By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Stever89 on 05 February 2008
Edit Thread
Played_Out said:
rasone77 said:
 


Nintendo has tiny balls*. They released a massively underpowered console that made a profit on every unit sold, so they simply could not fail. MS and Sony were/are both selling their hardware at a loss. That is a risk, and therefore requires the "huge balls"** of which you speak.

And remember that you will still need an extra wiimote to use as a controller with the wii, so the additional cost is equal to that of the PS eye.


* "Tiny balls" in this context actually means "an excellent low-risk business strategy".
** "Huge balls" in this context actually means "a whole shitload of money".


I wouldn't say massively underpowered. I would call the PS3 massively overpowered for it's time, the 360 slightly overpowered, and the Wii slightly underpowered for it's time. Adjusting for inflation, the PS2 was cheaper than the PS2 was $100 cheaper than the 360, and the Wii was $100 cheaper than the PS2. The Wii is also only $50 cheaper than the GameCube from when it was released. For completeness, the GameCube was $50 cheaper than the PS2 when it was release after adjusting for inflation. The PS3 is twice that of the PS2 at launch.

MS and Sony did the same thing they did last time. Increase specs and improved controllers that are functionally the same as the previous console. That is no "risk." Nintendo released a system that could have fallen flat on it's face if people didn't want motion controllers, and since they tried it before and failed, it's no wonder they were surprised by the sheer demand for the Wii. That is risk. I think the one reason they did make the Wii slightly less powerful than what it probably could be was so that it could be as cheap as possible, and still produce a profit, but not too underpowered. Remember, they don't just produce the hardware, they make games for it. And they want the console to be so underpowered that they might as well be working on previous consoles. If they knew how well teh Wii would sell 2 years ago, I bet they would have made it slightly more powerful and brought the price up to $299. But it wouldn't make too much of a difference, and it certainly wouldn't include the HD graphics that everyone seems to want.

Luckily enough for the 2nd controller thing, 50% of all Wii owners have a 2nd controller because they bought WiiPlay. How many PS3 owners would have to buy the PS Eye to get to the 50% of the userbase basically "ready" for headtracking games? That is if in either consoles case you included with the game all things necessary for the game to work (the glasses in both cases, and a cover thing for the PSEye in the PS3s case). And since the Wiimote can be used in just about every game for the Wii, that's a much greater incentive to get a second Wiimote than to get a PSEye, which probably only works for a few games, and in some of those games probably doesn't do a whole lot (like in Burnout), that might add nothing to the game.