Smashchu2 said:
I'm just going on what we know, and right now it looks like Nintendo's internal support has dried up for Wii, and traditionally that only happens when a successor platform is in the wings. Who knows, maybe EAD will announce a ton of stuff next year, but from my perspective it looks like they're going to end with Wii like they did with GameCube... with Zelda, and just Zelda. This is poor reasoning. Your saying "We know nothing, so the conclusion must be there is nothing and a Wii will come." We both know Nintendo always holds back their games. They held back Donkey Kong. They held off on Wii Party for a while. They are holding back on Zelda. How could they not have anything in 2011 when we know nothing about it? Apple's potentially encroaching on Nintendo's casual/lifestyle marketplace with iOS games. So far it's arguably made a bigger impact on PSP than DS, but I think Nintendo has the foresight to see where it's headed and part of their strategic lurch back to the core we saw at E3 is reflective of that (regaining a "lost" market that iOS gaming isn't fundamentally palatable to). Now if you be so kind as to return the favor, and explain to me why PS3/3DTV is a focus for Nintendo when it comes to 3DS? Again, you are taking a conclusion and running with it. All of a sudden, iOS games are threat. How are they a threat. There is no evidence they are encroaching on anything. And you claim they have foresight. The thing I find unbelivable is how you can't connect the dots. If Nintendo made their new DS a defence against the iPad or iPhone, than the DS would focus on an App store, or might have other functionallity like online or a phone. It doesn't have any of this, and their store was always a minor focus (esspecially when compaired to Microsoft and Sony). But it does have one feature: 3D. Now think about it, which competitor has 3D. Who might the 3DS be fighting. It's Sony. They make video games and 3D. Their Playstation 3 is going to make 3D a big focus. Now Nintendo intends to disrupt it. You are looking at it backwards. You look at the why than the how, instead of the how and then a why. This is why you miss the obvious fact that the 3DS is going after Sony where Sony is investing heavily into 3D. Now why are they doing this. This should be obvious. There have been plenty of companies that have jumped into video games and have failed. This is why Apple is not a threat because they will likely fail, esspecially without their own developers. Atari was very successful. It was considered the largest computer company of the time. Now, how is Atari relevant? Nintendo has only had two serious competitors: Sega and Sony. Sega has been kicked out a long time ago. Now Sony is all that is left. Some may say "Sony isn't doing well now. Why focus on them?" They were a threat, and if left along, could become a threat again. Nintendo's move makes perfect sense. At the very least, they will kill Sony's last ditch effort and kick Sony out of the videogame market. The best case senario is that Sony goes out of business making them irrelevant forever. If you still don't see Sony as their focus, then let me make others say it for me Nintendo always positions new hardware launches and press conferences right where they will damage Sony the most and "steal their thunder". They refused to announce a launch date for Wii back in 2006, until Sony announced the launch date for PS3. Shortly thereafter, they announced that the Wii would launch just a few days after PS3 did. Much more recently, Nintendo scheduled their pre-e3 press conference to end right before Sony's started-- They knew Sony would be touting 3d games, so what did they do? They showed off the 3DS at the end of the conference. People were still "high" from the experience as they walked through the doors to Sony's conference and ended up being thoroughly unimpressed by Sony's 3d showing. This is just 2 examples: Nintendo has been deliberately attacking "Sony's thunder" this entire generation, and it's very clear when you look closely. (Here) Remember when Sony announced the PSP at E3 2005? Immediately, Nintendo churned up the DS and had it ready to show at E3 2006. And it looked pretty bad. The DS phat didn’t get much better aesthetically. But it shows the DS was pretty rushed. Remember, the DS was originally billed as ‘third pillar’ because it was designed as a response to the PSP. It wasn’t originally seen as the successor to the Gameboy Advance. Some guys at NOA tried not to abandon the GBA. They don’t work there anymore. Remember when Nintendo announced the Wii price cut? They did so right in the middle of Sony’s press conference at the Tokyo Gaming Show (or whatever you call it). The Wii launching immediately beside the PlayStation 3 was not a coincidence. If Sony comes out with new hardware or is about to come out with new hardware, Nintendo will put out new hardware. When will the Wii successor come out? Well, when the PlayStation 4 does