Remember the buzz surrounding Nintendo's wiimote, and how the sum of its parts seemed a bit pricey, when compared to what the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were offering?
Well it appears that the talk is back, thanks in part to a recent story on CNN, which detailed the pricing on major components of Nintendo's nifty controller. Guess where it came from this time -- Nintendo's own forum. Right now, the thread is already seven pages long.
As many on the thread pointed out, the cost of manufacturing any item is always substantially lower than what the consumer sees on their end. It's just the cost of doing business, and after all, Nintendo deserves to make a profit off of their consoles as much as the next guy. The million dollar question, it seems, is this: Are we getting gouged on the price of the wiimote?
More on this, as well as answers to the meaning of life, after the jump.
I invite you to take into consideration (once again) that in order to get the entire experience from Nintendo's console, you must spend upwards of $80. That includes the wiimote itself ($40), the nunchuck attachment, and the classic controller (each going for $20).
Yes the Wii has indeed proven itself as both fun and wildly popular with the general public and the media. That much can't be taken from Nintendo. However, it's still questionable among many whether or not Nintendo should have at least bundled some of these items together (wiimote and nunchuck at least), much like they did with the Wii console itself.
The PS3 has been criticized for seemingly "copying" Nintendo's motion sensing idea with their own version in the Sixaxis controller. Still, the final product is all that is needed to enjoy anything in the PS3's library -- and it's a grand total of $40. The same can said about the Xbox 360's controller.
Even if the Sixaxis is missing the rumble feature, and the 360 doesn't have motion sensing capabilities, they do appear to be be more reasonably priced than what Nintendo is offering.
Looking back on the functionality of the wiimote and its attachments, as well as the costs involved for the total experience -- do you still feel like you're getting your money's worth?
Contest:
2:47 PM on 06.03.2007
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Bottom line is that you're going to need both halves to play the vast majority of games on the console. Suck it up. Gaming has never been the cheapest pastime in the world.
sunami88, I don't think there has been a game released on the VC yet that requires the classic controller, so you don't HAVE to buy it to play VC games.
As Oni said, you don't need the classic controller for _any_ VC games, a Gamecube controller works perfectly fine.
I actually prefer them being sold separately because not every game needs the nunchuck. I have 3 remotes but since I don't really need that many nunchucks, I'm not going to get 3 of them until I actually have a multiplayer game where I need 3 of them.
and after seeing how the classic controller relies on the Wii-motes battery. no way in hell am i going to buy that either.
Overpriced or not, I don't need either controller so its no sweat for me.
With somthing like a Wiimote, as a company you can't afford to water down it's unique ability or it's purpose, seperating the nunchuck from the Wiimote is a way of making the Wiimote the focal point.
It's bullshit marketing, business, industry bollocks, but anyone who wants to launch something new and unique will always employ these tactics. Something new has to clearly promote it's USP as simple as possible, having to explain what the nunchuck is for only distracts your primary objective, selling the nunchuck seperate is a way of selling the Wiimote with literally "no strings attached".
So whilst we are getting fleeced by Nintendo, I can understand why they did it.
I was gonna stop there but I have to add in my 2 cents on business. Between labor, marketing, administration, shipping, taxes and administration to handle paying the shipping and taxes the cost is significantly higher than the cost of the parts. Actually most of the time, even in low wage countries like China and India the labor by itself is sometimes more than the parts. It depends on the product of course, but raw materials and components just aren't that much of a price concern when dealing with anything but super computing, energy, or other high technology.
Also, to complain about paying for the classic controller because you don't want to use the cheaper option (GC controller) is equally silly. If you don't want to buy the aftermarket parts because the polish doesn't match and the features (wireless) aren't as impressive, then you're going to have to pay more. It's $20 that you chose to pay. Get over it.
If you want to bash Wii for relative lack of performance or current lack of non mini-game games, you'd potentially have a point. To try and argue that you're getting fleeced by Nintendo is just wrong.
That being said, after the Wii craze is over in a few years, I'm hoping for a price drop in both the console and it's controllers. $99 for the console, $15 for Nunchuck, $15 for CC, and $30 for Wii-Remote.
That's how they get away with it.
If you don't like the price of something, don't buy it. That's why I only have the Wiimote that came with the console, and why I don't have a PS3.
I have four remotes, two chuks, and a classic controller.
