| *~Onna76~* said: I don't think the WII will win. I give the WII a lifespan of 2 or 3 years and then the console becomes really outdated and Nintendo needs to come up with another console. Then it depends of how much it will cost Nintendo to create a new console with improved sensor motion (at times they do suck), a harddrive included and High Defenition supported or to say... "next gen". |
I didn't have time to answer to this post before but I feel that it is something that is necessary to discuss in a civil manner.
I would like to adress this about the suspected low lifespan of the Wii.
According to some, and now latest Onna76, Wii will have a very short lifespann. A lifespann at only 2 years is almost unheard of (DC only I think, a product that got Sega for good more or less), 3 years isn't that common either. For the Wii to have a 2 years lifespann it would probarbly need to stop selling altogether, not impossible, strange things have happend before, but it is unlikely that it stops selling before the holiday season.
This means that during the next year, Nintendo needs to discover that Wii isn't selling any more and to revile Wii HD or whatever. This is also saying that instead of a price cut Nintendo will release something new.
Three years is at least theoretical possible, the main reason is that many belives this is that they assums that the power of the Wii isn't enough. This is a strange idea becuase the same crowd is saying that the PS3 is going to have a 10 years lifespann. Now I am not saying that the Wii will get a 10 years lifespann but I would like to make an comparsion with the assumed lifespann of the PS3 with the Wii.
The Wii is a GC on steriods, 2-3 times more powerfull over the whole range (GPU, CPU, amount of RAM). It also has feaures that the GameCube didn't have: motion sensors, downloadable containt, online games and so on. The Gamecube was released in september 2001 (japan), the Wii in november 2006. That leaves us with a lifespann of 5 years for the cube. A consol that in many way was a failure. Now if we give the Wii a lifespann on 4-5 years we will get a total lifespann for the Gamecube technology on 9-10 years. If the PS3 can succed with that, without any update, why can't the Wii technology?
As it is now I can think of three major reasons that Nintendo wont release any hardware update that changes the pure amount of horsepowers availible for the devs.
- Mindshare: an update like that will pissoff the early users and those that will purchase the Wii over this holiday. Those cusomers wont buy a new consol from Nintendo because Nintendo will then have proven that they aren't to be trusted.
- Userbase: Nintendo is planing to have shipped a total of 22 million Wii:s until marsch 2008. If they succed with this and continue to sell well they can already in april pass the LTD of the Gamecube. After that Nintendo can for the frist time since NES see their consol userbase to grow instead of going down. If they can keep Wii out for 4 years, the only need to sell on an avarage of 5 millions a year to pass the N64. Now as it looks Wii can most possible succed without any problem because of their firm grip of Japan and so far good result in both PAL and USA, and wih that we enters a 3rd point why they wouldn't wont to kill Wii to early.
- Japan: Nintendo has shown with the DS and the early start of the Wii that they know and understand what the japanese market wants, for once they are dominating their homemarket and since the introduction of the DS that market has grown both in software and hardware. It is for Nintendo stupid to give up that market controll and gamble that their userbase will move on to the next system.
Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!
