The Pressures on the Next Nintendo Console 341
With the launch of Nintendo's next-gen offering a little more than two months away, the importance that Nintendo is placing on this console is finally becoming apparent. Dyed-in-the-wool Nintendo loyalists and haters alike have both come to the same conclusion: if Nintendo is to stay a force in the non-portable console market, this system has to succeed. Along those lines, WhatEntertainment offers an editorial entitled Failure is not an Option. It explores the reality that Nintendo's failure would have repercussions on the industry as a whole. "Most of all I'm worried what this might do to the industry if it's a failure. In a landscape already filled with the carcasses of those that dared to try something new, and publishers more afraid than ever to try something a little different, the high-profile failure of a system that tried to put innovation and fun before graphics could be the final nail in the coffin of creativity." Meanwhile, GameInformer has a piece entitled Will Wii be Dissapointed Again? Billy Berghammer says what he doesn't want to say: the Wii could be another flop for Nintendo. From that article: "The launch price is low enough (outside of the $60 for controller costs) to avoid damaging my wallet the same way the purchase of a Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 will, and the possibilities and promises from Nintendo somehow still keep me hoping for a bright future. But for now, the future is made up of many of the same promises and hopes I had when the N64 and GameCube were announced. I just hope I don't end up being disappointed once again."
Re:Look at sales of the DS (Score:4, Informative)
I also believe that DS sales are going to really help the adoption rate of the Wii. People didn't take the DS seriously at first, and now, they're flying off the shelves. I think that people are seeing that Nintendo is not just being innovative to be wierd (okay, not ALL the time, at least), but really trying to push what we consider regular gameplay to be.
Re:Opinion of article.... (Score:5, Informative)
Nintendo was actually 3rd place worldwide on the last generation... in unit sales (Microsoft shipped 24 million xbox)
Of course, Nintendo trounced MS in Japan and got a damn huge lot of profits out of the gamecube era (hint: you're nearly the only game publisher for a 20million user base. Ohhh look, every single release gets a million sales!) while Microsoft lost $2billion in the process. But on shipped units count, they lost.
clarification (Score:1, Informative)
Microsoft barely spent a dime on pre-360 release marketing in Japan. There were reports of gamers going to stores to buy Xbox1, seeing the 360, and thinking it was just an Xbox1 with a new look.
Microsoft only started marketing in Japan a few months ago when it was confirmed that Sony was having major pushbacks in dates. Even then it wasn't much.
Truth is Japan has some of the most brand-loyal customers in the world. They will buy a Japanese console over an American one even if it is far inferior. In America I don't think I've met a person who will buy the 360 over PS3/WII simply because it is based in the US.
Re:Opinion of article.... (Score:3, Informative)
So, even though their home console sold the least, they were the clear winners of the last generation with regards to profit. And I agree with your statement about their lack of 3rd party support.
Re:It costs a Wii bit too much (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, all we know about the Wii's GPU (code name Hollywood) and CPU (code name broadway) is that they're custom built processors manufactured using a 90nm SOI CMOS process; the process is the same process which was used on the PowePC 970 processors (the G5) which came in single and dual core configurations and ran between 1.5GHz and 2.5GHz. We have heard from ATI that the graphics demonstrated at E3 were just "The tip of the iceburg".
Recently, in an interview with UBIsoft about RedSteel, it was reported that UBIsoft did not recieve Wii hardware until 2 months before E3 and they did not have time to complete the artistic upgrades before the demo had to be ready for testing (most developers require 4-6 weeks of testing a demo prior to E3); this meant that the E3 demo was more representative of what was running on Gamecube hardware than what the Wii can do. Now, I'm not arguing that the Wii is a technological marvel but it is not incapable of adequate graphics ( http://media.wii.ign.com/media/821/821973/img_391
The one thing I will say about your "under 800MHz remark" is that I know for a fact that EBgames was publishing the fake IGN specs and received a nice visit from Nintendo's laywer; now they publish the same specs Nintendo does. Matt from IGN was either lying or believed a lie.
Re:It costs a Wii bit too much (Score:2, Informative)
So the 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 MP that was (said to be) about as powerful as the Pentum 4 3GHz was only 1.5 times as powerful as my Pentium 3 1GHz? What about the Pentium 4 Duo, since it runs at the same speeds that Pentium 4s ran at in 2002 it is no more powerful than that?
The fact is that modern CPU cores are getting 4 or 5 times the performance per cycle that they got on older cores; the 2.5 GHz G3 cores (the same core that was in the Gamecube) that are in the XBox 360 and PS3 are probably not as powerful as a PowerPC 970MP running at 2.5GHz.
Also, do you have a source of that less than 800MHz remark (one that goes to either a developer with a Wii dev kit or to Nintendo themselves)? No, all you have is a rumor that was posted on IGN by an editor who openly says he "Hates Nintendo" and has spent the past 5 years bitching about how he wants to be the editor for the XBox channel; a nice "unbiased" source.
It's funny that Nintendo has declared a monopoly on innovation. Why? Cause you can download games and play online? Cause they have a controller that responds to motion? These things have been done before and they aren't going to change things. It will be fun for a game for most and won't have longevity. It's a gimmick.
Do you know what the #1 selling videogame systems were in holiday season 2004 and 2005 were? If you said PS2, PSP or Nintendo DS you'd be very wrong. The best selling game systems were the atari-classic 25 in one game systems that were sold at toy stores. Do you know why they sold so well? Because gamers who grew up with the Atari and NES are having children and wish to share these games with their children, and at the same time children under the age of 12 can not play modern games very well. The virtual console will be huge to tons of people simply because they know the games and want to play them again.
The Wiimote may be similar to motion controllers, light guns and other input devices that have been tried in the past; but none of these previous attempts had been made by one of the largest game publishers in the world, who is currently riding the success of another platform that was dismissed as a gimick, who has billions of dollars to ensure that it won't flop.
Re:Zelda, Mario, Rinse, Repeat (Score:3, Informative)
If you think NSMB is nothing more than the original Mario Bros. games with prettier graphics, then the only conclusion I can draw is that you didn't play it for more than five minutes. The basic action might be old-school Mario run-and-jump, but the level designs, new powerups, and depth of gameplay (try getting all the star coins if you really want to prove your platformer chops) makes it great for both casual players and "hardcore" gamers.
There are perfectly good reasons why NSMB is a record-breaking blockbuster.