Official Nintendo's Next Game Platform Thread

[Sonic]

Same as the other threads apply!

1. What will it take for Nintendo to launch their next system as smoothly as possible? What are the best marketing moves and how should the system be marketed in general? Should it be seen only as a gaming console or should it also be seen as a center for home entertainment?

2. We've heard barely any if any at all on the Big N's next system. We can only assume some pretty darn powerful hardware. What other areas of improvement do you think we will see in the next generation? In terms of sound, AI, physics, and of course online functionality.

3. Anything else anybody want to add?

 

[Tagrineth]

I think Nintendo should keep up what appears to be their current strategy for GameCube.

Make it a pure games console. Don't have it do anything else as standard. Market it as the Nintendo System, basically, and keep it at a low price point, so it can be seen as a totally viable secondary gaming platform alongside your Xbox Next or PS3.

 

[V3]

1. Should be launched around 2007, Don't go head to head with either Sony or MS. Launched with a Mario game Target the kid, market.

The best way to do this, is to include a good size display and speakers, and keep the system portable. Instead solely for family living room, it also should be for kid's gamesroom or bedroom.

Basically what they need to do is leverage as much of GBA to their next gen console. Nintendo seems to have this idea already with Gamecube, but technological cost is still a barrier.

Come 2007, things should be cheaper.

Other form of digital entertaintment is really upto Nintendo to decide.

As for specs, well, someone else can speculate.

 

[Grall]

V3,

I disagree totally. The kids angle isn't working very well for Nintendo, they should drop that for next time round. They need to cater to ALL age-groups, and they need to do it with kickass hardware specs. Nintendo needs to come out with games geared towards older people too. They have lots of design talent and smart people, so they can come up with ideas that don't involve blood and killing. Let other companies produce those games.

Doing a developer-friendly console is vital though. They got that right with the cube, they just need to up the oomph of the hardware. Wonder if the underlying Rxxx architecture is quite as clean and streamlined as the Flipper though; maybe ATI (who seems most likely to design the follow-up) will do a custom-job this time also? Well, not saying that *ATI* designed Flipper, but you know what I mean!

Gamecube is a VERY neat piece of hardware I have to say. Small, yet very competent. The controller is a masterpiece, it's the best controller ever in my opinion, but it needs about two or three more buttons. A, B, X, Y should have been analog too.


*G*

 

[clem64]

Certain things Nintendo shouldn't do:

1) Make purple the main color
2) make it look like a toy
3) make a games-only machine which makes it seem like a low-end device to the average consumer.

If they avoid those 3 things they should do pretty good.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Its hard to say, I think its pretty obvious Nintendos user base
is happy with what they do. They are not going to change anyones minds no matter what they do. They need to just keep it up, making inexpensive systems with good efficient hardware, and keep expanding thier first party production, they could easily be entirely self contained.

 

[bryanb]

3. Anything else anybody want to add?

The biggest most shocking Headline on Nintendo's next console will be:

GameCube 2 To Launch in Mid to Late 2004

The recent japanese industry news item hinting that Nintendo will launch early backs this up. Lets analyze where Nintendo stands to gain from an early launch:

(1) The risk of an early launch is mitigated by the fact that the core GameCube market is isolated from the the wider gaming market that the XBox and PS2 are battling over.

(2) Nintendo execs are still sore about the 1 year launch advantage that the PS2 had over the GameCube. They want revenge.

(3) Nintendo believes, perhaps rightfully so, that if the current generation hardware isn't being fully utilized by 3rd party devs, then what sense is there in delaying the next generation? There's no reason to wait for the 3rd parties to catch up.

(4) As long as the GameCube 2 is close in peformance to PS3 and XBox2, so that they 3rd parties can continue to port across all 3 platforms, the technological differences are meaningless.

(5) More importantly they want to give the 2nd parties a real technological advantage in a more powerful GameCube 2.

(6) Nintendo wants to go online. They also realize that they can only go online now in a very half assed way without a harddrive.

(7) The next GameBoy will launch in the late 2004 time window. Even with the benefits of the GBASP, Nintendo will want to protect their handheld market with new technology that competitors are threatening with superior handhelds. The next GameCube must be launched along with it.

