Nintendo Introduces New Lower Cost Console

On May 7th during Nintendo’s Anemic Quarterly Earning Call, Nintendo began to show the public its intent to take a slow and steady approach with their latest consoles, the Wii U and the 3DS. The Japanese video game company announced that they plan on setting up a “Health” division, allowing their games to not only be entertaining, but also good for you.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata wanted to talk about more than just about the games of their existing consoles, and went on to reveal their plan to work on a new console all together. The company is in the process of developing and releasing an entirely new console, possibly releasing it as early as next year. The goal is to market the system directly to developing markets,

[blockquote]“We want to make new things, with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have,” Iwata told reporters. “The product and price balance must be made from scratch.”[/blockquote]

Nintendo intends to market this console to primarily Brazil, Russia, India and China, with most of the focus on China. The other markets and China specifically are rapidly growing with lots of middle class citizens with expendable income, which is the primary target for this new console.

It’s not coincidental that Nintendo announces this just a week after China lifted is 13 year ban on international consoles. With the new floodgate of consumers now open, Microsoft intends on selling the Xbox One to the Chinese market while keeping a similar price point. Iwata told reporters that “for us, Microsoft’s approach wouldn’t work.”

I am very interested in seeing how the new system will develop and enter into the emerging markets with a cheap console. Luckily for Nintendo its core strength is creating fun, memorable games for all generations. I feel this will only aid the success of their new console; the intended price point mentioned so far is around $50 US. Does this mean we will see this new console in the US? Most likely the presence will be little to none for the United States, however the company will continue to push titles for the WII U and DS consoles. Nintendo has never shown much interest in competing directly with Microsoft and Sony as the company likes to do its own thing whether sales are up or down.

The exact future of this new cheaper console is a little cloudy at the moment with very little known. Most likely the games will be able to cross over from Wii U/3DS into the newer console rather than the other way around. The company feels that you don’t need a high tech machine to enjoy games. Gaming should be more about the games and less about the system, in most cases the simpler the game, the better. Since the companies start it has embraced that idea creating iconic characters that will live on forever, which makes me confident that they will see success in their new console, even if it doesn’t have all the latest bells and whistles.

Share with me your thoughts on this new console. Would you buy a cheaper console with lower quality games, or are you all about the effects?

This article was written for publication on The GCE by Jenni Sniffen