So I got a letter from my friendly omnipresently local Amazon e-tailer informing me that the Nintendo Wii was now available at a new low low price of 199.99 . Gamespot has also commented this as well, since it was apparently announced at the Tokyo Game Show.

Now, this is excellent news and all, however I am a little curious about what this means, and how this is even happening.

Point #1:

Analysts all over it seems, including many that Gamespot have posted, have cited that the Wii will not be dropping in price any time soon. Signs point to Nintendo's continually high profit margins in the hardware sales sector and increasing profits from even lower than before hardware costs. Signs did not point to any huge slackening of Nintendo's sales, so the question again remains, with a veritable mountain of evidence towards why they didn't need nor want to drop the price, why do it now?

Point #2:

What does the decreasing of the Wii say about Nintendo and their current market confidence? I have felt for some time now that the Wii fever had been subsiding and Nintendo was indeed going to have trouble using that stout install-base of systems to sell as much software as the other two competitors could. Could this apparent unexpected price drop spell certain issues within Nintendo's longer term sales goals? With the current generation of consoles now well on their way to a more mature stage, Nintendo needs it's sales to continue strong more than ever (although I feel Software more than Hardware should now be the focus), so it does make sense that this price drop is indicative a long expected (but not yet seen) reduction in the Wii sales blitz that has gone on for so long.

In conclusion, while I disdain at this point people trying to declare any kind of winner or loser to the console war, and find that the Wii's sales success not exactly a marker for a winning product, it is interesting to see these unexpected developments, and will be keeping a closer eye on Nintendo to see where else this may go.