And the most important point for an early Nintendo launch:

(8) As the biggest supplier of software for the GameCube, Nintendo has every thing to gain and little to lose from an early launch. They will be able to pump up their many 1st party titles to match the specs of their new machine. There will be a huge marketing advantage in 1st party Nintendo titles performing radically better than Xbox and PS2 titles. If XBox2 and PS3 arrive in mid to late 2005, GameCube2 will have had a full year advantage.

 

[Tagrineth]

Re-read the above post, replacing the word 'Nintendo' with 'SEGA' and 'GameCube' with 'Dreamcast'.

 

[bryanb]

Re-read the above post, replacing the word 'Nintendo' with 'SEGA' and 'GameCube' with 'Dreamcast'.

Read the above post and remind yourself that by picking your nose you would be accomplishing more than by comparing Sega with Nintendo.

 

[Tagrineth]

Re-read the above post, replacing the word 'Nintendo' with 'SEGA' and 'GameCube' with 'Dreamcast'.

Read the above post and remind yourself that by picking your nose you would be accomplishing more than by comparing Sega with Nintendo.

Oi, I'm not saying that Nintendo is necessarily going to be forced to cancel their console business or anything ^_^; Read my past posts, I almost always defend Nintendo in such situations.

I'm just pointing out that the above post describes exactly what happened with Dreamcast.

 

[bryanb]

Re-read the above post, replacing the word 'Nintendo' with 'SEGA' and 'GameCube' with 'Dreamcast'.

Read the above post and remind yourself that by picking your nose you would be accomplishing more than by comparing Sega with Nintendo.

Oi, I'm not saying that Nintendo is necessarily going to be forced to cancel their console business or anything ^_^; Read my past posts, I almost always defend Nintendo in such situations.

I'm just pointing out that the above post describes exactly what happened with Dreamcast.

You really need to review the definition of the word exactly.

So if I substitute Sega for Nintendo is my post above, please explain to me why these comparisons make no f'in sense:

(1) One word: GameBoy.

(2) There is little correlation between Nintendo's core youth market, its strength and isolation from the remainder of the gaming market and Sega's software portfolio.

(3) Are we just supposed to pretend that Sega can touch the strength of the Nintendo 1st party software lineup? Nintendo will release its next console early cause it has the power over the majority of the software that sells on its console.

Now, if you could formulate a real reply or thoughts on Nintendo's next gen console I would appreciate it. There's nothing to be gained from regurgitating "Nintendo = Sega".

 

[Cyborg]

Its simple.

1-They have to launch the console before sony
2-Keep the 3rd party relationships and try to make it even better in the upcoming years
3-Sleek looking console, no more toys. Think GBA-SP.
4-Easy to develop console with good tools


Why #1 ? Because, there's a chance of sony pissing off developers with their architecture, if they dont have good tools to help developers it might really piss off devs. So if it would happen (and there's good chances that it will) but nintendo launches a year later after PS3, it will only let sony time to fix these problems and developers will already be too far in developing their titles for the platform that they wont bother throwing out all the headaches they had with the architecture for another platform. IF sony makes that mistake and IF nintendo launches before Sony, they should play dirty, like sony did to them back in the n64 days. By that i mean to try to create a domino effect in the dev community that sony totally fucked up, that gamecube 2 IS the platform to develop on (even if GC2 is underpowered compared to PS3, who cares, look at psx) and offer the best licensing fees (blue ray discs will cost a bunch, no?).

ITS THE ONLY WAY

There's nothing else that could possibly bring down the playstation giant. Its all about good timing and the competition's mistakes, just like what happened to n64.

If sony doesnt make any mistakes with ps3, then its over, PS3 will be another playstation giant and GC2 will stay with its hardcore fans but never taking much of the market share. Nintendo will continue making profit of course, but will always be 2nd (or 3rd) to playstation, something im pretty sure nintendo would like to see change.

Yes, its true that when GC2 is launched a lot of peoples will wait for playstation3. But wasnt it like that for n64 and psx? PSX was following the saturn to the graveyard in its first 1 year and a half, gamers knew that saturn was a flop, so they were waiting for the next snes, n64. Sony at that point didnt believe that they could last long in the industry. When n64 launched, BAM, developers bitch about cartridges, bitch about the dev kits, bitch about the hardware. Where do they go? the one who had the least hardware problems, had the best tools and the best licensing fees. It took only Square and capcom to switch camp to create a gigantic domino where pretty much all devs followed them. Sony took advantage of that in every they could.

