Lifespan of the Wii?

[Shane]

We go again back to portability. You make a game for Wii, you're making a game for Wii. You make a game for PS3, you can pop it on 360 quickly. You don't necessarily have to, but at least you have that option. PS3 is selling pretty damn well for a $600 system with no games. Whether it should have been a $600 system in the first place is debateable, but they're at a point of no return for that. Nintendo may take a brief lead on the basis of its early fanbase/pricing advantage, but as the other systems get lower prices and more games, that won't be maintainable. Sony can see significant improvement by just lopping $100 off the system's price every year. Nintendo really can't boost demand in that same fashion. Has Nintendo expanded the portable market in Japan? No (perhaps there are new buying segments, but they've got a long ways to go to catch the original GB). Will they? Probably. Why would Konami spend $20 million creating a game, then just drop it? No way in hell this project is getting cancelled. Worst case scenario: it gets ported to 360. I was expecting more out of Sega from both Sonic and VF5. This is a company that's slowly slipping off the map and needs to find a way back. I don't think Nights is that way. The JSRF/GT pack-in was exceptional with 2 million people picking up games they otherwise weren't bothering with, but they failed to capitalize on it. Evolution's pretty unestablished in the US, so Motorstorm is pretty much entirely dependent upon marketing. The first thing Sony's really got that may drive sales is Lair, but anyone expecting monthly sales above 200k before fall is kidding themselves. What the ease of porting does is give developers a way to offset development costs. It does mean there is potential for both 360 and PS3 to have similar libraries, but it also means there is potential for both to get most games. GBA only had about a 3 year lifespan in Japan. I rolled my eyes at the "three-pronged" strategy because I knew the market would not adopt two portables from the same company, and apparently the entire nation of Japan did the same. For Wii, the big question is how long demand will continue to go like this. PS3 will definitely see a boost, though it won't be any time soon.