I know the Wii has the flash memory (I researched it jsut to make sure before I posted). I wasn’t using the hard drive to knock the Wii or boost the PS3 and XBox 360. I was mostly using it in the argument since it was a factor that d Galloway was using. I personally like the hard drive since it makes things faster (such as saving and loading games) and it makes it easy to keep track of games (no switching memory cards or anything) allows for many more saves. Like with the PSX, the memory cards got filled up real fast. The official GC cards get filled up fairly fast. Also, the PS2 cards get filled up much faster than I prefer. The small PSP card is working fine so far, but I’m still somewhat limited in the amoutn of saves for each game I can create. The 360 does make other uses of it for media though and the way it connects with a PC.
The HD from the Xbox made it so you didn’t need save cards and I think it was also used to store music people could play while playing. Indirectly, it also allowed pirates to keep copies of games they rented from Blockbuster. GG.
The HD for the PS3 makes sense though. If you download suikoden 2, you don’t need to redownload it again and I can imagine it would take a lot longer to download something like FF9 than Lufia 2. The Wii’s virtual console plays games that are a lot smaller than the PS3 so the PS3 would need to be substantially bigger storage space. The problem though is how retarded the system is for the PS3. Currently, reverse compatibility is heavily limited and from what I read, you need to download the games to a PSP to play them. Retarded.
On the upside, you can buy (relatively expensive) upgrades to the Wii’s storage in shots of 512mb to 1 gig.
There was no argument. Your quote had rock bottom nothing to do with anything I’ve said in this entire thread. I’m talking about the console industry, not the handheld industry. Yes there is intermingling between the two, but you can’t equate the DS to the high-powered cutting-edge machinery of Sony and Microsoft, and the Wii doesn’t even come close.
Z: I know a lot of people have faith in Nintendo and I can see what they’re trying to do by shifting to another market. It might work, it might not. My point is that they’re running from the central battlefield because they can’t compete with the giants anymore. Microsoft and Sony are bigger than Nintendo. The PS3 and 360 are just more small projects to them. They have money to throw away. They can lose $300 per sale and still destroy Nintendo by stealing the market. The Wii is Nintendo’s cutting-edge death rattle and there’s nothing that can change that.
And Info, I think in the long term the X-Box did better, but I don’t know. I like the PS2 way more anyway.
It had to do with your outright dismissal of Blu Ray’s role in all this (although I come from a different perspective than Galloway) and it had to do with your emphasis on graphics and it had to do with your emphasis on how Nintendo was out of touch and disconnected.
Read my edited post.
And I didn’t mean to dismiss Blu-Ray outright. I was just pointing out that people don’t typically develop a console like that and then headline it with Blu-Ray. It’s icing. PS3’s gaming capabilities are primary.
Graphics have a lot to do with the overall quality of a game but you have to look at it from a certain pov and I can explain it if you want.
I wasn’t saying blu ray was the reason for it but a reason. It is nevertheless an important strategy for Sony , so I don’t think its just icing even if its not the main reason for everything. Even if the PS3 is primarily a gaming machine, the point is to make it widespread enough to have a market for people who would be receptive to blu ray players as they will be able to play blu ray movies right away without buying a separate super expensive blu ray machine. Its 2 birds with 1 stone.
The emphasis on graphics vs gameplay principle: it doesn’t matter if its the ps3 or the psp vs the wii or the DS , the same principles apply and the principle was shown in action. Past the initial push, if you’re not making games people want to play, people won’t keep buying your machine and the initial spike in sales will not continue into consistent sales. This happened to SEGA, this happened to the PSP.
Finally, I remind you you’re wrong about the death rattle with the record profits and record sales Nintendo has made.
I understand the graphics vs gameplay thing better than anyone and you’re right. Gameplay should always come first, no exceptions, but once you have the basics down it’s better to have superior graphics because they’re related to how well you can sink into a game and really get hooked. Like Blu-Ray, it’s one of those things that isn’t necessary, but is still very nice to have. And people will see how nice it is to have, and some will even base their decision on that.
