| patjuan32 said: Actually, the third pillar statement was not a way to back track if the DS failed against the PSP. Nintendo did not know that the DS was going to be successful as it has become. They thought that it would sell along side the GBA but that did not happen because the DS was a big hit. This led Nintendo to have to manufacture more and the GBA was subsequently killed off to make room for the DS. The GBA micro cost Nintendo almost Nothing. It was just a redesigned GBA with out the backwards compatibility with the GameBoy color and the original Gameboy. The lack of backwards compatibility is why the Micro died. The DSi XL is a big deal. It continues the DSi line of consoles and attempts to expand it's audience even more, which it will. A new portable may not ride the success of the DS. The DS did not ride the success of the GBA. Instead the success of the DS led publishers, developers, and Nintendo to abandon the GBA and focus on the DS. Remember Nintendo could have dropped the price of the GBA to $50.00 and it would have sold extremely well but they stated that the DS was young and they did not want to undermine its market. Furthermore the DS launched with more third party software than Nintendo software and was losing to the PSP, after the PSP launched, in sales monthly until Nintendo began to focus on developing titles for the DS. IGN even had an article a few months after the launch of the DS stating "Where are the Nintendo games." What I'm saying is that Nintendo will have to comit development resources behind this new platform. They were unable to do it with the Gameboy color and the GBA. How would they be able to do it now. |
The third pillar remark was nothing more then smoke and mirrors, people bought the DS because of the GBA momentum, it was a new handheld and could play previous and upcoming GBA games most people refered to it as the new gameboy in stores if it truely was a third pillar and didn't use the GBA momentum it would never of had a GBA slot to begin with. The DS was never really losing to the PSP either, PSP just enjoyed the usual launch sales all consoles have then took a back seat when the hype died down. They can easily overlap the two handhelds now they've raked in more money then many companies in even bigger industries and they have the momentum and are in a better position in the market then years ago.
As far as things go the third pillar is as relevant as Sony saying they have a 10 year plan for their console, besides which the's no point in speculating it because I don't see new hardware coming anytime soon.
