Could the Wii remain dominant another five years?

[patjuan32]

Resident_Hazard said:

patjuan32 said:

Resident_Hazard said:

Technically, the Xbox360 and PS3 together have more market share already, which is important for 3rd party studios.  Both the X360 and PS3 have sales growth, while the Wii is gradually losing sales.  On top of that, both the X360 and PS3 are hefty pieces of hardwar and intended to be expanded upon--so as to broaden their lifespans.  The Wii was outdated before it was released, and cannot be expanded or upgraded.

The Wii was Nintendo's ultra-successful stop-gap.  The successor will be announced at next year's E3, and maybe launched at the end of 2011.  They'll have to in order to remain competitive, to maintain an edge, and to sit logically with the 3DS.

First, you made the mistake of grouping two platforms together, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Third parties look at each platform individually not collectively. Secondly you miss the fact that Nintendo is enjoying it's best software sales ever on a home console, the Wii. They are not going to give that up just to join a technology race. A race that has not benefitted Sony or Microsoft. Those two companies are pumping a lot of money into their respective consoles this gen without any guarantees of success.

Thirdly, the Wii is still selling very well, with out a big game being released, and is only behind the Xbox 360, which has a new model and clearence sale of old models, in world wide sales. Nintendo is not going to kill off the Wii any time soon. There is just too much money to be made with the hardware and the software.

A third party can build a game for the Xbox360 and port it to the PS (and/or PC) for relatively little cost.  Much cheaper than building said game from scratch to run on the Wii.  The other two are not a "technology race" anymore--nobody cares about the minor differences in architecture of those systems.  They're comparable, and making games multiplatform for those two isn't that hard.  Look at Final Fantasy XIII--the change to put it on both the Xbox360 and PS3 really did not lengthen development time, and no doubt, was financially smart for Square-Enix.  You act like the X360 and PS3 aren't successful.  The X360 is more successful than the original Xbox by a long shot, and the PS3 is a far cry from the GameCube's dismal 3rd place status.  Both companies (MS, Sony) are making tons of money now, and third party companies generally have quite a bit of success there.  This may have changed, but for the bulk of this generation, the X360 had the highest attach rate of any (current gen) system.

I did not "miss" the fact that Nintendo is enjoying its best software sales ever, you just chose to assume that in attempt to one-up me.  Everyone knows the Wii is the most successful Nintendo console ever, and from that, Nintendo's software is selling way better than ever.  That's just numbers.  More available consumers means higher available sales. 

Yes, the Wii is "still" selling well--especially compared to the GameCube at this time.  But it's sales are down year over year while Sony's and Microsoft's are roughly the same if not better--even before the new X360.  Besides that, how many of us still play the Wii and enjoy the motion control, and how many feel that it's grown to be gimmicky? 

I sincerely hope that Nintendo doesn't just kill off the Wii because if they do, they're going to piss off consumers and developers alike.  But the successor will likely be revealed at next year's E3.  It's their current pattern, and it's logical.  It will happen.  Nintendo's trend the last two generations has been to announce and launch a new portable system, then a year later, follow with a new home console.  This will be no different.

EDIT:  Shit, I can't believe I overlooked this:  By your logic, Nintendo wouldn't be "stupid enough" to put out a successor to the DS line at this point, because the DS is still the top selling system in the world.  Releasing successors while the previous system still has some strength in it, and while it's still in the public mindset is a smart way to maintain popularity and interest.  It actually makes more sense to replace the Wii right now over the DS, if all you're going by is hardware and software popularity--the DS still easily tops the Wii in both. 

You are mistaken, A third party can not develop a game for the Xbox 360 and port it with little cost to the PS3 nor can it do the same for the PC. The architecture of all three machines are different. That means it requires resources to port a game from one system to another. It's not as simple as you seem to think nor is the cost minimal. Also the Xbox 360 and the Wii have a similar architecture, The Power PC and their GPUs are built by AMD. The Wii development kit is very cheap and building a game for the system is very easy and cheap. If it were not so do you think that all of these no name companies would be developing games for the Wii? A lot of them are considered shovelware by us but others tend to enjoy them.

Final Fantasy XIII had been in development for what? About four or five years before they announced it was going to be ported. No one knows when they started porting the game . Unless you work for Square Enix, I doubt you know.

You state that the Wii is down year over year but it was only 200k the last time I checked and that is easily rectified. The Xbox 360 is enjoying great sales due to a new slim model being released and a clearence on the old model that is being replaced. The PS3 had a new model released last year and was above the Wii and the Xbox 360 but sales returned to normal when the effect wore off. Also if you look at the Xbox 360 sales. You'd see that no old software is popping back into the top twenty in software sales. This indicates that old users are Upgrading their consoles.

""Nintendo's trend the last two generations has been to announce and launch a new portable system, then a year later, follow with a new home console.  This will be no different.""

That statement is conjecture and is false. The Gamecube was five years old when Nintendo pull the plug on that system While the GBA was only four year old. The DS is around six years  now while the Wii is only approaching it's fourth birthday. Nintendo will not kill the Wii for the sake of a hardware race with Sony and Microsoft. If they wanted to do that then they could have made an HD system instead of the Wii. Furthermore the Gamecube was in third place last gen. Yet Nintendo did not pull the plug on that system until after the five year cycle was up.

As I stated previously, The DS is appoaching it's 6th birthday and Nintendo has new technology to replace the system. Sony should have replaced the PS2 early in it's life span, using your logic, because it was inferior to the Xbox and Gamecube. They should have also replaced the PSX early in it's life span because it was severly underpowered when compared to the N64. But they did not, proving that your logic is flawed.

Nintendo will not kill the using your logic. There is still money to be made off the software and the hardware. All Nintendo has to do is release more games. The sales of the rise and fall depening on the amount of software that they release for the Wii. They also have a blue print to follow which was developed by Sony. I think they'll do that it's more beneficial in the long run. Besides Microsoft and Sony are not going to launch a new console any time soon.