Official Nintendo Q1 (April-June) 2008 Financials Thread

Ninny has a Wii2 issue: Developer ability. Look at the growing pains devs have had, and now imagine most of Ninny's internal staff effectively taken a multi-year hiatus from attacking such throny issues.

 

That's just silly. As human beings, we all have bias. That's just the way we're made. Sure, you can fight to overcome your bias, but to pretend to be a paragon of partiality while crying foul over others' bias is wrong.

Take me as example: I'm one of the most biased, opinionated mofos you could ever meet. I don't pretend to be otherwise, however.

Now don't flip a lid because I've disagreed with you yet again

 

This is why I suspect Nintendo may not go for a big machine next time around, either. The 'casual' audience clearly care less about graphics than the 'hardcore': the Wii * series sells absurdly well and they look pretty terrible. A small increase, just to add bulletpoints would mean an even cheaper machine, and it'll give Nintendo more room to maneuver if there's a console price war next-gen.

To Carl, I don't think MS and Sony will take a step backwards. For one, they're not going to throw away all the R&D they've already invested in. I think their step won't be very big, though, because I think that one of the things that will become a bigger issue next-gen will be the price of the consoles. I wouldn't be surprised if MS makes a bigger push in that direction than Sony: Sony's CE products have never been exactly cheap, but they supposedly* make it up in value.

* Honestly, I don't know if it's true, nor do I care, I'm just parroting popular perception.

 

It would be suicide for Nintendo to implement yet another incremental upgrade as the successor to the Wii. Their low-hanging fruit is to transition to HD.

I look at things this way: a lot of Wii owners are first-time gamers. At some point during this generation they're going to be exposed to a 360/PS3 and they're going to go "wow! that looks amazing! I wish my Wii looked like that..." Not all Wii owners will have this experience, and even among those that do, not all will have this reaction, but I still believe a majority will demand more of Nintendo next gen.

 

well ps3/xbox360 level hardware would probably be cheap enough next gen to package into a $250 box giving Nintendo the HD checkmark

 

Indeed. Which is why it would be absolutely ludicrous for Nintendo to do any less

 

Well, honestly, I don't agree, but I don't think either of us really has data to back us up. I think it depends far more on price. If HD is widespread by next-gen, then yeah, the Wii will have HD support. But that just means outputting games at 720p; it says nothing about graphics. Already, the best-selling Wii X series has graphics that are WORSE than what the Wii could produce.

If it turns out that Nintendo can sell the slightly-upgraded WiiNext for say, $100 at a profit, will the 'casual' user really be seduced by better graphics at a significantly higher pricepoint?

 

Right, that's the one bulletpoint I can see Nintendo adding. Built-in storage, perhaps, as well.

 

I believe HD is already widespread though, so 2-5 years from now (whenever the next console generation begins) it ought to be even more so.

 

Maybe patsu can help me, because in the Sony financials thread, or maybe it was the Sony E3 thread he linked to a news item that showed that HDTV adoption in the US is still fairly low.

 

Well now it's a purely semantic argument, i.e. what the definition of "widespread" is. Certainly the majority of TVs in households are not yet HD, but even if we take the most conservative estimate of a 1:5 penetration ratio, that's still several tens of millions of HDTVs out there in the U.S. market already.

 

Oh, sure, but the question is whether it'll have enough penetration to matter to the audience Nintendo wants to target. I think by next-gen it will, so we'll see HD Wii. I just don't think Nintendo has any interest in pushing HD adoption, or in making HD games just so they're HD.

 

I'd bet a pretty penny that Nintendo me will do 720p. The delta in cost would be quite minimal around 2012 so I don't see why they wouldn't.

Yeah if their market was such that HD penetration was still tiny they wouldn't feel any need to adopt HD.

 

Have you ever seen a "Naruto vs Bleach" thread? The PS3 vs Xbox 360 vs Wii arguments that mostly pollute forums are no different from the Batman vs Superman vs Spawn arguments that are common. They are irrational, but highly entertaining.

 

Nintendo will only enjoy fruits of others' efforts in areas other than the one where they think worth taking a risk such as adopting a new controller. Nintendo can hire any third-party developers to develop their games anyway, Mario Party and Smash Brothers are not developed by internal developers.