By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Soundwave on 24 November 2012
Edit Thread
RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

I don't see how $50 invested into the chipset "destroys" Nintendo. 

When you get to $300-$350, you're already well outside the budget/impulse market anyway. Nintendo should've just accepted that. If you're going into that range, you might as well go into the $350-$400 range for a few months and really give your console some firepower under the hood. 

Get more hardcore players on board now by differeniating it from the PS3/360 moreso, that would be a better ticket, then drop the price next year ahead of the Durango/Orbis launches and start to court more casual/budget concious consumers. 

The way it is right now I think they sorta made a system that's not casual enough for the casuals and budget shoppers (doesn't have a new "hook" as attractive as motion gaming was 6 years ago, isn't cheap enough either), but doesn't represent enough of a leap from the PS3/360 to get that audience base excited either. 

If this hypothetical Wii U didn't sell well at $400, Nintendo would need to drop the price by $100 to get it back on track. And if $400 as initial price tag means to sell it a small loss, then dropping to $300 turns it into a big loss.

More horsepower doesn't automatically translate to better looking games. Honestly, who is convinced that third parties would put superior versions of their multiplats on the Wii U, if only it would be more powerful? Chances are good that the hypothetical Wii U wouldn't make a difference to the rushed ports we've seen so far, but the hypothetical Wii U's price would mean lower hardware sales which would subsequently lead to lower software sales. Low software sales means that third parties won't bother to put effort into their future ports, so all the hypothetical Wii U's power would go to waste, but Nintendo and their consumers would have to pay for it.

Additionally, this hypothetical Wii U wouldn't attract more hardcore gamers, because they would take the same stance as they do now: Wait for the Nextbox and PS4 before they make up their mind.

On a sidenote, the 3DS launch was set up to attract more hardcore gamers and that led to catastrophic results.


I actually think developers will take advantage of more powerful hardware if it's actually more powerful, I don't buy the conspiracy theories that developers don't want to make games look their best. 

They don't want to have to bend over backwards to get better performance out of a 2012 chipset than a 2005 one though. And that's fair enough in my opinion. 

The 3DS was just a poorly conceived launch period. No major Nintendo game release and an inflated $250 price point for a system with visual performance lagging behind an iPod touch and a mediocre/non-existent online infastructure ... that was aimed at hardcore audiences? Really? More like kids with rich parents.