| Phoeniks.Wright said: Well, since you're hoping for solid responses, here goes, though it will be a long response: -"Wii’s unmatched explosiveness by focusing on a new way to play" --> Nintendo focused on a SIMPLER way to play, and so EASIER, not just NEW way to play. -" with a far inferior base technology (in raw crunching terms), demonstrated you do not need to be cutting-edge to be successful and an industry leader" --> The wii was cutting edge, just not along the traditionnal path of CPU/GPU/etc.. that we've always seen. Putting those acceloremetres at that size really increased the price of the controllers, 50 or 55£ for a "full" controller, instead of just 20-30£? possibly before. -"Nintendo simply gave 3rd parties no reason to spend the costs to produce a lower quality product. 3rd parties knew they had just as much probability to make the same profits on the PS360/PC version of a game as an exclusive Wii version." --> You seem to assume that better technology means better games. That's just wrong. Also, the Wii sold to people with a very different mindset to how a game should be. Even if it was as powerfull as PS360, the wii version of a direct port would probably sell MUCH less than it's counterparts. -"The standard controller will move back to the more standard controller. It will adopt the classic controller pro overall form factor; very similar to the dual shock Sony controller." --> Really, the shape doesn't matter too much, as long as it doesn't have too many buttons. -"Finally, Nintendo gains an ability that was lacking in the Wii/DS era; true compatibility between the devices." --> This really is unimportant, there was only ever 2 games on the Gamecube which did this, and they weren't that popular, so why bother? -"They will strive for something that exceeds PS360, yet will be priced $350-400 with a small profit" --> Why price it so high? That doesn't make sense at all, the price shouldn't exceed 300$ and still, 250$ should be a maximum. -The whole idea of Nintendo teaming upo with Google to run Android apps on their home console is really far fetched: why would I use PHONE apps on a HOME CONSOLE? It seems like a useless thing to do. To finish off, it seems that you want Nintendo's next console to be more like the PS3/360. Fair enough, if you want it, that's fine, but from a business side, that would be terrible: high prices, dumbed down PC games, a focus on non gaming things on a games console, and direct competition with Sony and Microsoft, they would lose badly, I mean, just look at what happened with the Gamecube. The best thing they can do is follow the Blue ocean AND Disruption startegies that gave them success with the DS and especially the Wii. |
On price, I expect $349
Why? Well the following reasons:
1. Nintendo are going after the hardcore market (Iwata said so referring to the 3DS and the next console will reflect that shift too), it'll need a significant performance boost and I imagine a price of $349 will be needed to achieve that boost, pay for the new controller and cords, cables, boxing and shipping while still maintaining profitability.
2. Economics will show that the Wii should have launched at a higher price than what it did launch at. Why? Because demand so so much higher than supply. At $299, Wii would have sold more slowly at launch and also would have been selling better today. At $349 (a price that people are very happy to pay for a console) the system would not sell out instantly and everybody that wanted one at $349 would be able to buy one.
3. Value positioning is important here too, Nintendo will want to price the console at a premium compared to the competition. The XBOX 360 and PS3 could both be down to $199 by the end of 2012 and an extra $150 tells consumers that this system is much more advanced than those while still being relatively inexpensive when it's true competitors roll around.
4. Third parties are goint to want to be able to port all their games across all next generation systems without too much difficulty. Nintendo wants this too and this price point allows that. At $349, Nintendo could spend $200 - 250 (depending on the cost of this new controller) and be relatively confident that its system would be on par with Sony's and Microsoft's. The reason is Moore's law, that every two years, hardware power doubles and also the same hardware halves in price every two years. It means that a late 2012 launch from Nintendo with hardware costing them between $200 and $250 would cost $100 - $125 for Microsoft and Sony in late 2013 and assuming they have budgets between $400 and $500 for the hardware alone, the systems would only be around 4 times as powerful as Nintendo's system.
That would mean (roughly) Nintendo's system would be like a PS2 to Microsoft and Sony's Wii. It wouldn't be a huge gap and multiplatform development would be possible.
