Nintendo’s Wii U Price Tag to be Around $300 - Report

According to a report by Gamespot Asia, Nintendo's Wii U console will cost about $180 (£115) to manufacture while the retail price will not be less than $300.

The information, which comes from sources involved with the manufacturing and distributing of Nintendo products, suggests an additional $50 for materials and components. The manufacturing cost of the cameras in the Wii U controller are estimated at $6 and the manufacturing cost of the touch screen is at $14.

While the price when converted to Sterling is just £190, direct currency conversions are not a good idea when it comes to technology and we would expect to see the Wii U priced somewhere between £250 and £300 in the UK.

"Cutting the production costs to maximise profits is Nintendo's main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U's hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition. Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities are a drop in the bucket for Nintendo. As NFC becomes more mainstream in mobile devices, the price for NFC implementation will rapidly decline. Nintendo is jumping on NFC because of a projected cost decline in the technology," the sources have been quoted as saying to Forget The Box.

"Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today's current consoles, but keep hardware cost down to the maximise profits. Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news," added the sources.

"The Wii U is going to launch at $249, because it has to. They are dead if they launch at $259, I think they are toast then," Michael Pachter, a gaming research analyst, was quoted as saying by Gamesindustry International. He said that Microsoft's Xbox 360 with Kinect will be priced below that of the Wii U and in such a situation, the Wii U would not be able to compete with the Xbox 360/Kinect combination. Moreover Nintendo president Satoru Iwata had reportedly said last year that the Wii U was likely to be more than $250 when it launches.

Meanwhile, a report on Wii U Daily suggests the release date of the console will be 18 November for the North American region and 25 November for Japan. The news comes from a leaked internal e-mail circulated among staff at a game store in Japan. The information is consistent with earlier rumours that stated Nintendo had confirmed a late 2012 launch.