Skip to main content

Nintendo dropping Wii U price to $299.99 ahead of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch

Nintendo dropping Wii U price to $299.99 ahead of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch

Share this story

Nintendo Wii U stock 1020
Nintendo Wii U stock 1020

The Wii U hasn't been selling quite as well as Nintendo might like, and come September 20th it's giving the new console's Deluxe package a $50 price cut that'll bring it down to $299.99. Earlier this month, Nintendo estimated that it had only sold 3.45 million Wii U consoles so far, after having been on the market since November. The company has said that it thinks the lack of strong, first-party titles has been the reason for the tepid response, and it's been working to get its big names — including Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda — over to the console soon.

The price drop comes about two months before the Wii U will begin facing even stiffer competition from next-generation game consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Both of its competitors' consoles will now be significantly more expensive than the Wii U, with the PlayStation 4 running $100 more, and the Xbox One running $200 more. That could be enough to give the Wii U something of an edge — but Nintendo's console will still be the least powerful of the three major game systems, and it hasn't seen a particularly encouraging response from developers throughout its first year.

Update: At $299.99, the Wii U Deluxe package would actually match the price of the Wii U Basic package. Polygon reports that while the Basic package remains on sale, that Nintendo says it has fallen into "limited supply" within the US. It is in fact hard to come by at the moment, and reports earlier in the summer said that it was being pulled from stores, suggesting that Nintendo could be phasing it out in favor of the more inclusive package.