UK retailer price cuts: Wii U Premium for £180, Xbox One £410
Amazon UK and Argos both dropped the Wii U Premium to £180 this week, and if that's a familiar-sounding figure it's because it matches the launch price of the Wii. Both retailers have the 32GB Wii U model, complete with Nintendo Land, priced £120 less than the £300 Nintendo itself is asking for, and what most retailers sold the Wii U Premium for at launch.
Nintendo UK has several Premium SKUs at £250, including the better value New Super Mario U bundle, and Amazon and Argos more or less price match those bundles. There's been no official word, but perhaps these cuts indicate that Nintendo UK wants to phase out the Nintendo Land bundle, just as Nintendo of America did last year.
In contrast, Zavvi taking £20 off the Xbox One is a fresher development for Microsoft's console. Europe's Day One editions of the Xbox One came with free copies of FIFA 14 or Forza 5, so it's arguable £410 better reflects Zavvi's game-less bundle. In any case, other retailers aren't following suit at this stage, so we're not sure what to make of it yet.
The Xbox One enjoyed a strong start at retail, racking up 3 million worldwide sales before the close of 2013. The Wii U reached 3 million shipped in a similar time frame, but that early success dried up in 2013, and Nintendo slashed the console's fiscal year forecasts recently from 9 million to 2.8 million - if that figure proves accurate, Nintendo will have shipped 6.2 million units by March 2014.
