Silver-Tiger said:
HappySqurriel said:
Galaki said:
IMO. Nintendo is just out of the loop from competing. They are now going for halfwaygen of MS/Sony.
Nintendo is at a great advantage in that, they can release a system that actuall do 1080P @ 60fps instead of the current half HD systems.
They won't be outdated neither since we aren't going anywhere beyond 1080P for a very very long while.
That means, even MS/Sony release their systems in 2015, they are still stuck with 1080P and cannot have the graphical advantage even they are 3 years late.
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There is another approach (that would be difficult to make work) that I thought about with Pachter's constant talk of the Wii HD ...
It is entirely possible to architect two systems so that the same game that plays at a resolution of 720p @30fps on one system will play at a resolution of 1080p @60fps on the second system. Obviously the second system will be more expensive, larger and use more energy but that shouldn't be a problem with this strategy. The idea is to release the 720p version initially and release the 1080p system 24 to 36 months later.
The strength of this strategy is that the visuals produced by modest hardware at 720p @30fps today will be difficult to surpass in just a couple of years with reasonably priced hardware if you boost your output to 1080p @60fps; which means that your system could release 'today' and still be very visually competitive with your competition's system released 2 to 3 years from now.
The weakness is (obviously) getting third party publishers to buy into the idea without convincing gamers to wait until the 'real' system is released.
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I can't imagine Nintendo releasing the same console with two different spec setups. Even the 40GB/60GB PS3 models were confusing for the costumer, and they only differentiate in Backwards Compatibility.
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In my hypothetical (read: probably never going to be tried) strategy that probably wouldn't be a major issue ...
The entire point would be to replace the system "mid-generation" with hardware that is superior in multiple ways while retaining compatibility between both systems. Confusion doesn't matter because the two versions of the system wouldn't be on the market at the same time, and the newer system would be the same or superior to the original system in every way.
What I see as the biggest problem with following a strategy like this is (essentially) 'what is the gain from doing this?' ... The NES, Gameboy, Playstation, PS2, Nintendo DS and Wii have demonstrated that you can still outsell your competition (often by a wide margin) while being significantly less powerful if the market conditions are right. If you look at all of the market leading consoles, the best strategy for being a dominant console would be to be the successor to a market leading console, with a 12 (or more) month head start on the competition, with something 'new' about your system, and to sell your hardware at a reasonable price. Boosting power mid generation doesn't (really) seem to add any value to this strategy.
