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Squilliam said:
Their next console can easily move in both directions at once. They just need to do roughly three relatively obvious things to do so. 1. Increased performance to levels in line with the market expectations. This shouldn't be too hard as they can use off the shelf Fusion parts from AMD for instance which will offer both lower power and higher performance charactaristics which ought to ensure that they can get the full range of current and future generation software from third parties. 2. Further refinements of the key interface technologies. Anything which makes the Wii easier to use or more intuitive or enables improved gameplay possibilities. 3. Embrace the possibilities of the download market, internet, streaming and take a leaf out of Apples book and implement not only a game store but an application store as well. Im sure there would be far fewer hacking attempts if they simply let people make applications for their consoles without resorting to hacking. Essentially they need to iterate further on basic computing technologies, innovate key improvements in keeping their control system a step ahead of the competition and expand by vastly increasing the possibilities of their system. In a closed console world, openness in itself is once again disruption. I wonder if they dare embrace it? |
I was merely pointing out simple fact that home console busines as a whole is relatively hign-end compared to other segments. If we build consumer pyramid based on consumer involvement into games (we may define it based on ammount of money or time spent by person on games through given period of time), home consoles will occupy it's peak, while numerous business models on other gaming platforms including PC and mobile will be at the foot of a pyramid. On top of that as a extra barrier for potential consumers to become actual consumers of games for home consoles they need to pay for machine itself. By many gaming console viewed as luxury, while PC and mobile hardware is commodity since they're non-dedicated gaming machines.
All researches suggest that Wii gamers are quite a gamers, they buy a lot of software and spent a lot of time playing on Wii, while ammount and price points of downloadbale games on Nintendo consoles (both Wii and DS) aren't competitive enough for not so involved gamers when compared to ammount and low prices of downloadable games found on PC and AppStore. Nintendo filling WiiWare and DSiWare services with own content in pretty straightforward way, they just take the best suitable IPs they own, and cut them into pieces selling at lower prices (BrainAge, ArtStyle, Electroplankton etc. line of games). In the case of DSiWare it looks like direct respond to similar services on other platforms, seems like they're laying roadblocks to prevent mobile platforms from moving upmarket to their territory in handheld space, rather than moving downmarket themselves.
All in all I dont think they will move downmarket (how? they're in home console business at the end of the day), it's too crowded down there, plus the best way to do that is to move onto non-dedicated gaming platforms (nonsense!). In fact, Nintendo rhetorics about game prices usually points out how Nintendo games (even the simpliest ones, except for those downloadable and 'cut into pieces' on WiiWare and DSiWare) have a lot of content and how 'the price is right' (and honestly, they're right, I'm playing Picross 3D for the third month and still not finished ^_^). So Nintendo may be the most consistent opponent of 'Free' by Chris Anderson.
