Nintendo has poured cold water on speculation that it could soon lower the retail price of the Wii.

Credit Suisse analyst Koya Tabata suggested on Monday that manufacturing costs for the Nintendo Wii have reduced by 45 percent since the console's launch, and implied that this gives Nintendo room to consider a console price cut.

Nintendo looks at the situation differently. The Kyoto-based company tells Edge that "regardless of the cost price of manufacture, the decision to raise the [Wii’s trade] price to retailers in the UK was taken due to the severe depreciation of the pound.”

The platform holder did not speak on the validity of Tabata’s estimates, stating that it would not comment on speculation, yet the firm did draw up an interesting fact.

“From the Wii launch in December 2006 to December 2008, the value of the Pound fell by 43 percent against the Yen,” a spokesperson said, adding that in the same two years the Dollar and Euro fell against the Pound by 22 and 18 percent respectively.

Ed Barton, games analyst for Screen Digest, tells Edge that it’s practically impossible to accurately analyse how much a console’s manufacturing costs have been cut. “No one outside of Nintendo knows how much the company pays for all its components,” he says.

He did state, however, that the Wii is not made up of cutting-edge or scarce components, such as a Blu-ray diode, but in fact relatively common components which Nintendo has been able to order in bigger volumes.

“It’s a reasonable assumption that manufacturing costs have dived a bit,” he says, “yet the effect of a cut in manufacturing costs hasn’t exactly shown up in Nintendo’s recent financial results.”

Here, Barton is referring to Nintendo’s financial posting back in January [pdf], where the company reported a sharp profit decline of 18 percent due to the strong Yen which has stung Japan’s export trade.

Nintendo also expected its net income to shrink from previous projections,‭ ‬down from‭ ‬$3.8‭ ‬billion‭ ‬to‭ ‬$2.55‭ ‬billion‭; ‬down a third on original expectations and‭ ‬falling‭ ‬over‭ ‬10‭ ‬percent year-on-year.

“Now, if Nintendo has managed to cut its manufacturing costs so dramatically, like down 45 percent over the two years since launch, then I’d suspect we’d be seeing these negative results partially offset.”

Barton adds that, if a lifetime reduction in manufacturing costs is anywhere near the 45 percent mark, then the impact of this will be obvious in Nintendo’s operating profits during its next quarterly financial posting.

“Also, given that Nintendo has just raised the trade price, I think a company flip-flopping on prices so quickly would not demonstrate the most confidence in what one is doing in the marketplace,” Barton adds. “Maybe it could happen in Japan, if supply has truly equalled demand.”