Can you install games to the card, or install VC games to the memory card? I'm genuinely curious. That would help a lot with wanting to play a lot of classic old school games from the VC.

Ok I'll bite. Games I own, only on the ps3/xbox:

Borderlands
Mass effect 1
Assassin's creed 1
Dead Space 1
Mirror's Edge
L4D 1
Dead Island
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
Team Fortress 2
Shadow Complex
Gears of War
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Viva Pinata
Flock
Trials
Braid
Alan Wake
Alone in the Dark (2008)
Trine 2
Witcher 2
Crysis (yes it was recently ported)

So no, not everyone plays only those 2 franchises. A statement which everyone repeats, including yourself. And don't forget as a side note, yes, things like mass effect and dead space are franchises now, but only as of 2007/8 were they brand new.

Try again.

Oh boy. Someone's getting irked. Whipping out a googled reuters article.

Color me not impressed.

I used to read reuters, bloomberg, various analyst periodicals, financial statements as part of my living. You can pull the wool over other armchair analysts on /., but not me.

You make assumptions that based that in 2012 sales dropped off. Did you forget the part where we're just halfway of 2012? So maybe they're off by a million or two from the prior year if you extrapolate for the rest of the year. Not bad for consoles compared to the extreme drop off of the Wii. Now, assuming your unit sales numbers are correct, which I doubt, it debunks your argument right there. Did you miss the part about steady growth year over year for BOTH the ps3 and xbox, compared to the sharp drop off of the Wii. Again lending credence to people buying the Wii as a casual toy?

Did you even read what you wrote? You're saying you're wrong.

Wrong. Point me to the annual reports where they've said that. And I want to see actual costs compared to EBITDA. Most companies want to show a loss for certain things for tax purposes. The objective is to maximize profit while minimizing taxes paid.

Did you miss the part where it was entirely attributed to the fall of the LCD? No, you just want to lump that into video games. Wrong again.

I'm sure some had to do with supply chain disruption. Not the real reason. Real reason is their pricing analysts got the launch price wrong. And again, it shows your ignorance of the subject. They didn't listen to game journalists to determine the price. They're called pricing analysts and they're pretty much quants who use various models (statistical, financial, etc.) to determine the price.

Try again next time.

And it's common knowledge that the reason is not that people are waiting for the price drop. And did you even miss the huge dropoff with your OWN figures, dropping 4 million then 6 million. All before the Wii U was even announced in 2009 or on the horizon in 2010? Couple that with industry wide figures showing miserable attach rate. So yea, toy was a hot item, people bought toy, and once the toy hype died down, they stopped buying. And the ones who had one stuck it in their closet. But keep on thinking whatever makes u feel better at night.

Remember, a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Just because you can understand a reuters article doesn't mean you're warren buffet or mario gabelli.

Try again please.

Yes I give kudos to sony for being open (as open as a console platform) can be for doing those games. I would argue though they need more. There are a ton out now and some are pretty cool. ST:O is fantastic, AoC is unique with it's combat, or while not a true MMO something unique like APB. DC is pretty unique at least with the setting (DC superheroes). Free realms though is a generic low res cartoon F2P IMHO. Dust sounds promising though I wonder how that will work considering it's for the PS3, and the new console will be out the following year. Will it be supported? And FFXI? They didn't shut it down following the sequel? Either way, I thought that one was irrelevant because it's known to be pretty much all Chinese gold farmers?

That's an interesting insight. Though are they really not making money? I thought companies like Perfect World or Nexon or whomever are actually bigger and more profitable than all the tradiitonal publishers lately, short of activision? Again I don't know. I'd be curious to know tho.

I can think of more than 12 and even name them off the to of my head:

SMB
SMB 2
SMB 3
SNES SMB
Mario Kart
Mario Kart 64
Gamecube Mario Kart
Wii Mario Kart or whatever it's called
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Paper Mario
Mario Party Wii
Mario Party 4
Mario Party 5
Mario Party 7
Mario Party 6
Mario Party DS
Super Mario World 2 GBA
Super Mario the lost levels
The New Super Mario Bros (that co-op one)
SMB 64
Super Smash Bros
SMB for the DS
the original SMB for the DS
Mario Kart for Gameboy advance
Mario Kart for DS
Mario Party for the DS
Mario Bros for the 2600
Mario Bros for the C64

Want me to keep going?

