Nintendo stole the thunder from its rivals at today’s opening of the Tokyo Game Show when it announced a $50 (£31) cut to the price of its Wii console.

The gambit will take the price of the world’s most popular games console down to $200 in North America and Y20,000 in Japan.

A similar 20 per cent price cut is expected in the UK and the rest of Europe from October 2.

In Britain, the price savings on the Wii are expected to come through retailers bundling the machine into a package that includes two games and a Motion Plus controller for about £180.

Nintendo’s strategic announcement of the price cut, which has been the subject of internet rumours for some weeks, was timed to coincide precisely with the opening paragraphs of the Tokyo Game Show keynote speech of Kazuo Hirai, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment.

The Wii price cut follows a $100 reduction from the price of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console and a similar drop in the price of Sony’s PlayStation 3.

Competition between the three companies, all of which have endured a miserable six months of slowing sales and a severe shortage of blockbuster titles, has intensified even further with the approach of US Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Sony’s August price cut announcement created a temporary spike in console sales, though software continues to shift slowly as household budgets are reined back.

The biggest problem for the Wii, video games industry analysts say, is a combination of recession and a lack of “killer” games. Parents can no longer afford to buy as many titles as in the past, and are interested in games that offer to hold children’s interest for weeks and months, rather than days.

"Price-cut and bundling moves make sense at a number of levels,” Pelham Smithers, an analyst for Pali, said. People willing to pay cash for Wii Sports Resort are existing Wii owners, so bundling it free with the console will not hurt software sales, he added.