When the Wii U goes on sale in Japan on December 8, the cheaper of the two hardware bundles available will be priced at ¥26250.
If you want to buy a second Wii U controller, though – and remember, the system does support two, even if early games won’t – you’re going to have to pay.
A standalone Wii U pad will cost ¥13440. Or, half the price of the entire console. That’s unprecedented in home console gaming, at least for a standard peripheral at this stage of its life.
Let’s convert that to US Dollars. It’s a little unfair, given the conversion rate doesn’t reflect what the console will actually cost in the West, but this is just for illustrative purposes.
¥26250 converts today to USD$337. A controller, at ¥13440, converts to USD$172.
That’s insane. It’s expected, since so much of the Wii U’s appeal – and horsepower, as the console appears roughly equal to the PS3 and 360 in many areas – is packed into the pad, but still. You can understand why Nintendo doesn’t expect many games, or gamers, to be using two of these things.
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