Wii U Pre-Order Priced At $600?

Though it's a retailer, which means they're just playing it safe

Dec 15 2011, 3:26pm CST | by Mark Raby

For the first time, someone has attached a price to the Wii U, but don't take too much stock in what is really just an arbitrary number to incite early customers.

Australian retailer EB Games has just popped up a Wii U price of $598 AUD ($592 USD) on its website which is, of course, the retailer's estimate of what the console will cost and not based on anything official from Nintendo.

Nintendo seems to be stepping away from its Wii strategy of a cheaper but more interesting console, and is instead dedicated to making the Wii U more powerful than the PS3 or Xbox 360.

As a result, we certainly wouldn't be surprised to see the new console priced higher than any previous Nintendo system, but $600 is probably a bit excessive.

Obviously, EB wants to protect itself and would rather customers commit to a higher price and then charge them less, than price the system below what the MSRP is and take a big loss on pre-order fulfillment.

It reminds us of when Gamestop began taking Playstation Vita pre-orders in the US and listed a price of $999, clearly for the only reason that its database needed to have a price of some sort.

So all we can take from this is that a large retailer is willing to bet that the Wii U will be no more than $600 when it launches next year.

There are many concerns with the Wii U, not just what the price will be but also how it will compete with the PS3 and Xbox 360, which have become much more than game consoles and are instead more like complete entertainment systems. So far Nintendo has been very dodgy on what the Wii U will offer in that department.

Via Attack of the Fanboy

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Mark Raby
Based in New York City, Mark follows the consumer electronics industry like a hawk. A published book author, he has a particular affinity for 3D technology and video games, and as such will surely be in the market for a new pair of glasses soon. Mark can be contacted directly at mark@i4u.com.