Analyst Predicts Wii Price Drop

Wedbush-Morgan’s Michael Pachter — the guy that was so harsh on the PSPgo’s price tag — thinks the Wii will drop to $US199.99 this holiday season

Edge Online reports that Nintendo has already sold 20 million units — 50 million worldwide — and plans to sell another 26 million this fiscal year.

Noting that a price cut is not an “almighty weapon,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said recently that the company plans to address a slowdown of Wii sales by introducing strong new software rather than reducing the cost of its hardware.

But Pachter says a price drop is highly likely. In a research note, the analyst said, “Wii supply has finally exceeded demand, so we expect hardware sales to show year-over-year decreases for the first half of 2009. In order to hit its full-year Wii shipment forecast, we expect Nintendo to cut the price of the Wii before [the] holiday, likely to $US199.99.”

Despite his hard line on the PSPgo and subsequent apology, Pachter is still regarded as the guy who knows from games and marketing strategies. Besides the Wii prediction, he’s also calling price cuts for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over the next year:

“In the second half of the year, we expect Sony to cut price for the PS3, and if the cut is deep enough, we expect Microsoft to respond (either with bundles or with a price cut of its own, even as Microsoft just introduced a Xbox 360 Elite bundle with free games Halo 3 and Fable II).”

Analyst Expects Wii Price Cut This Year [Edge Online]