You’re confused about what I’m saying about Nintendo. I’m not saying they’re going to die entirely. I’m saying their involvement in the console-world-wars is going to die because they’re not in any position to compete with superpowers like Sony on that scale. They might be in that position again in the future if their success continues and they expand into different areas (Nintendo MP3 players? TVs? It could happen) but they’re far from it right now.
I agree competely that if you have both graphics and gameplay, its better than gameplay alone, as a general concept. However, the reality is that these games are very rare. Even Square screws it up sometimes so its even more rare to expect any other company to do as well.
The reality is that companies are not always run by people that understand this concept of making a game fun to play or how to even go about doing that. Companies have limited resources and they don’t necessarily invest them in the proper places. For that, all we have to do is blame human narrowmindedness and stupidity.
This is how for example you end up with the PSP. If the PSP had made games people wanted to play, the DS would’ve been shot down brutaly and Nintendo would probably be gone now. This is not the case.
I think that Nintendo could’ve competed with the Xbox and the PS2. I think the Game Cube is a great machine. The problem with the GC is that Nintendo stopped supporting the system with high quality games early. The system died because it lacked the game play and because the other systems had the game play. The GC didn’t lose because it wasn’t powerful enough. Years ago, Konami said that systems supported by Square alone received huge customer support because Square makes good games. The PS2 had Square. The PS1 had Square. The SNES and NES had Square. The DS has Square. Square is one of those few companies that consistently provides the gameplay.
The Xbox had good support with companies like Bunjie making the acclaimed Halo series and a variety of other very popular titles. They bring in talent, even from Valve. This is is significant. These are the kinds of things that keep people coming to the Xbox.
After the GC and with the DS and the Wii, Nintendo is changing the dynamics of the video game situation, as I described in my huge quoted post. They’re looking to expand their potential customers and they tested this out through out they made and marketed the DS. Nintendo is putting all its chips into 1 basket and they need to make it work. Whether they will or not is up to them, but to shoot them down so early is to ignore the facts.
Central battlefield? What battlefield? They’re seeing a mine of income that is being beaten to death, they offer a tempting alternative. They’re going to dig a different untapped mine. Why? Because market saturation is not the direction they wanted to go. Sony can’t steal a market that they can’t appeal to with their processor upgrade and video upgrade system that costs twice what Nintendo’s offering, they’d be the one swinging a death-rattle if they tried.
Also, given Sony’s few hits it took on other ‘battlefields’ I doubt they’re seeing their Playstation division as a small project. Toshiba is kicking their ass on the TV field right now.
Toshiba and Sony are both kicking Nintendo’s ass on the TV battlefield, though. And many others are too.
Market saturation isn’t just a direction Nintendo doesn’t want to go, it’s a direction they can’t go. And it’s smart on their part not to go there. My only point was that the Wii can’t compete with the 360 and PS3 on their terms because Sony and Microsoft are huge corporations with an endless supply of cash to draw from. Nintendo’s only safe bet is to appeal to an untapped market because they can’t supply the central market with a high quality system because they can’t afford to lose money with each sale because they just don’t have the resources that Sony or Microsoft do.
Sin: I don’t care if they’re rare or not. I’m just saying it’s good that the option is there for developers of PS3’s games.
Also, Square’s gameplay is usually horrible. If Square wins console wars, it wins them with the beautiful worlds it creates.
Replace game play with game experience. Creating a world is more than just pretty pictures.
Your 2nd paragraph is meaningless , flawed repetition I countered and you didn’t answer. Furthermore, to say nintendo sucks for expanding its potential customers is retarded. Forcing yourself into a narrower niche than you could be is stupid. Its saying “Nintendo sucks because they found more people to buy their product”. It makes no sense.
It doesn’t matter if the developers have the option to make a pretty game when the pretty games they make are garbage. As seen by previous systems no one bought like past SEGA systems and the PSP. Having an expensive machine that could’ve hosted pretty games isn’t the same as having a machine that is playing something people enjoy.
