Nintendo hasn’t changed the price of its Wii gaming console one penny in the nearly three years since it was introduced—and the company hasn’t had to, since for the bulk of that time Nintendo hasn’t been able to make enough Wiis to keep retailers stocked. However, recent price drops on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 have given both consoles an uptick in sales, where Nintendo has actually seen Wii sales declining—although they’re still leading the console game.
Industry watchers have been speculating for months that Nintendo would lower the price on the Wii console in order to spur sales and continue to reap the benefits of the Wii’s success…and now it looks like the company is planning to do just that, with multiple retailer sources indicating Nintendo plans to drop U.S. Wii pricing from $249.99 to $199.99 beginning this weekend. Two sources and several unattributed industry reports indicate Nintendo plans to make a formal announcement September 25; the price change is expected to into effect September 27.
Some industry sources expect Nintendo to reduce the price of the Wii in the Japanese market as well.
Speculative reports have Nintendo preparing new product bundles for the UK and European markets (potentially including Wii Sports Resort and the MotionPlus peripheral), but there’s no consistent word about price cuts or timing of any pricing changes. Nintendo may introduce new product bundles at the same price point as the existing Wii packages.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.