N64 at $129 Too?

Early Tuesday morning, reports came through to GameSpot News that Electronics Boutique stores had lowered the price of the Nintendo 64 hardware to US$129.95. Additional reports said Babbage's soon followed suit, and then the question was immediately raised as to whether Nintendo was officially dropping the price of the N64 or whether these two retailers had lowered it without an official word.

Local EB and Babbage's locations confirmed this new price point for the N64.

Just yesterday, selected retailers lowered the price of the standard PlayStation hardware configuration to $129.95. This is in preparation for the $149.95 MSRP Dual Shock system configuration, which goes on sale June 16. Sony contacted GameSpot News this morning and said that this is not an official price drop, but that the retailers could lower the price when and if they wanted to. The MSRP of standard PlayStation hardware is unchanged.

GameSpot News contacted Nintendo of America this morning to determine if this is an official move by the company or whether Electronics Boutique (followed by Babbage's) had lowered the price of its own accord - to match that of the older PlayStation configuration.

At press time, Nintendo had not issued a press release stating that it had officially dropped the price of N64 hardware.