More GDC/New Nintendo console/handheld potential

[patjuan32]

Mr Khan said:

patjuan32 said:

Mr Khan said:

patjuan32 said:

Wyrdness said:

patjuan32 said:

Yes the GBA was selling well when Nintendo announced the DS. They also announced that it was a third pillar and let's not forget that the Gamecube was not selling as well as Nintendo had hoped. However this situation is different. The Wii is selling exceptionally well and so is the DS. No third pillar is needed. Nor is a successor to the DS. All Nintendo needs to do is focus on software. Once the sales of the Wii and DS begin to decline and price cuts and bundles will no longer matter then the introduction of New hardware is needed but let's not get  ahead of ourselves. The DSi XL has not been relesed in the West and that will boost the sales of the DS, as I previously stated.

Note: Nintendo also had their Online network setup and wanted to take advantage of this new technology, which was becoming a standard. The GBA could not utilize it. Therefore new Technology had to be developed. There's no new technology that requires a DS2 to make use of it.

As for consoles reaching their potential, I think Sony and Nintendo have both gotten as much potential as they could from the PSX, PS2, and the Gameboy. Eventually systems must die becasue technology has moved on and the consumers have moved on also.

The third pillar statement was a way for Nintendo to quickly back track to the GB series if the DS flopped and allowed the PSP to eat into the market share of the handheld market but as it didn't the GB series was killed off. One good reason for them announcing a handheld at this time is that it can allow the new platform to ride the DS momentum which is high even now rather then let it die down, all they need is backwards compatibility and many people will convert like with previous handhelds. You keep mentioning the DSi XL like it matters, the GB Micro wasn't even released when the DS arrived so what, they've already moved 125m DS' if they announce a new platform now I don't think it's that big a deal to them. Either way that's if the is any new hardware which I doubt.

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.

And that is a key indicator. There is currently a void of announced Nintendo titles for the DS, and it would be high time for them to transition over. I bet even the new Pokemon is going to be forwards-compatible.

You are making things up now. A Super Robot wars game has been announced, Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 has been announced, The new pokemon game, and  Sonic and sega allstars racing are just a few of the annouced games. Besides Publishers and Developers announce titles all the time. There's really no specific time frame for game announcements. E3 usually has a lot of game announcements but other than that Developers and Publishers tend to wait to hype a game up shortly before it's released.

I do think you are trying to hard to find some reason for this rumor to be true. The DS is still selling incredibly well all it needs is more software. The DSI XL still has not be released in the West and will most assuredly spur DS sales higher. Why would Nintendo announce a new platform before the DSI XL has a chance to sale? It does not make sense.

Because there would be minimal overlap for the DSi XL. Another 3rd-pillar strategy with about a year of solid overlap between the platforms could work quite handily again, with early adopters not overlapping with the old folks that the XL is intended for in the first place.

Please, please stop. Nintendo has stated that the DSi XL is not just for old people and VGChartz members have stated that they also want to purchase a DSi XL because of the larger screens. Secondly, what about the size of the cartridges? If the next portable is to follow in the line with previous systems then it will be a suped up GameCube or fall in between the PS2 and Gamecube. That means the current DS cartridges would be too small to hold the data. Nintendo would need at least cartridges that hold 2 GB or more, preferably 4 GB.

More importantly though, is that Nintendo will want their portable to be affordable. This means that Nintendo can wait and let the prices of the technology fall to allow the next portable to be less than $200 and to allow the size of the storage media to increase as the prices come down. This way development will be cheap for third parties.