or when Sony puts out new console hardware. (Here) Combating piracy was part of the focus of DSi actually, and it's also an issue Nintendo's made central to 3DS, even at this early stage. Though as I said, piracy isn't the sole reason for launch, it's just a significant factor. I never said they don't care about it, just it doesn't justify a console. Never has a console launched because of piracy. I say it's not even a reason (if that's the case, where is the PSP2?) And Nintendo always looks to their home market first, that's well established by this point. Japan needs a Wii successor, and it'll probably get one by New Year's Day 2012. Yes, but they will not sacrifice the console because on region is under preforming (when so is everyone else). Console's, in general, are not doing well there. It may be a lot of reasons, but there is little reason to make a new one. |
Just assuming Nintendo is "holding back" is equally if not more poor reasoning. I'm just dealing with the facts at hand, which seems a safer route that assuming the existence of more internal Nintendo Wii games. The only even potential indication we have there is Pikmin 3, and even that is pretty suspect and a project that could be easily moved. Plus the development timelines match eerily to what the wind down for N64 and GameCube were; Zelda as the last climax, maybe an experimental title or two in the wings, but those usually get pushed to next cycle anyway in some capacity (see: Animal Crossing). Yes, N64/GC had far different market conditions than Wii sees itself in now (though I'd also argue their N64 drawdown was itself premature, especially in the US market), but there's a real similarity here all the same.
You also seem to be fundamentally missing my point with 3DS as a defensive measure... I apologize if I haven't "connected the dots" for you, but the reasoning here seems so clear I thought you'd be able to keep up. Laying it out, 3D is a defensive strike against iOS as it's something the iDevices can't really offer in the short term (due to being both single and touchscreen). It's a stark visual upgrade that also doesn't follow the traditional system spec/screen res upgrade path (which Apple seems locked into). Defense through differentiation and forgoing the traditional upgrade path is basically the same approach they took with with DS (against PSP) and Wii (against PS3/360) which also makes your "what other device has 3D?" reasoning for PS3 look pretty shallow and off point. Nintendo combats through differentiation, and they do that at a fundamental level (fundamentally, PS3D and 3DS are both still 3D). I'd agree there's a market strategy for 3DS being a PS3D spoiler (and you saw that pushed hard in Nintendo's E3 conference), but that seems pretty unlikely to be a structural approach to the platform given what we know about the development timelines and technologies involved.
Apple's encroachment has also been well documented, both within the industry press and by the sales volumes we're seeing companies talk about on the platform. Entertainment is entertainment, and Nintendo and Apple are coming into closer spheres in that regard than most Nintendo fans seem willing to admit. Even worse, Apple's success here seems largely accidental at a planning level. Indeed Apple's gaming ambitions are dubious at best, they have an awful track record here with no internal R&D, yet they've almost stumbled into this market to great success and now they're reworking to capitalize on that. You're just being naive or contrarian if you really insist there's no potential crossover here. And your Atari comparison is frankly ridiculous.
Nowhere did I say a new console ever launched exclusively due to piracy, but to say it can't even be a factor is simply driving one's head in the sand. Market realities drive these things, and piracy is certainly a market reality. Since you bring up PSP though, it's worth pointing out that the frequent PSP model refreshes have always brought improved piracy protection measures, and the 3000 model is still uncracked for widespread use. The push to try and shift to digital with the platform (and failed Go experiment) is also in part a response to the crippling piracy problem on the machine. Bringing up PSP in this case, doesn't exactly strengthen your argument.
And you need to stop calling Japan just "one region". It's significance to the company pretty obviously extends far beyond that, and they frequently jump cycles due to it, even if the platforms are still healthy elsewhere. This exact thing happened with N64 and GBA, which both had to be forcibly "put down" in America. There's not even any real 'sacrifice' here, I'd argue there's a much larger potential return on a new platform in year's time even in America than there would be on Wii alone. NOA could've kept GBA going alone through 2006 easily, but looking at how DS exploded, I doubt they care all that much in retrospect (much to the chagrin of Mother fans).
