Nintendo drops hints about Revolution pricing, DS restyling

"Revolution may lowball competitors to help attract consumer eyes.

While the Xbox 360 is going to be dominating the media spotlight for the next few weeks (and possibly months), senior officials at Nintendo are quietly planting the seeds of Revolution.

Nintendo's next generation video game machine won't be out until 2006, but Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America hinted this week the company might have a surprise up its sleeve.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 has adopted a two-tier price strategy ($299 for a bare bones version and $399 for a souped-up machine). Sony, meanwhile, has shouted from the rooftops the PS3 would be a pricey piece of equipment. Nintendo, though, seems ready to lowball its competitors on the retail front.

"Value has been a key card for us this generation and we'll continue to play it," Fils-Aime told me. "Do I expect us to be at a lower price point than our competition? Yes I do. Have we determined a price yet? No we haven't."

Nintendo employed this strategy at the beginning of this round of the console wars in 2001. While Sony and Microsoft released their video game machines at $299, the GameCube initially sold for $100 lower. Ultimately, the move didn't work as well as hoped. The GameCube is third in hardware sales, behind PlayStation 2 and Xbox, a position typically blamed on a weaker portfolio of third-party games and (initially, at least) the machine's boxy design, which even senior officials acknowledge looks childlike.

"I think there were some lessons we learned with the GameCube that we need to apply to the Revolution," said Fils-Aime. "First, we've got make sure that the titles in the first six months are strong and can drive sales. We've also got to make sure the console is attractive visually. And we've got to deliver on the right consumer needs. With GameCube, at the time, portability was thought to be a big factor – that's why it has a handle. Obviously, that wasn't the case."

The Revolution (which will likely to be called something else when it hits store shelves) is aimed at a wider audience than the GameCube or any of Nintendo's previous systems. While it will play DVD movies (a departure for the company), its primary focus will be games. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will focus strongly on games as well, of course, but have their eyes on a bigger prize – digital domination of the living room. Nintendo has said it wants, instead, to attract people who do not consider themselves gamers." [more]