Why would nintendo release an underpowered console a year after the release of 360?

[function]

Epik,
Are you pretending not to understand, or do you really not get what people are trying to say?

How powerful Revolution will be ISN'T about how "good" Nintendo are, ISN'T about whether Nintendo are "doomed", and ISN'T about how many years they've been planning the system.

Releasing the most powerful console they can (high price, big losses per unit) ISN'T automatically the way to success for Nintendo. This isn't the way Nintendo like to go about things, home or handheld.

"Power" is only one factor that brings customers (and software, which brings customers) to your machine. Price, killer apps, unique features, trends and marketing are also important and Nintendo - if they follow their history and every sensible peice of speculation so far - won't be looking to match MS and Sony head on.

 

[Epik]

As a new kid on the block you're not going to last long here. Your first few posts have been Nintendo propaganda. This thread was started as a 'why?' question but the moment people start debating (which means suggesting different opinions some of which may disagree wtih your point of view) you come back with the old 'your mindless, biased know-nothings suckered in by Sony and MS FUD' arguments, rather than counter-argue with your own intelligent points.

eg. You argue Nintendo are after the same market, in direct competition with PS3 and XB360. I believe over the past year they have been saying quite the contrary. Confidence-Man has quoted Iwata from an interview saying EXACTLY they weren't going head to head, but you've just followed with a denial and no supporting quote to back that up...

From where I'm sitting, with words from Iwata's mouth ("we won't fight over the same share of the pie with another company"), why should I believe what you say their gameplan is?

If you want to question the ins and outs of Revolutions size, time of release and relative capabilities, that's fine, though to date without any new information to go on it's all been said already and a Search will find the relevant debate where your opinion has already been argued by others of a like mind. But if, as currently seems to be the case, you are appearing here to evangelize the Way of Nintendo, please stop.

yeah he took a comment by Iwata and twisted it out of context.

Iwata's saying they won't fighter over the hardcore crowd pie anymore. They know Sony and microsoft have that on lock. So they going after non-gamers,retired gamers older(50+) and mostly women. Just like they did with DS.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/14/news_6116439.html

"The concept behind our new console, tentatively named 'Revolution,' is the same as the DS. We want it to broaden the [video gaming] audience range, and we don't want it to be something that people will see as too irrelevant to them, too difficult to use, or as something that wastes space. We'll announce specific details at the E3 ... It will most likely come out between this year [and] next year, which is considered to be the transition period for home consoles," Iwata said.

They are trying to expand thier market by appeal to all ages and demographics (not just 18-25 males like microsoft and Sony have been targeting). And they know great graphics is not going to cut it anymore (admiting a mistake they made with GC thinking it will wow like N64 did with its graphics when it came out. No it didn't)

 

[EndR]

The biggest obstacle is the size of Rev, if it is indeed as big as "Three DVD cases" in thickness and well, the machine seems very small nonetheless.

The size will make it hard for NIntendo to put something like the competition in there. Look at PS3, it will probably be released around the same time, maybe earlier, but is still WAY bigger.

If Nintendo uses 65nm for their components, then maybe they can put something in there that could be "closer" to the competitors, but if they still are with 90nm, then performance wise, Xbox360 and PS3 will be way ahead..

NIntendo also has a different philosophy. They have said that they want to make it easier for developers and that deving for their machine will be cheaper.. etc etc. All this because it is not as fancy tech-wise as the competitors.. but maybe more fancier input-wise (Revolutionary controller???)..

So, spec-wise, I don´t expect Rev to match 360 and PS3... the size is the main factor there... but then it is all about the games.. and that is a different story...

 

[mckmas8808]

But aren't Sony and MS after non-gamers too? Isn't that one good reason for Sony throwing in the Blu-ray drive and MS adding the capability to stream music and video from the MPC to the X360? It seems that Sony and MS will pull in more people over the age of 50 than Nintendo ever could because of these reasons.

So at the end of the day if Nintendo's main goal is to get more non-gamers than Sony or MS then I hope they have something huge with the Revolution.

 

[Confidence-Man]

yeah he took a comment by Iwata and twisted it out of context.

Iwata's saying they won't fighter over the hardcore crowd pie anymore. They know Sony and microsoft have that on lock. So they going after non-gamers,retired gamers older(50+) and mostly women. Just like they did with DS.

There is nothing twisted out of context.

You asked why they would release a console that's not as powerful as the others, and that's the answer; they aren't going after the same consumer(i.e. they are not competing for the same dollars).

At least in their minds they aren't.

 

[jvd]

I don't know anyone over the age of 50 that remotely cares about streaming music and movies from thier pc to thier console unless they are in the industry . Also older people are much slower on the new tech bandwagon . I really don't see 50+ year olds moving out in force needing to get brand new bluray players .

I do see alot of people over 50 that may have had interest in video games as they emerged in thier youth and found the games have become greatly complicated and to hard to play and would like cutting edge graphics with simpler game play .

