Sal.Paradise said:
You can't just take a setting on the PC version that looks like your consoles and 'transfer' them to the disc, it's a bit more involved than that. If that was true, the Wii only versions that youre talking about requiring a whole new team for could just take the low/lowest setting on the PC version and, as you say, 'transfer' them to the Wii disc. I really don't think splitting the market is a good solution, either for the customers, developers or the games themselves. |
Well then the alternative is the Wii way. Which basically means every serious third party developer is going to abandon you by about year 2. Developers have their own headaches and problems and PC/PS4/720 is what they're going to focus on, they're not going to have the time to work on a completely different version for Nintendo's machine.
Even if the Wii U can (barely) run 720/PS4 games from 2014/2015 when that console cycle really gears up ... how long until Wii U users start to get a little pissed off at paying the same price for crappier (lower res, lower frame rate, lower effects, etc. etc.) versions of the same game on three other platforms? Eventually you're going to have people bailing out for other platforms outside of the Mario/Zelda fanatics who stay with Nintendo no matter what.
I do think the consumer needs to take some responsibility here too ... I mean if you want more, more, more in terms of graphics, people need to wake up and realize companies are going bankrupt. Console owners have become spoiled.
With the PS3, yes you got a pretty Uncharted 3. The cost to Sony? They basically blew all the profit they made in the PS1 + PS2 eras during the PS3s massive losses. As a corporation as a whole, Sony now has something like $7 billion dollars in debt.
Nintendo's not going to get baited into playing that game, so there has to be some give and take. No Nintendo is not going to give you a console for $300 in 2012 that costs them $400+ to make. But hey, the great thing about these chips is they drop in price pretty damn quickly, so by 2014 (by which time some games that actually really need that tech might be coming out) if they can give you that level of tech for a much more affordable price and it takes 20 seconds to plug in to your existing console ... why not?
It was the same thing with WM+ ... Nintendo wanted to incorporate that into the Wiimote right from the beginning but it would've made the Wiimote a ridiculous cost (like $80 a controller). 2 years later ... it's affordable, 3-4 years later, it's integrated right into the controller itself. Fair compromise IMO, it's a shame that developers had bailed on the Wii by then, but that really wasn't the fault of the WM+.
