How will be the Wii successor?

[ninzel]

I guess you could say the Wii is the final break (departure) from their schizophrenia...

But that would be semantics, as it seems you are agreeing that the Wii is a departure from what they have been doing.

Yes that is what I believe. That Nintendo has always internally in terms of philosophy and software had a particular vision but never fully executed hardware wise for fear of letting go of the technological race. I don't believe that Nintendo's philosophy has changed with the Wii,but that their execution of that philosophy is much more focused.

 

[Acert93]

And that fact is based on what?

I already coverd the points. To summerize: coders and artists capable of extracting performance for industry leading technology and graphics are rare. For games in the 2011-2012 timeframe to run on PS4 level hardware with results competitive with Sony's internal studios Nintendo would be stuck facing nightmarish staffing logistics: Training current staff, significant increase in overall staffing, aquisition of tools and compilers, the growing pains of going from GameCube hardware (single core, no real shaders) to dozens of processors and fully programmable shader pipelines with all sorts of formats and techniques completely alien to Nintendo's internal studios. Most companies re-use a lot of code. It is also well known that PS3/Xbox 360 launch titles are significantly outdown by last-platform release titles because of the experience gains and the fine grained adjustments and growth made over a 5-6 year period.

Asking Retro Studios, in 2011, to turn out a title to compete with, say, Gears of War 3 is absurd! Retro won't be in a position to do that. So why build hardware (invest money) in a design that your own studios won't be able to effectively extract competitive results from? The growing pains -- and the market backlash -- would be nasty. They would be best off investing that same money in a new input device or other technique that accents their vision because they won't be able to compete, internally, on the same turf Sony and MS will be work on.

Nintendo has their artists and programmers, relatively, working in the stone-age. Just looking at the art side.

Art
- Increased number of art assets and asset variety (larger worlds, more world diversity)
- Each art asset has much higher fidelity
- Art assets using more techniques


Expecting your artists to effectively jump (i.e. compete and justify the expense) from 1,500 poly models to models approaching 100k polys plus normal/parallax maps derived from sorce material with 20M+ polygons (and lets not jump into all the other texture layers that will be in effect) and expect to compete against MS and Sony internal studios (or even 3rd parties) who have 5-6 years experience working with source models of that fidelity. Not to mention their coders have to create tools and a pipeline to maximize these investments. Shaders, deferred rendering, effective lighting and HDR techniques, etc don't grow on trees. Compilers and tools don't just spring out of thin air. Sony has quite an investment in such and look at their situation. And staff don't magically get trained and become proficient at technology 10 years more advanced than what they are currently working on.

Even from a practical standpoint, for Nintendo to make PS4-level hardware worth the investment they are going to need to balloon their art staff for each studio quickly. I don't think it would be unreasonable to suggest that by 2011 some of Nintendo's internal studios, to do a title that is competitive in the next console market, to need to have a 2x-3x increase in artists.

Good artists don't just grow on trees.

but the lack of experience imo isnt one of the reasons why they wont do a p4.

It isn't a point of why they won't, but a point of why they cannot without suffering significant growing pains (that make such a hardware investment counter intuitive).

 

[Acert93]

Yes that is what I believe. That Nintendo has always internally in terms of philosophy and software had a particular vision but never fully executed hardware wise for fear of letting go of the technological race. I don't believe that Nintendo's philosophy has changed with the Wii,but that their execution of that philosophy is much more focused.

Ok, so semantics aside, we agree there is a departure.

And all I was trying to say was that for the Wii successor (Wii2), we should not expect them to compete with the PS4/Xbox 3 hardware because Nintendo is fully off the technology bandwagon and won't be able to easily hop back on.

I would argue the pains of attempting to compete in that arena would be more detrimental in terms of console costs as well as internal struggles to get out competitive products.

Nintendo has it SWEET right now. They can toss out a PS3/Xbox 360 like console in 2010/11 for $200-250, make money on the hardware, leverage existing tools and middleware cheaply, reap the bounty of artists inable to jump to the PS4/Xbox 3 demands, and all the while NOT competing with Sony/MS graphically (yet improve graphics to HD levels as that will be the standard) and at the same time having the resources to actually focus on Wii-mote 2.

Nintendo could make the Xbox 360 knockoff, add in a Wiimote 2, sell it at $200-$250, and do the same thing they are now: early price edge and a new experience to garner a nice chunk of consumers.

Seems like a winning strategy.

 

[pipo]

I'm not sure if a new system without a new HUI experience will sell as good. People might skip it.

The fitness stuff will probably sell a bunch of consoles, but they have to get that sort of innovation going on...

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/16/famitsu-publisher-says-67-of-wii-owners-arent-playing/

According to Famitsu, almost seven out of ten Wii owners aren't using the system at all, which seems like a fairly high number. This came out in a report from Enterbrain President (and Famitsu publisher) Hirokazu Hamamura which was praising Nintendo and citing big things ahead, especially for the DS platform, which he predicts will have 30 million units in Japan in 2009.

However, it makes it hard to understand how the Wii will continue to be a success if the majority of people who bought one aren't playing it. He goes on to say that part of the problem is that the Wii hasn't had a second hit that was as big as Wii Sports. In other words, he's calling the Wii a novelty. A fad that is starting to wear thin.

I couldn't agree more. It's like my Dreamcast. I get it out the basement twice a year to play Samba at some occasion.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This thread feels to me like it's nearing the end of its natural life and is now on life-support, signified by the reference to current sales and usage guesses! Talk should be focussed on Nintendo's hardware future (might not even be Wii!) and though I appreciate some speculation is going to need to consider expectations and reference to the current hardware cycle, it shouldn't spin off into a common-or-garden 'who's selling what now?' marketing debate, nor a 'Is Wii just a short lived fad?' debate. Both these topics are too big and undebatable this early in to be reasoned down into a clear path for Nintendo's future.

 

[pipo]

Not sure if you're pointing at me, but when the topic is 'Wii successor' and people feel Nintendo could just pull the same trick off for a second time but with better graphics, I disagree.

And that's why I came up with a credible source that I feel supports my claim...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But it's all way too short term. You can't look at the current state of play and think that the future generation of consoles is going to be based on the past week's headlines. I mean, 2 months ago people could easily point to Wii sales in Japan and say 'it's selling gangbusters! Nintendo can do the same again and clean up!' A short while later and sales have dropped significantly. Know-one knows if they're tailing off or going to pick up again, but ultimately that's a different thread. This thread is principally about what choice Nintendo are going to make regards the Wii hardware, and not how well is Wii going to sell. That wasn't aimed at you only (Readykilowatt really went off tangent) but the general direction of the thread is veering into common, repetitious ground, which means it no longer serves a purpose. In fact I've argued myself into closing it! The topic of if Wii is a fad or not can be continued in the numerous Wii threads, or will no doubt crop up again with the next Media Create numbers.