I also think having a library of games 4 generations in the making will be a huge boon to get many players on board .


I believe nintendo made some good choices to grow ther brand . They side stepped hdtv for now which is still just a small market and are focusing on giving users the best 480p images they can expect to get at hopefully (given nintendos history) a fair price of around 200$ usd at launch .

What nintendo needs to focus on is getting third party games on their system. They need to get the big hits there and they need to change thier image to one of all ages

 

[Shifty Geezer]

yeah he took a comment by Iwata and twisted it out of context.

They are trying to expand thier market by appeal to all ages and demographics (not just 18-25 males like microsoft and Sony have been targeting). And they know great graphics is not going to cut it anymore

I'm confused . On the one hand you're saying Nintendo ARE competing with Sony directly, and on the other hand you're saying they going for a different audience that Sony isn't appealing to. Those two ideas seem contradictory to me. It would be possible to go for BOTH hardcore 15-30 year olds and new blood, but Iwata wasn't saying that was their gameplan, which incidentally is something MS and Sony have talked of. MS have talked of simplifying games to make them more accessible, and Sony has provided EyeToy with very broad appeal and some of the most diverse games this and last generation. Is that what you mean? Nintendo are going for the non-hardcore gamer in a big way, directly in competition with Sony who are trying this only as a sideline to their master plan?

 

[Powderkeg]

Why would nintendo release an underpowered console a year after the release of 360?

Because Nintendo cares about profit more than anything else in the world. By intentionally designing a less powerful system they can keep production costs down.

The real question is, why would you believe they will have an equally powerful system at a significantly cheaper price?

Even after the first year MS will still be losing money on the 360 hardware, what makes someone think Nintendo can make just as powerful of a system, and do it for a fraction of the cost when they are buying all of their parts from the same people MS is?

Do you think IBM is going to sell Nintendo an equal processor to the 360's for a much cheaper price?
Do you think ATI is going to sell Nintendo a GPU equal to the 360 at a cheaper price?
Do you think Nitnendo's slot loading drive will be cheaper than MS's tray drive?


You can have an equally powerful system or a cheaper price. Not both.

So which do you think Nintendo has chosen?

 

[Epik]

I'm confused . On the one hand you're saying Nintendo ARE competing with Sony directly, and on the other hand you're saying they going for a different audience that Sony isn't appealing to. Those two ideas seem contradictory to me. It would be possible to go for BOTH hardcore 15-30 year olds and new blood, but Iwata wasn't saying that was their gameplan, which incidentally is something MS and Sony have talked of. MS have talked of simplifying games to make them more accessible, and Sony has provided EyeToy with very broad appeal and some of the most diverse games this and last generation. Is that what you mean? Nintendo are going for the non-hardcore gamer in a big way, directly in competition with Sony who are trying this only as a sideline to their master plan?

And at the same time Sony hypes killzone and GTA and gran turismo...Sony is still milking thier hardcore gaming crowd.They are not serious about it.They don't have to be


no they have said they want to appeal to 5-95 age group. They don't want to lock out certian demographics just because they are not buying.Nintendo's strategy is to put more focus on non-gamers and "untapped markets" to increase its core crowd while still making nintendo games for the hardcore.Why fight over Sony and microsoft's fanbase when you can tap into a untouched market get more core gamers for a hek of a lot easier.

Seeing how the industry is sexist agianst women(almost completely ignored like the elderly).

Sony is trying to use gaming as a catalyst for thier failing electronic divisions(DVD players Blu-ray drive etc. HD...heh come on..sony sells HDTVs).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why fight over Sony and microsoft's fanbase when you can tap into a untouched market get more core gamers for a hek of a lot easier.

So Nintendo are NOT competing with PS3?

 

[Epik]

Because Nintendo cares about profit more than anything else in the world. By intentionally designing a less powerful system they can keep production costs down.

The real question is, why would you believe they will have an equally powerful system at a significantly cheaper price?

Even after the first year MS will still be losing money on the 360 hardware, what makes someone think Nintendo can make just as powerful of a system, and do it for a fraction of the cost when they are buying all of their parts from the same people MS is?

Do you think IBM is going to sell Nintendo an equal processor to the 360's for a much cheaper price?
a year later yes
Do you think ATI is going to sell Nintendo a GPU equal to the 360 at a cheaper price?
a year later yes
Do you think Nitnendo's slot loading drive will be cheaper than MS's
tray drive?
Like someone posted on the other thread a slot loading drive cost 20$

You can have an equally powerful system or a cheaper price. Not both.
If you cut all the multimedia non-sense out and optimize the hardware for gaming. Absolutely. your point?

So which do you think Nintendo has chosen?

I don't know and neither do you.

I answered your questions.

 

[Epik]

So Nintendo are NOT competing with PS3?

Yes since they are STILL competiting for hardcore gamers.

 

[Powderkeg]

I answered your questions.

