mike_intellivision said:
The issue is not technology. Microsoft and Sony will deliver competent and possibly compelling products and Nintendo has developed an improvement for its system.
The issue is market. There are already 50M Wiis with motion sensing. There are 0M (as in ZERO) Xbox 360s or PS3s with their respective new technologies. That means existing customers will have to pay for the new add-on and new customers will have to do the same (or pay more up front).
This leads to a vicious circle. Software drives hardware sales. But without a hardware install base, there is limited (or no) software development. Sony and Microsoft might make games/tech demos (as some derisively have called the Wii Sports line), but how much will others invest in these new technologies?
The Wii Motion Plus is getting support because it is building on an existing base -- and because the software is literally moving hardware. Three (in the US or four in Europe) of the five games games coming out for the WM+ include hardware bundles. Thus third parities get to sell the hardware (even before Nintendo). That will put in people's hands and increase adoption. But it is an add-on with a small price tag ($10 more in a game bundle to $20 more MSRP to $25 more for Gamestop mark-up).
Conversely, there is no base for Microsoft and Sony currently. And no one knows yet how much people will have to pay or how many will pay or what there will be to play for the new devices.
Nevertheless, the failure is not in the technology itself. The failure is in being three years behind the market leader in being released. These products will be good but they will be niche. They will also probably be standard in the next console releases by their respective companies.
Mike from Morgantown
Remember, the best tech does not always sell the best -- or even sell enough to survive.
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Very sensible post.
But the different market Sony and MS have been catering to - up to this point at least - can also be played in their favour. As a good share of it is surely made of tech-oriented early adopters, and some estabilished franchises could be used to break in with the existing install base.
Let's say that Sony and/or MS strike a deal with developers to have good motion control gameplay integrated into the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls or GTA game (melee combat and gunplay, for example). Not make it the only way to control the game, but actually make it a good added value option. Even go as far as bundle them with hardware. Plus, I guess both MS and Sony will do the same with some of their first-party offering. That, I think, would be an easy way to quickly put a few millions pieces of new control kits out there into the "core" market.
As for the extended market that the Wii is currently tapping alone, stuff like EA Active Sports, Ubisoft's Rabbids party games would be easy to develop for PS3/360 with the new controls - and could cater to those households where a PS3/360 is already present but are contemplating buying a Wii for these titles for the rest of the family.
Add to that a few family-friendly features the Wii doesn't offer (make a video message via the webcam, dictate some text and send it to friends by email... or a very basic video editor with "visual" manipulation of clips and effects, that can end up uploading to youtube the final result... or easily make some avatar or home-based machinima with different theatrical props and settings, share them over PSN/XBL or youtube) and it could have a distinct appeal.
I think it might even go as far as push the console hardware itself, if for example MS can manage to keep an Arcade+Natal price under that of Wii+extra Wiimotes+ Motion plus dongles, and to aggressively market the bundle with an activity/famlily game image. Judging by the initial EA Active Sports sales, and by the millions of bad party games sold on Wii, I'd say that people is sold to the general "physical activity/family fun" idea more than to the specific Wii Sports / Mario Party implementation of them.