Quality? Nintendo USED to be about quality back in the NES days. That was 20 years ago. 75% of Wii games since it's inception have been shovelware.

No they won't. It costs time and money to port things. It's not magically free. No one is back-porting their wares to the Wii U. And as a separate but relevant comment in relation to our discussion of Nintendo and the Wii, with the Wii U devs already know they don't have a market for their wares. Hell, does the new controller won't even support Dead Space/GTA/etc. It's the same reason you still don't see controller support for iOS games. Not everyone has them so they would be eliminating a huge portion of their users. And your assumption about power? Because you are privvy to Nintendo's specs that are under NDA? And if you are going by rumors, well the rumors are that the Wii is only as powerful as the XBOX which will be leapfrogged in 1 year by the new XBOX and PS. No AAA dev will, yet again, bother to include Wii U in their business strategy.

Your assumption is patently false.

You're completely right. Your solution is perfect actually. Simply give us the option. Same way it is with Windows Update. Manuall install or auto update 5 days out giving the option to see if anything is borked.

Like I said before, in reality it's either deal with possibly a broken patch, or the bulk of users not patching at all.

How you got modded to 5 is beyond me. I know, it's because you're repeating the same incorrect meme's that are posted in droves to slashdot.

Now, let's back up a second here. Let's make one thing clear. I don't give a crap about who wins or who sold more or who is in better shape. Unless they pay my bills or pay me a salary, then they don't matter. In essence, if I buy their stuff, they end up even *costing* me money.

Now, on to the show. You're so full of BS it isn't funny. Let's now debunk your again tired repeated meme armchair financial analysis. The Wii has been dead for 2 years now. Analysts and various articles have checked out the financials. Even Nintendo has admitted as such. According to them IIRC sales are down like over 73% (not exact, but ballpark).

Who cares? Did you miss the part where the xbox and ps3 are still selling strong and are maybe what like 10 million behind. And nevermind the fact that the attach rate is non-existent on the Wii where the ecosystem in which MS/Sony earn $7 per machine is much higher. And I don't know when they broke even, but I'm 110% positive your comment is bull that they haven't made up their losses incurred. They wouldn't be pricing even the *first* refresh at that point if it didn't make money at that point, nevertheless now lowering that price. For an armchair business person, you are surely lacking the basic fundamentals.

Nintendo will NEVER fix their issue with 3rd party. It's in their culture. And any developer worth their salt after hearing all the stupid whizbang screens and gyroscopes added knows what they learned from the wii. That the platform isn't worth it unless you're making "Babyz 4!" And Nintendo can't print money, as evidenced by the 3DS completely tanking and only now somewhat recovering by lowering the price a whopping $80.

Can't blame that on Japan. Sales were down like 73%. You don't think that has ANY part in the fact that they lost $950 MILLION

It was more the point of the poster repeating the same old meme of "graphics aren't important! games must be fun!" and they use this same line over and over to justify purchasing something with shitty graphics. Nevermind the fact that games can have great graphics AND fun.

Didn't know that. Learn something new every day.

Tho as a side note, you have to agree that, as I'm sure u know already, once you play a game at max settings at native 1080p resolution (or higher), it's *really* tough to go back, regardless of the game.

Perfect example is even let's compare it to Mario directly: play trine 2 on the pc at max settings and 1080p, and then go to the ps3. It hurts. Or even psychonauts, a cartoony game, that while is ancient, looks so much better because at 1080p resolution it's crisp and clear.

You know what is scary? I think competition for that 6 year old is the iPad. You're right, you'd think a family wouldn't want social for their kids. But I can't tell you how many little kids have their parents buy them iPads. It's scary. And not even the cheapest one. We're talking they have to have the 64 GB 3G one that's like what, $1000?

Now, I think it's more being a bad parent or a case of being lazy and just caving to a whiny kid, but that's another story.