High quality system is the word I jam at. They’re massively differently designed systems, so I don’t get how a matter such as graphical card determines ‘high quality’ all of a sudden. All systems are capable of making beautiful games, fun games, instant classic games.
In the end, it’s all about what’s on one system and what appeals to what customers. For example, if Konami decides for example to multiplatform MSG4, Sony loses a major appeal that it had. Why pay more for a console when the other one offers the same thing? It’s all about the games. Technologywise, the Panasonic 3D0 was years ahead of everyone else but it died a miserable death, because it had no quality GAMES.
System quality doesn’t mean game quality, it’ll be in the 3rd party hands for that.
As for ‘resources’, they currently have a fairly sizable profit margin so I’d say it’s not something to worry about. It’s a different strategy, not because they’re weaker or any comparative bullshit like that but because they’re seeing something that may or may not lead to a gold mine.
They may become the next Apple, or they may crash and burn, all depends of the quality of the games that come out between now and Dec 2007.
Considering Apple did crash and burn right up to the introduction of the iPod (and, sort of, the iMac earlier), that’s an interesting statement. 
Anyway, the end point is that the Wii is aiming at a different market and isn’t trying to directly compete with Sony. It’s like trying to say that Barbie would lose money due to people buying Lego sets. It may be true for a minority of people, but most folks would only go for one or the other.
I really see all three machines as going for different markets; the XBOX360 seems to be more of an American sports/FPS/Diablo-RPG style market, the PS3 will have more Japanese RPG and action games like we’re used to, and the Wii will cater more to the younger market and the “party game” and platformer styles. That’s pretty much the same breakdown as the GC/PS2/XBOX had, and I don’t see any real shift there.
I think that’s a fair assessment. My buying habits have been just that: I still play my N64 and Gamecube with friends because of NFL Blitz, Goldeneye, Mario Party, and all those Mario Sports games. My PS2 is mainly for JRPGs. And I’ve never wanted an Xbox because I already have plenty of American-style shooters to play on my PC.
Sin: I didn’t say having the option to create beautiful games would make people create good games. I said the good games people do create will be enhanced by the PS3’s graphics.
Nintendo didn’t find more people to buy its products. It found <i>different</i> people to buy its products, because it was forced to. Sony and Microsoft dominate the market for realistic, high-end gaming. Nintendo would like to because there’s a hell of a lot more money there than in niche gaming, and while it looks like Sony and MS are losing money, the sales of games and peripherals and their gain in popularity will outweigh Nintendo’s “fairly sizable profit margin” in the long run.
This isn’t a case of Nintendo breaking new ground like it’s done in the past. Nintendo’s being pushed aside by giant corporations with enough resources to seriously threaten it’s existence. These aren’t the old days where the only competition was the Genesis. This is Sony and MS we’re talking about. They’ve been known to squash insects like Nintendo.
Niche gaming? The way I see it Nintendo goes for the blue ocean strategy. We’ll have to wait for the results of course. Blizzard got quite successful with WoW, for instance, when noone would have expected such a growth.
If anything, Nintendo is the one company trying to stay away from niche gaming. The Wii is expressly marketed at casual gamers and those who aren’t interested in ridiculously complex RPGs or FPSes.
And I already commented on that by talking about the trade offs people all too often make.
No it wasn’t. I already commented on that by discussing why the GC lost. Furthermore, the group of people they’re aiming for is nevertheless larger. So its both different and more people.
We don’t know that yet because don’t know what the sales figures look like. Up to now, the Wii is looking to make a much more profitable launch than the PS3, though this still doesn’t mean much long term.
Considering that Nintendo will have hundreds of millions in profits as Zero pointed out, I don’t think they’re seriously threatened.
Hundreds of millions is a lot to us, but to Nintendo it’s fragile and to Sony and MS it’s nothing. It’s great for a bargain console though.
It’s not hard to make a more profitable launch than 200 000 systems going for -$300.
Nintendo is doomed, Sony to buy Nintendo in 5 years.