Reuters Company News
Nintendo to cut GameCube's Japan price
Monday May 20, 10:47 pm Eastern Time
(Adds company comments, background)
TOKYO, May 21 (Reuters) - Video game giant Nintendo Co Ltd said on Tuesday it will cut the price of its GameCube machine in its home market, firing the latest broadside in a brutal price war among console makers in Japan, Europe and North America.
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It comes sharp on the heels of similar moves by Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) for its Xbox and Sony Corp (Tokyo:6758.T - News) for its PlayStation 2 (PS2).
Nintendo, which has been charging 25,000 yen ($199) for GameCube in Japan, will announce the new price at 2 p.m. (0500 GMT).
A day earlier it said it will slash GameCube's price in the United States by about 25 percent and follows a 20 percent cut in Europe earlier this month.
Microsoft said last week it would cut the price of the Xbox to 24,800 yen from 34,800 yen in Japan on May 22.
That announcement came only two days after Sony said it would make a modest cut in the wholesale price of the PS2 in Japan and allow retailers to set prices on their own, scrapping its list price of 29,800 yen that had already been lowered by 15 percent last November.
In response to the wholesale price cut of around 6.5 percent effective May 16, retail prices of the PS2 have fallen to 26,980-27,800 yen, industry sources said.
A Nintendo spokesman declined to elaborate on the price cut.
Lisa Spicer, an analyst at ING, said last week that she expects Nintendo to slash the Japan price to 20,000 yen.
The Nintendo spokesman said after the U.S. announcement on Monday that the company was always looking at ways to cut prices of consoles everywhere to attract more game fans.
"We don't want to have any speculation about Japan's price cut -- due to our decision for overseas markets -- that would mean customers delaying their purchases. We plan to make an announcement about Japan's price strategy soon to clear such speculation," he said.
Shares in Nintendo fell 1.3 percent to 18,210 yen by midday, compared with the benchmark Nikkei average's (^N225 - News) fall of 0.62 percent.
($1=125.39 Yen) |
