Asda cuts Wii U by £100 again

Supermarket slashes price of Nintendo's console for second time

Asda has slashed the price of the Nintendo Wii U by £100 again.

The Wii U Premium and Nintendoland bundle has been reduced again to £199, while the Basic model is £149.99.

It is currently unclear if it is a short term promotion – as it was last time – or a permanent price cut.

The UK supermarket previously cut the price of the console to £199 for the Premium model and £149 for the Basic model back in May.

The console launched at £299 for the Premium model and £249 for the Basic model in November 2012.

Read more: Nintendo Wii U review

According to Nintendo's own figures, the console sold 3.45 million Wii U consoles between November 30th and December 31st 2012.

However, sales collapsed in the new year. The company sold just 390,000 Wii Us in the first three months of the year.

Nintendo had predicted it would sell 9 million consoles before the end of 2013.

Many industry analysts have blamed a lack of AAA games for the console's woes.

Nintendo is planning to release Pikmin 3 at the end of the month. The company is hoping its release will spur sales ahead of its other AAA titles arriving.

Just last month Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter warned that third party publishers could drop the console before the end of the year.

EA has already confirmed that it has dropped plans to publish any further games on the console until sales improve.

However, Patcher warned that with the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PS4 due to launch this year, it could already be too late for Nintendo's console.

“We believe the Wii U release slate on display will be a key determinant of the console's long-term staying power,” Pachter told investors in June.

Read more: EA confirms it has dropped support for the Wii U – but not permanently

"With the more powerful PS4 and Xbox One launching later this year, Nintendo risks losing additional share to its console competitors if the quality and volume of content available for Wii U does not pick up markedly in the near-term.

“If the Wii U's popularity does not improve by the end of the year, many third-party publishers may pass on producing games for the console.”

Ben Furfie is a former freelance writer for T3.com who produced daily news stories for the site on tech and gadgets. He also live-managed the T3 Award websites during the 2013 and 2014 T3 Awards. Ben later moved into web development and is now a Technical Development Manager leading a team of developers.