the market near the end of the year, the Nintendo Wii will cost gamers exactly half the price of the cheapest PS3 and $50 less than the low-end Xbox 360.

It is true that the Wii will not have some of the fancy home entertainment features of its two rivals, such as a Blu-ray high definition DVD player in the case of the PS3, but neither does it pretend to be anything other than a gamer's console. To that end, it boasts the best feature of all three machines, a more usable TV remote style wireless controller with motion sensors.

One of the things that puts Sony and Microsoft ahead Nintendo in console stakes is the huge number of games that have been developed and continue to be developed for both platforms, However, while serious gamers may feel that they have to make a choice between Xbox 360 and PS3, at $250 or less, some may just be tempted to throw in a Nintendo Wii as a second machine.

And of course, a lot are going to simply give the big two a miss and, for a relatively modest investment, take home a machine that simply plays games.