zero!

Even at $129, I don't think I'd want a Wii. I'm not hating on it, I just can't think of a single game that really interests me on it.

Just like all the systems of the last generation this will eventually happen. It kind of seems like Activision's CEO is just saying common sense things...

"When technology has been out for a while, the price should go down."

..

damn that felt good...

Video game companies don't tack arbitrary numbers on their console price tags. There is a science to pricing that calculates a lot of variables: manual labor, r&d, debug, not to mention actual parts.

While it is economically viable for systems to drop in the future, this is due to new piecey parts (like the shiny new 99 USD ps2).

Capitalism 101: supply and demand.

If people keep snatching up $250 wii's like children in a dark alley, what's nintendo's incentive to drop its price.

Balderdash.

Most systems launch at over $200, check out this link:
http://curmudgeongamer.com/imgdisplay.php3?shotfile=console-prices-absolute.png

I wouldn't have a 360 if I wasn't able to get mine for $230.

Consoles is cereal bidness; what right does the mass market have to harness the power of the might CELL processor for the same commoners who can't tell if their TV is widescreen or not?

Enough of this one laptop per child bleeding heart mumbo-jumbo. It's a vidja game, not a charity!!

i liked that idea about having one console. monopolies suck, but its so much easier when all your friends have the same stuff as you

Granted, this guy does not sell consoles for a living.

But neither do I, so bring it!

Not Utopia, but it's close. Also all games need to be $30 or less too.

Haha, yeah, good luck with that fantasy world you live in there Barry.

By the way, Philonious had a good idea too. Why not sell all of your games a $20, you'd be more "main stream" then! lol

That would be the only way I'd be dumb enough to waste money on a ps3.

Better idea then dropping system prices is dropping game prices, think if halo3 came out to be 29.99? It'd make it seem like it wasn't halo 1.3 and that I didnt waste a tank of gas on a piece of shit

I don't know why everyone thinks this is a fantasy. I think it's more of a reality than you think. The customary price point for a gaming console is $200. That's the magic number and that's simply a fact. 80% of all PS2's sold were <= $200. There are reasons why it seems so far off this generation, though...

1) The Wii can't even stay on shelves at $250. Dropping to $200 would make absolutely no sense for Nintendo. We won't see a price drop on the Wii until it stops selling out.

2) The PS3 launched at $500/$600, so it has a much longer road to travel before hitting $200. Sony is trying, though. In its first year they "dropped the price" $100 to $400/$500 respectively. If they continue to drop the price $100 per year, it could reach $200 by 2009.

3) The 360 is comparable to the PS3 and they are already at a lower price point than the PS3. Also, they are selling better than the PS3. The PS3 being so expensive bought time for MS to sit on their launch price longer than a console normally would. As the PS3 drops in price and/or starts taking more sales away from the 360, MS will drop their price to counter. Their lowest priced 360 is already at $270. They will probably have a $200 console in 2008.

Her voice is sexy.

$199? Wouldn't MS and Sony bleed out their asses if they sold them for this low? And the Wii prints money; they could raise the price and it still wouldn't stay on the shelves.
Not a fan of the Wii, but for $129, you're damn right I'm gonna bite that opportunity!

Sony will have a PS3 lite next year. There is no doubt about that. I do not expect it will be less than $300 though.

I'd rather see game prices lowered to the PS2 level rather than consoles lowered to $199. Consoles are a one-time purchase, and with both the 360 and PS3 you're getting more than 'just a console.' But, the big money sink is in the games, which are ridiculously priced at the moment if you ask me, especially XBox 360, which has very little in the way of code change and format change to make it earn the $20 higher price tag than PS2 games.

The console price drops aren't a fantasy, they're an inevitability. Regardless, this guy is just old money in an industry he's only pretending to understand. "I haven't seen the product yet." That right there lays it all out. How you can just buy up the biggest rhythm game property in the history of gaming, and then not know anything about it's only competitor which is kind of poised to eat post-Harmonix Guitar Hero alive.

His ignorance is also telling in that he suggests the Wii needs to be $129 to be successful. What a dope. It's like he has no idea that Wii consoles are STILL difficult to get at $250 and bringing higher than MSRP premiums on eBay.

He should also stop taking credit for guitar hero and call of duty 4. Publishers are more often than not restrictors rather than enablers when it comes to producing games. They're the ones that want difficulty turned down for "casual" appeal or controversial elements removed. All the blather about the reception for CoD4 and not one mention of Insanity Ward.

Epic Fail.

299 is fine. 199 is finer.

might actually make the PS3 worth the purchase

@ Ted: There's no putting pressure on nintendo. The Wii isn't going to slow down until the market is saturated, regardless of price point. Nintendo may drop prices if they deem it necessary in response to a $200 Xbox 360, but M$ would undoubtedly still be losing money on that box, as well. The fact remains that nintendo is selling out its supply as fast as they can make it AND making money on every console out the door. A little pressure from a company that's already taking huge hits on hardware to stay ahead of the PS3 is ignorable at worst given that Nintendo already has a money press. If Wii's start gathering dust on store shelves, then the price will come down, regardless of the price points of the other consoles. If they're still selling like hotcakes at $250 when the prices for the 360 and the PS3 begin to fall drastically, Nintendo will most likely behave the way they have since the Wii launch; they're operating in a vaccum. It doesn't really matter what the rest of the industry is doing, because Nintendo is competing on an entirely different playing field.

The fact of the matter is that gamers in each generation have largely ignored prices since the early nineties, and even then the only thing detrimental to a console's success has been a price point over $600 (NeoGeo, 3DO) or a hamstrung library (turbographix 16). Gamers will buy new consoles. Price is now more important that everyone is joining the party, but the industry has succeeded for decades with only the support of the now-labeled-hardcore crowd. Success within this market has traditionally been enough success for these companies to continue making lucrative profits. To assert that this market (which still spends more than twice the amount of money that the "casual" market does on gaming) no longer matters by insisting on lower price points, this guy only comes off as more and more out of touch. This makes me feel bad for guitar hero IV. The insane difficulty will be gone, and the tracklist will be tiny, because they're going to have to cut game prices if consoles have to be <$200.

This guy is a loon. I almost feel bad patronizing him with this and the above commentary.

Almost.

I'll buy a PS3 only when it reaches the $200 point. I think $300 is the sweet point for new consoles. MS and Sony dropped the gun by charging $400 plus.

The day PS3 and 360 reach $199 will be the day I own both of them. $250 is my limit on consoles, and even that's too much for me.

About time. Consoles shouldn't cost over 400 ever in my opinion. We're seeing a big shift of the consumers no longer driving technological progress and the companies having to do so. Basic economy says prices should drop in this kind of situation.

I was happy paying 399 for my 360, but I still haven't purchased a PS3 (which is now cheaper but totally gimped)