Recently undercut by Microsoft's Xbox 360 Arcade SKU in the price wars, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says that industry hardware price rollbacks are "a mistake," since they encourage consumers to wait instead of purchasing, and penalize early adopters,
As the front-runner in the current generation's console battle, Nintendo's never had any need to reduce Wii prices. Now that the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU has undercut the Wii and broken the $200 barrier, though, Nintendo has received increased scrutiny from those who wonder if a compensatory price reduction is forthcoming. Apparently not, according to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. "This is my personal thinking, but when the model's price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it's better to wait, and I've always thought that was a mistake." According to a report from Japanese site Touch-DS translated by consumer weblog Kotaku, Iwata says that when manufacturers pass cost reductions on to consumers, it feels like a penalty to early adopters, who end up feeling like they bought the hardware at a loss. While Microsoft recently lowered Xbox 360 prices on all of its console models, Sony has repeatedly stressed it has no plans to reduce PS3 prices ahead of the holiday season, and Nintendo has appeared unconcerned with playing the price war game.
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