Photos of new North American Nintendo Wii display signage and advertisements are starting to circulate online that take note of a new lower price for the console, dropping from $250 to $200. That price is apparently good for the same configuration of Wii that people have been buying since the console launched in 2006, so you'll still get Wii Sports in the box along with a white console, a sensor bar, and a single Wii remote and nunchuk. There's nothing official yet, of course, but as Kombo notes, Nintendo is due to make an announcement around the time the signage supposedly goes into effect.
The Walmart ad was purportedly dated for October, but the tipster who reported TRU's price drop said their ad was supposed to run on September 27th. Kotaku expects that if this is accurate, we might hear something during the Tokyo Game Show, despite Nintendo not having a presence there. They will, however, be at the Kyoto Cross Media Experience 2009.
If this does turn out to be accurate, then I'd be surprised that Nintendo would cut the price of the Wii right before the holidays. Don't get me wrong; the Wii is long overdue for a price cut, but I really believed that Nintendo would be stubborn and plow through one more holiday season at full price or, at most, swap out Wii Sports with Wii Sports Resort and throw in a Wii MotionPlus unit, making the $250 price tag a better value. With Sony's relaunch of the PlayStation and Microsoft doing a little reconfiguration of their console offerings, I guess Nintendo realized they can't afford to continue playing price drop chicken for another holiday shopping season.
