Nintendo Reveals Finalised DS Launch Line-up, Price, Everything...

“Europe is an extremely important market for Nintendo, and we are pleased we can offer such a short period of time between the US and European launch”

I can't help but find this highly amusing.

Especially seeing as we get it last, like everything else they make...

And looking at that release shchedule, there still isn't anything compelling me to buy it.

Time for Nik the number-cruncher.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is any kind of good. £99 is equivalent to $186, a good $36 more than the US price - making the European system cost 24% more. The system is also nearly four months late.

To compare, Australia is getting it earlier (Feb 24th) at the equivalent of US$155 (AU$199.95). That's a much fairer deal.

Nintendo of Europe, you are still rubbish. Europeans: if you still want a DS, for the love of a good local department import it.

Yay!!


At least they didn't have the nerve to do the usual dollars=pounds conversion that we're used to seeing. £150 would be more than too much for the DS.

The game pricing is welcome, £19-£29 is a good price point for hand held games. Big games are going to sell well on pocket money alone. I just hope that its going to be economical for developers to develop games for the DS at that price point.

Now all we need to see is how Sony reacts to these prices.

Welcome to [another reason] why Britain sucks. Tax.

17.5% should be added to your $186, if you really want a decent comparison. So in actuality, the price of a DS when translated from it's $US price, including tax, is roughly £93.

So really, it's not too big a loss in price, is it? Really? Come on, now.

And it would be naive to think that Nintendo is responsible, or can change in any way, UK Tax law (or should that be 'Law'? Ah well).

So really... the UK sucks. Not Nintendo Europe (in this ONE instance - bloody hell, something that sucks that Nintendo isn't responsible for?! Milk, two sugars please.)

The UK's VAT could be taken into account, yes. However, something tells me it is Nintendo's fault - the €149.99 RRP for mainland Europe (which does not adhere to UK VAT, as I'm sure you've guessed) is equivalent to $196!

And even if European sales tax is on average higher than UK VAT (which I'm pretty sure it's not), they'll still have made us wait nearly four months when launch day arrives.

More tax-related number crunching.

The Japanese DS price is 15,000 yen ($146 or so), which takes into account a sales tax of around 5%. Before that, it's 14,286 yen. So, assuming that the pre-tax yen figure is the true worth of the DS before any tax involvement, I multiplied it by 1.175 (so as to add 17.5%) and converted the product from yen into pounds.

The result? £86.70, meaning they could have sold it at £89.99 with an ever-so-slightly larger pre-tax figure than the Japanese model whilst still accounting fully for higher UK tax.

An £89.99 DS would still be over £10 more than the Japanese figure, but it would be sufficient to cover a higher rate of tax in the UK whilst maintaining the Japanese profit margin. Thus, the government's part in this is largely cleared. It's either our lovely retailers or Nintendo Europe's fault. Take your pick.

Hey, it's still better than the £ to $ conversion we expected...

True, and it's better than the $ to € conversion the poor mainland European nations got, but it's still not as good as it should be.

What did I tell you? This guy uses facts and figures like the rest of us use the letter 'e'! :-)

Your new task, should you choose to accept it, is to do the above calculations from Japanese (or US in the case of XBox) prices to hypothetical UK prices on other console launch prices and give each one a 'rip-off Britain' rating based on the percentage hike we Brits have had to fork out.

With those figures, we can tell which companies are ripping us off the most. Anybody care to run a book? The choices are Sega, Nintendo, Sony & Microsoft. The conditions are launch prices only.

Nik - I think you've missed out import duty - this would raise the price quite a lot. As far as I know Nintendo manufactures the DS outside of Europe and imports them in - they must be subject to some import tax.

I think £99 and the game prices is a very, very good deal, especially if the good games are released at low prices. However, Nintendo still needs some killer games for the EU launch, otherwise the DS will flop.

I just find it really amusing that Nintendo still thinks it's OK to release kit in Europe months late with no marketing and always suffers relativly poor sales.

Well I wouldn't have been totally shocked if they retailed it at £130; I think £100 is Ok.

But wait until we get the PSP @ RRP £180!

Let's hope they don't. At almost double the price it would be a big enough difference to persuade hand-held consumers to choose DS over PSP.

Sony now have to release it for at least £150.

Don't you mean 'at most £150.00'?

To sell it anymore would be kind of retail suicide. I think sony have been holding back, and seeing what ninty are doing. I would gues now a PSP price point at about 120 - 130 quid. 150 is a maximum.

I know they say they are aiming at different markets, but what they both want is the unit in peeps pockets. So sony will make a loss on the unit (haven't they said that?) and make the profit on the software sales and licensing, etc. Much like their home console! That's my guess thou.

As far as i'm concerned that's a damn fine price and if Sony do a similar cheap price, Easter will be a very happy time (if that's when the PSP is released!)

That isn't gonna happen. The 20 quid band will be for the odd puzzle game, etc. Pretty much everything else - and certainly all Ninty 1st party stuff - will be top price.

Hardware-wise though, you can't complain at £99, and it's gonna look much more attractive than PSP, which, whether £180 or £150, is really taking the piss if it's gonna hit the US at £199.