Nintendo will have to do the same, play dirty, if sony screws up ps3.

 

[zidane1strife]

As long as the GameCube 2 is close in peformance to PS3 and XBox2, so that they 3rd parties can continue to port across all 3 platforms, the technological differences are meaningless.

Indeed only way that can be is launching near or after...
NO WAY in h#ll can you launch in 2004 a low-price console with a profit per unit,and expect it to exceed or equal 2005-2006 h/w priced $100 higher and at a $200-300 per unit loss.

I say they launch a few months after the ps3, and with killer softw., place the announcement a few months after the xbox2 announcement which will make MS delay till late 2006....

If they do that they'll permanently wipe MS of the console world, and can (if they give 3rd parties enticing offers/deals) get a pretty good chunk of the market.

Right now consumers do take notice of h/w perf., but the ps2 advantage in softw. allows it to remain on top. A $200 console with equal or slightly more perf. launched a few months after the ps3, and with killer soft. will take second place, and if a mistake is made by sony, could take first place.

EDITED

 

[wazoo]

Sony will not screw up the ps3. They are focusing ALL their strategy around the ps3, not videogames, all. If they fail, Sony is gone. That is the kind of bet that Nintendo will never do. Of course they will focus on GC2, but with thr minimum investment to stay alive in case of failure.

 

[Tahir2]

As posted in a previous thread Nintendo are not doing that badly versus the XBOX. In total shipments Nintendo is still ahead of XBOX.

Nintendo should attack the adult market more aggressively next time and make a console that will at least play DVD movies!

 

[Cyborg]

Sony will not screw up the ps3. They are focusing ALL their strategy around the ps3, not videogames, all. If they fail, Sony is gone. That is the kind of bet that Nintendo will never do. Of course they will focus on GC2, but with thr minimum investment to stay alive in case of failure.

Erhm, they almost did it with ps2. An architecture like CELL is no easy feats, its gonna be the most complex (and likely the most advanced and powerfull) hardware of next generation, that can also bring technical problems.

Saying sony cant screw ps3 would be like saying that nintendo couldnt screw n64 during the snes era.. I mean you never know. Its not like sony kept the same developer friendly approach with ps2 like they did with psx. The early years of development on ps2 was rather a nightmare for pretty much everyone. I think the quality of the 1st gen of softwares can prove that one

But of course, maybe sony wont screw it up, though, im pretty sure i heard rumors around here from someone supposedly in the know that there was problems with the architecture? I dont remember where i heard it.

 

[Tagrineth]

Now, if you could formulate a real reply or thoughts on Nintendo's next gen console I would appreciate it. There's nothing to be gained from regurgitating "Nintendo = Sega".

Dammit, bryanb, I'm not fucking trying to say Nintendo = Sega!

All I'm saying, is if they release their next console a year early, they'll be DOING WHAT SEGA DID WITH THE DREAMCAST.

The post in question doesn't spell any kind of doom for Nintendo.

I never posted anything saying Nintendo was doomed to Sega's fate.

 

[Paul]

Am I the only one that agree's with Tag? If nintendo released it a year early, Sony would just release the ps3 specs and everyone would just buy the ps3 when it comes out, just like what happened to Dreamcast.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Gamecube 2 isn't going to happen IMO. Maybe in 2006, but Miyamoto won't be ready until then.

 

[megadrive0088]

Actually in my humble opinion, Sega launched the Dreamcast in the USA later than I would have liked. it came out Sept 1999, almost a year after the Japanese release. back in 1997, it was thought that Sega would launch BlackBelt/Dural/Katana (whatever machine Sega picked) in late 1998 in the USA. the Saturn was a horrible failure in the USA.
by launching in Sept 1999 in the USA, Sega only allowed themselves 1 YEAR headstart over Sony. however, i completely realize the agruement about not having enough software ready. if Sega launched DC in 1998 in the USA, it wouldnt have had the incredibe launch it had in 1999 with a years worth of game development.