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Last Monday, right after coming from playing Dead Space at EA India’s office, Reggie and I planned to check out the Nintendo Showroom floor at the MGF Mega City Mall here in Gurgaon - both locations are practically within walking distance. However, what started out as a curious stroll turned into a delightful display of Nintendo memorabilia, but quickly ended up becoming a vulgar awakening of awkwardness and deceit.

Before even walking in, we were both memorized at the amount of decorated Nintendo products on display. There was pretty much something for everyone to gawk at, be it the casual audience or the pure-hearted nerdcore. Right smack in the center of the store (unoriginally referred to as “Game Station” but you won’t find any Playstations or Xboxes here) was a Wii demo station outfitted with a Wii Fit Balance Board covered in plastic wrapping, no doubt to prevent any notable footprints on the main goods less the resale value drops a few hundred bucks. Sadly, we were unable to actually use the Balance Board as the Wii Fit disc wouldn’t properly boot-up.

Then came the first of our shocking observations: the pricing of Wii games. When we last spoke with Nintendo distributor Samurai-India’s Mahesh Toshniwal, he was quite aware of the high price mark set for the Wii console and felt it was rightfully justified given the dollar-rupee exchange rate at the time. But how anyone plans to purchase these titles at such ridiculous costs are little beyond us. Have a look for yourself:

The Simpsons Game – Rs. 3419
Donkey Kong Barrel Blast – Rs. 3419
Trauma Center: New Blood – Rs. 3419
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn – Rs. 3419
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 – Rs. 3419
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles – Rs. 3419
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law – Rs. 2772
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure – Rs. 2772
Battalion Wars 2 – Rs. 3419
Mario Strikers Charged – Rs. 3419
Rayman Ravin’ Rabbids 2 – Rs. 3419

But wait, there’s more! At the very right side corner of the store, we came across an entire shelf of what we were sure to be faux Gameboy Advance carts with complimentary cheap cardboard and confounded price tags to boot. Confounded, in the sense that how super cheap these games were going for (Rs. 200).

What does all this mean? We’ve sent a mail to Samurai-India a few days back and received no reply. More as it develops. In the meantime, take a gander at the other screens we took. Reggie says I’m quite the Picasso when it comes to photography.

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By N2H

• Abe Says:
  October 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

  Jeez - look at those prices! The console at 19,900 is bad enough but then the games are for 3000?? What is Nintendo/Samurai smoking? Especially when Microsoft has cut the Xbox360 price to 15k.
  Suddenly, I don’t feel so bad having bought my PS3 a month ago with GT5 and an HDMI cable thrown in for the MRP.

• The big fight: Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 ? - Page 37 - Team-BHP Says:
  October 13th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

  [...] here - the ANGRY pixel Blog Archive MGF MegaCity Mall’s Nintendo Showroom of Horrors The games for the Wii are between 2800 and 3500!!!! RIP in India, [...]

• Nike Okami Says:
  October 14th, 2008 at 11:12 pm

  http://www.split-screen.com/2008/10/10/from-samurai-to-ronin-the-tale-of-india%e2%80%99s-wii/

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