Your answers are unrealistic.

MS is only licensing the tech from IBM and ATI. It's literally only costing them a couple of dollars per chip. Even if IBM and ATI gave Nintendo the license for free, they couldn't save that much money on production.

And yeah, a slot loading drive costs $20. Tray loading drives cost $5. You've already exceeded the savings you got from IBM and ATI giving you the chip license for free.


And then there are production costs. Revolution will be a brand new line while 360 parts would have been in full production for a full year. Do you believe Nintendo's production costs will be cheaper than MS's who will already have production fully ramped up by then?

And let's not forget the controller. Think they can build some mythological revolutionary mutli-function and possibly programmable controller and still make it for less than the traditional wired ones like MS has in it's Core SKU?


Like I said, you can have a cheaper system or an equally powerful one.

You can't have both.

 

[function]

If you cut all the multimedia non-sense out and optimize the hardware for gaming. Absolutely. your point?

What multi-media nonesense should MS cut out of the Xbox 360? What optimisations could MS make to the hardware to make it better for running games? What kind of hardware crippling features have MS based the Xbox 360 around that Nintendo won't have to contend with?

I can play CDs on my Dreamcast. I guess that means they didn't optimise the hardware for games.

 

[jvd]

Your answers are unrealistic.

No that would be you .

MS is only licensing the tech from IBM and ATI. It's literally only costing them a couple of dollars per chip. Even if IBM and ATI gave Nintendo the license for free, they couldn't save that much money on production.

That is not true at all . Nintendo is launching around june from latest rumors going around the internet . That means that 65nm might be avalible. If not 90nm will have had almost another year to mature over when ms started production . Which means better yields and cheaper parts .

Nintendo can also design a better system with a cheaper lay out saving more . They are also targeting a diffrent res which is lower than the xbox 360s . This will allow them to do 3x the work per pixel with the same hardware power that the xbox 360 has .

And yeah, a slot loading drive costs $20. Tray loading drives cost $5. You've already exceeded the savings you got from IBM and ATI giving you the chip license for free.

Your not serious are you ?

First to have this debate you need to price out how much the tray loading drive costs ms in orders of 1 million .

Then you need to price out how much the slot loading drive costs nintendo per million .

I think what you will find is that costs may only be 1 or 2$ more when u get to the millions of units .

As for the chip liscensing . Nintendo may have gotten a better deal. Esp from ati. They have had a long relation ship with art-x now part of ati and it seems likely they will be going with a modified desktop part which should be cheaper to license as it is not custom and ati doesn't have to make back its investment solely on the license fee .

It may also be the same with ibm .

And then there are production costs. Revolution will be a brand new line while 360 parts would have been in full production for a full year. Do you believe Nintendo's production costs will be cheaper than MS's who will already have production fully ramped up by then?

Once again nintendo will be using much more mature lines for production. They might even have acess to 65nm for some parts .

There are a slew of factors that one must add together before claiming anything . If nintendo wants to offer a system on the power lvl of the xbox 360 8 or 9 months after the xbox 360 for less money than it can .

Esp if it isn't looking to do all the things the xbox 360 is doing

 

[Epik]

Your answers are unrealistic.

MS is only licensing the tech from IBM and ATI. It's literally only costing them a couple of dollars per chip. Even if IBM and ATI gave Nintendo the license for free, they couldn't save that much money on production.

And yeah, a slot loading drive costs $20. Tray loading drives cost $5. You've already exceeded the savings you got from IBM and ATI giving you the chip license for free.


And then there are production costs. Revolution will be a brand new line while 360 parts would have been in full production for a full year. Do you believe Nintendo's production costs will be cheaper than MS's who will already have production fully ramped up by then?

Like I said, you can have a cheaper system or an equally powerful one.

You can't have both.

I said nothing about putting liscenced tech from IBM in Revolution.

Stop puting words in my mouth.

 

[Xenus]

I doubt 65nm will be availible that soon or Sony would probably just delay there a luanch a bit to take advantage of it.

 

[jvd]

I doubt 65nm will be availible that soon or Sony would probably just delay there a luanch a bit to take advantage of it.

Well nintendo doesn't need the same quanitys that sony needs . Nintendo also uses diffrent fabs . Sony's fabs may not be ready till later in the year or even 2007

 

[Xenus]

Last I heard Sony was on the leading edge with 65nm but you do have a point about quanties and for all we know Sony could have used 65nm but the process wasn't mature enough for them to risk putting PS3 type quantities on it.

 

[jvd]

Last I heard Sony was on the leading edge with 65nm but you do have a point about quanties and for all we know Sony could have used 65nm but the process wasn't mature enough for them to trust putting PS3 type quantities on it.

I've never once believed that sony was ahead of intel and ibm . I believe that thie rnew fabs are now all behind schedual also.

So i can def see ibm hitting 65nm before them and tsmc is supposed to be entering test runs with 65nm before the end of the year