They're bundling lawyers with Wiis now? Incredible.

Joking aside, bundles are a pain. However, sometimes you'd have been buying all that anyway. $325 bundle likely has a spare wiimote and nunchuck, that's $60, and probably a game. Depending on the game, it may worth it anyway.

Counsel? that's what you get for getting lawyers involved in console purchases.

He got so mad that he forgot how to spell.

Do a bit of leg work then? While there's no sign of Wii Fit anywhere to be had, I've seen several Wii in the wild, unbundled. There was a stack of them at the Fred Meyers I was just at last yesterday, in fact.

So they are out there. Just keep your eyes open.

(Of course if I was after a Wii for xmas, I would have been looking LONG before December rolled around. Consistantly trying to find one this close to the 25th is just folly.)

@brainwav: The games are always crap, like barbie horse adventure or something.

Did someone call the Whaaaambulance yet?

There does seem to be something illegal about requiring people to buy other items along with the main thing they want to buy, and then jacking up the overall price. I'm surprised no lawyer has been closely looking into this to determine whether restraint of trade is being committed. A class-action lawsuit against Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony and major retailers?

I bought my Wii and before a week was up I bought more wiimotes, nunchucks, and another game. In retrospect I shoulda opted for a bundle.

Brainwav is correct that you would likely already be spending that extra on additional games/accesories.

Also: it's called a CONSOLE

Captain Duvel Moneycat seems quite suspicious of that Wii-Mote.

To compare, imagine if your grocery store did "bundling": You can't just buy peanut butter, but you have to buy the peanut butter and jelly bundle for a higher price. Then the grocery store says this is justified because the supply of peanut butter is limited and demand for it high at the moment. Would a grocery store be able to get away with a sales tactic like this?

Walmart has "Thousands" in stock...and no forced bundle...all you have to do is say no thanks and walk away if they want to tack on other products you are not interested in.

[kotaku.com]

[www.walmart.com]

What store was this guy in? I just got home from Best Buy here in DC and there was at least a dozen Wii consoles for sale w/o bundles. I was surprised that there wasn't really anyone noticing them.

@solareclipse2: My thinking was along the same line. Since the fellow didn't list what was in the bundle, it's hard to say whether there'd be future use.

Another thing you could do is sell the extra pieces on eBay (or some other reseller market.) Again, depending on the nature of the extras, you could find your $250 console ends up costing $225.

@thewriteguy:

Would a grocery store be able to get away with a sales tactic like this?

No... because there really isn't a limited supply of peanut butter, and in most places people could go to plenty of other places to buy it. Wiis, on the other hand, are in limited supply (although they've been in stock at Amazon quite a few times recently), so stores know some people will pay for the bundle rather than keep hunting or risk going without.

@madanthony:

But that's the point I raised: What IF a peanut butter (or any other food item) were in limited supply and a grocery store required that it be sold as part of a "bundle"? Would that be legal?

@Necoras: 90% of the time they come with WiiSports and WiiPlay...WiiPlay by itself is like $50 (it's the wii remote + $10). WiiSports is the game everyone knows with the boxing, tennis, bowling. Wii Sports comes with the base console that costs $250. It looks like you're getting ripped off $20 if that's the bundle they're selling you.
Of course, I got mine from some guy on craigslist for $300...it was bundled with twine. I chose my fights.

Man, the "can't buy a Wii to save my life" meme is tired. We've moved on to "can't buy Wii Fit to save my life" long ago.

I'm actually surprised there's still any demand for it, given how poor its game lineup is for the next few months.

Nintendo: Localize Project Zero/Fatal Frame 4 nao!

Bring Disaster: Day of Crisis to the US while you're at it.

@Segador: I was wondering at Duvel's expression. He doesn't seem angry...

@thewriteguy: If any other product were in limited supply, stores would just increase the price. However, with the Wii, the stores can't increase the price to balance the high demand, so they resort to bundling.

