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shakarak on 01 May 2012
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RolStoppable said:
shakarak said:

The fact that Nintendo had to operate at a loss makes it evident that the masses do not value stereoscopic 3D

I'm not sure how your getting to that conclusion.   I in my experience have not met a person who wasn't generally impressed by the 3d on the system itself.  Nintendo operated at a loss for a multitude of other reasons.  They launched a product that was suceeding their most successful product ever.  One of the main reasons for the DS's sucesses  is because it was priced lower compared to it's competitors.  Nintendos consumers are a lot more price conscious then other consumers due to the fact they are a majority casual gamers.  The casual gamer isn't prepared to  pay $250 dollars  for themselves or their kids when they can get a DS for $99.99   Are you saying that Sony operated at a loss becasue  consumers didn't value the hardware superiority of the PS3?

If the market sees value in a product, the company who makes it can sell it for a profit without problems. It's really that simple. If the masses were really impressed by stereoscopic 3D, they would have paid $250 for the 3DS. Remember, in the USA people valued the Wii so highly that they were willing to pay $300-400 on ebay for the console for quite a long time. These are the same people you call price conscious.

And yes, this also means that Sony had to operate at a loss, because consumers didn't see value in the PS3

I think that there was other factors as to why people bought the Wiis at such high prices.  There was a severe supply problem in which created a pent demand which triggered impulse buying and lots of early on buyers remorse.  When the DS launched it was innovative because it brought touch screens to the mainstream.  However the 3ds sales are exceeding that of the launch of the DS.  The DS later went on to be the best selling system pretty much ever.   Now if your going to say  that games are what made the DS a success then why didn't the consumers buy more PSPs (which launched with an argueably better game portfoilio?   When the DS launched it's gaming selection in usual Nintendo fashion was lackluster, but once games like brain age launched it triggered more demand.  I do agree that the 3ds will need genre busting games, and old franchises to continue it's sales growth.  But it's apparent the current sales they are getting are more or less based on excitement around the technology then the game library.  

 

Malstroms aregument is that Nintendo is not making games based on the Markets needs/wants.  Yet their rehashed franchises and new casual based Ip's have continued to create great sales for them.  Nintendo has it in the bag.  They don't have any blockbuster games on the 3ds yet so many people are buying a 3ds based on the 3d 'gimmick.' Once Nintendo introduces a steady influx of games that capitalize on this technology then they solidfy their position and it follows the same sales/blue ocean route of the ds.  However the 3ds is at an advantage over the ds  becasue its users  are more excited about the thought of 3d gaming, then touch screen gaming of it's older brother.