Another Analyst Suggests Wii 1.5 On the Way

[mike_intellivision]

Mr Puggsly said:

mike_intellivision said:

Then buy your own thesis, you have doomed Kinect. You see, one reason that the Wii Balance Board is not more expansive is the lack of software for it -- even though it has an install base of about/close to 30M users.

If Kinect only has half that install base, and it takes a few years to get there, how many third parties are going to place a high development priority on the add-on?

Instead, it will probably befall the fate of previous add-ons like the Sega 32X and the Nintendo 64DD (which never made it out of Japan).

Finally, remember the test for hardware is not the early adoption -- but continual adoption. If those who buy first have a bad experience, it will limit the number of people who buy later.

 

Mike from Morgantown

Well the Wii has a userbase of about 70 million. Yet the the HD consoles appear to get top priority from 3rd party developers. Hence, it all depends on how it does at moving software.

The 32X was a stupid device, it was too expensive, the software was lame, and the carts were still limited to 4 MB. Sega should have just kept supporting  the Sega CD. People actually bought that.

The 64DD was a stupid device as well. Nintendo should have added a CD device to the N64. Many developers ignored the 64 because carts were expensive and they were limited when it came to storage space.

I'm not sure what the point of your last comment is. Are you explaining the business to me?

Actually, the install base of the Wii is 73M while the combined install base of the Xbox 360 and PS3 is 78M.

Thus, in some ways it makes sense if you are developing a game that you could focus on two similar machines (HD output and controller input) rather than on the market leader (SD output and mixed input) and potentially sell more. And the difference is greater outside of Japan where the HD twins have nearly 9M more units than the Wii -- making the choice easier for Western developers.  

(As an aside -- I hate to admit it, but the more I think about, the more I think that KyleDog may have hit upon something when he talked about controller issues vis-a-vis Wii third-party games).

Related to add-ons, I did not site the Sega CD, which did not save the Genesis, but only added to the confusion (there were Genesis/MegaDrive games, CD games, 32X games and 32X CD games).

Finally, the last comment was meant only as a reminder that initial sales/preorders do not necessarily provide an indication for long-term success.  

 

Mike from Morgantown