X-bit labs

Nintendo’s Wii Will Cost Less Than $200 – Sega Exec.

Category: Multimedia

by Anton Shilov

[ 05/11/2006 | 02:40 PM ]

Nintendo’s Wii game console, which launch is scheduled adjacent to Sony’s PlayStation 3, may become the most affordable gaming machine in years, as its pricing will be around $200, according to an executive of Sega, one of the main game publishers for Nintendo’s game consoles.

Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing for Sega, said in an interview with Forbes that Nintendo’s Wii would cost less than $200, mainly because it does not feature state-of-the-art “heavy-duty” processors like those in PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. Forbes further reported that Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post predicted Thursday that the new machine, which will be released this fall, would sell for $200, a move that could prompt software publishers to create more titles for the gaming system.

Sony’s PlayStation 2 console, which was introduced about half a decade ago, is selling very well even these days due to broad availability of games and pretty low price. Recently Sony slashed PS2 pricing to $129, which should catalyze even more gamers to get the machine. Even though Nintendo’s Wii is not as advanced as the new-generation consoles from Microsoft or Sony, it will be very cost-efficient and will come with motion-sensitive game controller, something truly new in the video game world.

Low price along with availability of many games, plus support of never-before-seen controller may attract attention of a lot of gamers to the new Wii console from Nintendo, which is exactly what the company seems to be banking on.

Nintendo Wii console will feature IBM’s custom PowerPC architecture based microprocessor named Broadway clocked at 729MHz and code-named Hollywood chip with built-in graphics core, DSP and I/O features from ATI that will operate at 243MHz, earlier reports suggested. Nintendo revolution will use 91MB of memory in total: 23MB of “main” 1T-SRAM, 64MB of “external” 1T-SRAM and 3MB texture buffer on the GPU. Nintendo’s Wii does not feature a hard disk drive, instead, it boasts with 512MB of flash memory, but the console will also have a card reader, which will allow installing more memory.