GameStop: DSi is "priced right"
US retailer's VP of merchandising praises product's value and Nintendo's "good job"
GameStop's senior vice president of merchandising, Bob McKenzie, has praised Nintendo's pricing of the DSi.
Speaking to Gamastura, Mckenzie explained how the USD 179 price point still represents value, despite being USD 30 more than the DS Lite.
"I think they've got the value there," he said. "It's great; I think it's priced right. They've done a good job. Seeing the demo of that thing really makes you realise how much different it is from the original DS Lite."
Mckenzie commented on the handheld's redesign, including its loss of the GameBoy Advance cartridge port.
"Having the DSi losing the ability to play your GBA games on it - I don't think that the consumer is really going to look at that as a negative," he explained, saying that demand for the older titles had "definitely tapered off".
"We saw a similar thing with the launch of the PlayStation 3, obviously," he added. "Initially that launched with backwards compatibility, and then some of the variations of the different size configurations weren't backwards compatible."
"The further you get from that launch, I think, the less impactful it is to the consumer, because they feel they've upgraded their library over time."