The whole bunch was less than a PS3, and I got a game to boot. I don't feel ripped off at all, really. I'm thinking about getting two more nunchuks for Madden. I don't think I'll feel ripped off then, either.
While it would be nice to have back the halcyon days of the $20 full-featured, name-brand controller, those days are gone. With the consoles so infrequently making money by themselves, gougeing for peripherals is kind of the industry standard. Extra controllers are especially prone in this particular case, because they enable the multiplayer experience, which is the core value of the Wii. I mean, that's why it's fucking called Wii. Would it have been better for the box to cost $400 and come with four controllers? $500 and come with four nunchucks, too?
These prices are going to come down as the library expands. And we'll start seeing better utilization of the remote, as well, simply because developers are interested in and getting real experience releasing games. I blow a lot of Sunshine up the asses of EA Canada, but I have a great time playing their titles and I have a lot of confidence in them really trying to give Nintendo good third party support. Granted, there's a lot of publishers lined up to give the Wii 3rd party titles, but that's just because of the incredible hype, and the large (and growing) installed base, but I think that the more people developing for a particular system, the better for that system. Even if much of it is licensed crap that's unavoidable across all platforms, or plain old crap for that matter. If only one in a hundred games isn's crap, I'd rather a thousand games come out, instead of four hundred.
Is being able to play four at once with games like Tiger or Madden worth the money I've spent? Well, I don't feel the least bit bad about it. I felt much worse about the $60 I blew on Quake IV. Ick.
It's such a catch 22. God I hate living in the UK and playing video games.
As for OpTiMaL, what faults? Other than retards throwing them at HDTVs, I can't recall many faults with the controller or nunchuck. Besides which, if either the Wiimote or nunchuck is defected, isn't it Nintendo's responsibility to replace that themselves instead of us throwing more cash their way?
@ Oni: Except for the games that, while they technically work with the Gamecube controller, they aren't practical at all. Example: F-Zero uses B to accelerate, X to turbo boost, and A to brake. That is impossible to play effectively with a Gamecube controller. I even called up Nintendo on launch day to complain to them about it (lot of good that did). If only they let you rearrange the button layout, since you're at the mercy of the original game for that option.
The Wiimote is NOT over charged... that thing is made of Adamantiunm PLASTIC! That shit breaks peoples heads, TV's, Walls...
even fluffy my cat... LOST ALL 7 LIFE TO THE WIIMOTE!
and u guys say is overpriced... its indestructable...
1) People say you don't have to buy a Nunchuck, but you really do. The Nunchuck is even more essential on the Wii than the hard drive is on the XBox 360. So, the controller is $60, not $40. There's no excuse for Nintendo to sell the two pieces separately.
2) $60 for a controller, and you have to buy your own AA batteries. No rechargeables? For shame.
3) They make profit on the console and game licenses. They don't have the excuse for overpriced accessories that the other manufacturers do. $30 for a cable? $90 for an "official" memory card? Come on -- enough with the "they need to make profit" BS.
4) You can't play Gamecube games with the VC controller, let alone the Wiimote. WTF? The GC and VC controllers are functionally identical!
Oh, I forgot -- people buy it anyway. People WANT what they're getting right now, even though they moan about it on Nintendo's own forum.
Ultimately, the consumer is always at fault. If the controller costs too much, blame yourselves.
1) Yup, but I've honestly only needed to buy one extra one.
2) Yup, I bought a bunch of rechargeable AAs just for my Wiimotes. That still makes no sense to me.
3) A $90 official memory card? Where did you see that? Even the grossly overpriced Sandisk Wii branded cards are only $49 for a 2 gig, and anyone who isn't a tard can get that for less than half that price. But other than that, yup.
4) No shit! That still pisses me off. I had to drop $50 on two GC controllers just this morning thanks to my old ones getting permanently "borrowed". And I can't find Wavebirds anywhere around here.
Why is the consumer at fault? People didn't tell Nintendo they wanted that pricing, it was set by the company. They buy the extra crap because they want to play their games, even if it stings like a bitch when they open their wallets to pay for it. Do you honestly expect a mass uprising of gamers to refuse to get controllers for the system until Nintendo knocks the price down? Hell, I think $50 is too much for the vast majority of games, but unless I want to wait a year or two I'm SOL.