Just a heads up to anyone looking for any sort of game system or accessory: Blockbuster Video. They sell new consoles there for the same prices as bestbuy or circuit city...just no one realizes it

I was kinda disappointed I had to buy a bundle when I bought my Wii, but at least I waited until I found a bundle I liked. Zelda, Metroid, and an extra controller; which are all things I would have bought anyway.
No harm, no foul, I guess.
I can't believe there's still a shortage of these things, they've been out for over two years now.

@El_Fez:
Since the poster is talking about Frys, an electronics store located on the west coast, parts of the southwest, and now Chicago, there isn't Meyers (or Meijers for that matter) nearby to take advantage of.

Anyways, Circuit City has them in stock. However, you have to buy 4 additional Wii-Fit accessories at full price as part of their "bundle." This includes the Wii-Fit skin, available in 4 fashionable colors, the Wii-Fit mat (on which you place your Wii-Fit supposedly so it doesn't slide around) also in 4 fashionable colors, and don't forget about the Wii-Fit branded water bottle, wrist bands and head bands! No, I'm not joking. Each is available for the "low" price of $19.95 each! (yes, a water bottle that says "Wii-Fit" is $19.95! WTF!?)

Don't forget the Wii-Fit itself has a MSRP of $89, but at Circuit City, for the low-low price of $169, you get the Wii-Fit and 4 useless accessories...for $80 more!

i went to buy just a wii. then sitting there decided how much fun can it be with one controller? hmm this wii play game comes with a controller and game for $50, no second nunchuck better add that $20, omg a wii fishing game, surely bowling will get boring better add that $30. probably would have been better off getting a bundle. barely got out under $400.

Consumerist, you should edit posts for spelling before posting them so Consumerist readers won't waste valuable comment space admonishing spelling mistakes!

@thewriteguy: Man I sure hate crust, but I'll be damned if they don't bundle it with every loaf of bread. I could buy it in smaller packages without crust but that comes bundled too! [www.smuckers.com]

@thewriteguy: Man I sure hate crust, but I'll be damned if they don't bundle it with every loaf of bread. I could buy it in smaller packages without crust but that comes bundled too! [www.smuckers.com]

@snowburnt: *headdesk* Someone's feeling punny today...

I got mine from the company's general manager who was walking in with a bundle she got from Costco... I asked her if I could buy it and she actually said yes.

@thewriteguy:

If you look carefully at the bundles, most of them end up saving you $20-30 if you had bought the items individually. Only the Circuit City "bundle" for the Wii-Fit (see my post above) is rather awful and abusive as you aren't getting a price break on the other stuff at all, and the stuff you're being told to choose is ridiculously overpriced to begin with ($19.95 for a set of wrist straps that say "Wii-Fit" on them!?!)

Bundling in the console world has been around for a long time now. It's especially nasty during the holidays, or when the console is first released, as retailers use the bundles to try and dump unpopular games or useless accessories on consumers. Careful shoppers, however, will know to check several stores and compare their options.

Post holidays, we'll see the stores go back to just selling items separately, or offering open bundles, meaning you can pick what items get included. Again, careful shoppers armed with calculators and a web browser can easily find the best deals.

@concordia: Review of Disaster popped up on Gamespot a few days ago. Take the 5.5/10 rating as you will, but I believe it's available in the States now.

@thewriteguy:
In the case of the Wii, there is no grounds for a suit against Nintendo since Nintendo has publically said they don't want the stores to bundle.

@morganlh85: To feed this circuitous loop a bit more, it must be noted that the sender-inner was the one making the typos. At most a (sic) would be necessary, I think. Strunk and White fans, can I get some input?

@thewriteguy:
Again, it'd only be illegal if the bundled cost of the PB&J was more expensive than if you had been allowed to buy the PB and J separately. Console bundles end up saving your $20-30 over the cost of buying everything separately - and unlike PB or J, a console by itself isn't very useful. You'll need games, usually another controller, maybe a better video cable, and other accessories.

