Sandisk selling "special edition" SD cards for Wii at a premium

Everyone's heard about PS3s getting resold on eBay for ridiculous amounts, but there's more than just black market markups these days. Sandisk is openly executing some "smart business" with its Wii-branded SD cards, too. The flash memory company is selling "special edition" cards in capacities ranging from half a gig all the way up to 2GB, with prices that go from $35 to $90, respectively. By comparison, PriceGrabber.com says that the lowest you can get an ordinary 512MB SD card is $10, while the cheapo 2GB SD cards come in at $27. From what we can tell, the only difference between these SD cards and any plain-vanilla SD card is that this one says "For Wii" on it and comes in the exact same shade of white as your new console. If that's not worth triple the price, we're not sure what is.

[Via TG Daily]

[Mr.Ortiz @ Nov 17th 2006 11:34PM]

It's not really fair to compare these cards to bargain basement stuff on pricegrabber. Narrow it down to other Sandisk products and you'll see that the prices are actually comparable to their high end cards (Extreme 3/Ultra 2, etc). So, the question is, do the Wii branded cards match the specs on those? And are those cards worth the premium to begin with?

[ey @ Nov 18th 2006 12:02AM]

This is just a silly report. Check the regular prices on the SanDisk site, for the standard sd cards, and it's exactly the same. The fact that they exist lower priced elsewhere, doesn't mean that these won't exist lower priced elsewhere.

[Brennan @ Nov 18th 2006 12:49AM]

lol, ill have no problem getting this sucker.

I have a bro who works at Best Buy n giving him the money, he is going to buy the extra controllers n accessories at half off.........HALF OFF. I'll get the accessories 11/25, plus an HD Preimum Component Cable from MadCatz if it comes out in time.

found out that the PS3 comes with no HDMI cable, just a Composite Cable, HA HA.........suckers.

Wii > PS3

[Brian Irelan @ Nov 18th 2006 12:53AM]

This is pure FUD.

Yes, you can find things cheaper than retail on Pricegrabber, you'll undoubtably find these as well. As it stands these Wii memory cards will cost the same as the plain vanilla ones. $35 for 512MB, $90 for 2GB.

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1052)-SanDisk_Standard_SD_and_SDHC.aspx

[Jeff @ Nov 18th 2006 12:53AM]

Office Depot sells the SanDisk 2GB Secure Digital Card for $99.99

this sounds like a deal. assuming you pay attention to in-store prices, which is obviously the target market for these.

[ChrisXS @ Nov 18th 2006 12:54AM]

Some non-technical people without a clue may think that only the Wii branded cards will work. People such as this may have blindly purchased media such as tapes, or diskettes in the past with the assumption that it would just work without reading the label. The word "SD" means nothing to them.

[pgl @ Nov 18th 2006 12:56AM]

sandisk needs to tell use the read and write speeds of these things.

[Craig @ Nov 18th 2006 1:15AM]

recently got a 1gb kingston SD card for $5 and a 2gb kingston SD card with mini usb card-reader for $20 at Buy.com. $10 off with google check out used for both. not a bad deal at all.

i guess this isn't really related to the post (other than i just invested in more sd memory than i should need for a while). i'm just glad to see capacities increasing and prices falling like a rock.

remember this?

http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/29/sandisks-budget-2gb-secure-digital-card

[Adrian Williams @ Nov 18th 2006 1:18AM]

new egg have 2gb for 73$ 5 bucks shipping

[Steven @ Nov 18th 2006 2:22AM]

Wow...a year ago I paid $120 for my cheapest-on-newegg 2GB SD card

/sigh

Oh, and 3 months ago I paid $2200 for the now $1275 dell 30"

/sigh again

[Panther_V @ Nov 18th 2006 3:19AM]

I have a 4GB Kingmax 4GB SD card which i bought for $120AUD ($90USD) , i just hope it works ;)

[Harrold @ Nov 18th 2006 4:02AM]

I am a disgusting spammer: [e-mail]

[Colin @ Nov 18th 2006 8:51AM]

@ChrisXS...

You have it right there. Can you imaging the confusion on all the faces of the 50+ crowd (Nintendo IS targeting them) when it comes to the Nintendo Wii...of course they will go for the 'branded' one.

It is more 'iPodification' of the product by Nintendo to have cobrands at higher than average prices and skim some profit. (Higher than average for the product not the brand...ie you really don't NEEED to buy a Made for iPod FM transmitter but look how many do!)

As a side point...$99 bucks for 2GB...UM...doesn't that pay for a new 20GB HD for Xbox 360 or 200GB internal 2.5 for the PS3.?

[Colin @ Nov 18th 2006 9:02AM]

Just some other random thoughts...

I thought I read that you'll have a max 100 mp3 available regardless of SD size

I thought I read that you'll have a max of 1000 photos available regardless of SD size.

You cant save mp3 or photos or video to the SD card while browsing with Opera.

So...do you really need a large SD card?

[humpty @ Nov 18th 2006 9:48AM]

The point isnt necessarily to make more money per card; but, to draw sales way from other non-SanDisk SD manufacturers.

[Tech Diva XXX @ Nov 18th 2006 5:18PM]

Well, you can put these in any device that takes SD cards, right? The only thing different is they're white. So if you want to play around with color for some reason, I can see getting one! I bet some places like New Egg and others will knock off a few bucks on these anyway.

[tekdroid @ Nov 18th 2006 7:42PM]

Wii would u wanna riisk 100% compatiibiliity buyiing anythiing but Wii-labelled accessoriies.

[Erik @ Nov 19th 2006 2:59PM]

Best idea EVER!

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 19th 2006 7:05PM]

So what will be Sandisk's excuse to sell a more expensive SD card for the inevitable blue Wiis when their standard SD cards are already blue?

"These are bluer"??

Discuss...

[Derec @ Jan 23rd 2007 2:42PM]

I just paid $25CDN for a New Sandisk 2GB SD Card off Ebay.
As far as I can tell, unless that Wii branded Sandisk SD Card is going to do something special for me (like make breakfast, or give me a sweet challenger at Tennis) then I think I just got a deal.

[Paul Hill @ Feb 29th 2008 9:09AM]

Just bought a 2 Gig SD Card from Radio Shack for $ 19.99
As the blogger said, unless the "branded" Wii card from SanDisc takes out the trash or walks the dog while you play Wii, why pay $50.00 for an SD card just for the color coordiation of the console to the card.... outrageous