In the Wii's case, unfortunately, they're only bundling unpopular or bad games, as a way of just getting rid of them, even though the store is selling them at a loss.

There is no way that this is "obvious attempt at price gouging." Any half way informed consumer would buy it some where else or realize that they are going to need some of the stuff it is bundled with.

@amuro98: Fred Meyers is on the west coast. Not sure about California, but you can find Fred Meyers stores in Washington and Oregon.

In fact, I always assumed Fred Meyers was a west coast only chain.

@crashedpc: I prefer that the spelling in quoted-emails not be corrected. That way I know just how seriously to take the complainant.

@B: In this case, the OP was requesting legal assistance from the Wii legal team. And counsel for sale? Well, that explains a lot about lawyers!

@El_Fez: Costco had Wii Fit boards / controllers (whatever you call them) last Friday for $80, no bundling, no nothing. A single pallet of them by the front entrance, with a sign saying "one per member."

So I bought one.

@snowburnt: All Wii packages come with WiiSports, even the non-bundled ones

@Necoras: Considering the crummy library of games the Wii has, you'd be hard pressed to find a game that isn't crap.

@ribex:

No, it is slow reporting day.

@thewriteguy:
It's a pretty weak case of tying in the antitrust sense. It's unlikely anyone could actually win, because you have to prove that the partying doing the tying has market power in the tied product (the ability to profitably raise the price). While I'm sure Walmart sells quite a few Wii's, I doubt they sell enough to be able to profitably raise the price of the "tying" console (if they raised the price, people would just buy elsewhere since WalMart doesn't have such a big share of the market).The real case of tying would be against Nintendo if they were selling them this way, but as pointed out above, Nintendo has condemned the practice.

@amuro98: He was talking about Fred Meyer, a chain grocery/department store here in the PNW. I'm in Seattle and we have many around here, and they can be a great place to look for in-demand electronics, since a lot of people seem to forget about them as an option. I have an oddly strong love for Fred Meyer and their natural foods section...

As much as I think it's a goofy practice, console bundles aren't uncommon and they aren't confined to the holiday season.

Like many posters above, I also purchased my Wii as part of a bundle (not during the holidays, but in March of 2006) but our bundle actually saved us money. We would have bought the two games it came with anyway, and we also got an extra Wiimote and nunchuk back when they were difficult to find anywhere in stock on their own. When you added it up, we saved about $45 over the combined retail of all of those items.

We also resold Zelda (one of the two bundle games) to a friend of ours for $20 when we were sick of it. I know a lot of people who put the bundle games they don't want up on eBay or on their local Craigslist to pull some of their money back out of their bundle purchase if the games weren't ones they wanted anyway.

For some bundles, the individual components are individually returnable. When I bought a Wii last year off Walmart.com, it was their megabundle or whatever. Came with an extra Wiimote and 6 games. I just took those extra games back to a Walmart store and they were off my credit card just like that.

@ribex: Yeah. This is hardly a newsworthy post. I've seen non-bundled Wii consoles all over town.

Hey, I have a Wii question. I avoided the bundle b/c I thought my husband had no use for the nunchuck.

Does he indeed have use for that? What game does that go with?

@thewriteguy: Best Buy tries to bundle in Geek Squad services with many new laptops. Optimization (windows updates, tweaks, and uninstall of stuff like AOL, yahoo etc) + restore cd's if the computer does not come with them (only toshibas and dells do these days) for 59.99. Now, if we only have presetups in stock they will try to get you to buy the presetups (and some people want this honest to god) but if the you are insistant you want to not pay for the presetup they have to sell it to you for the regular price.

@Necoras: I bought my Wii in a bundle from Costco. It came with Super Mario Galaxy (which is awesome), Wii Play, and an extra Nunchuk attachment, all for $324.99 I believe. That is $370 worth of stuff that I would have bought anyway, bundled for $325. And no cruddy Barbie game or anything.