Dryden said:
For three decades we've all accepted the cycle of launch console/play for 5-7 years/replace console. I think Nintendo has positioned themselves to be more reactive, agile, and is going to change that. Rather than throw all the horsepower at the devs and end users up front and force the early adopters to both foot the bill on production and eat the cost of depreciation, I see Nintendo's approach of targetting a price point and keeping the machine at a performance/production level equal to that price. Much like the DS phat was replaced with the DS lite, I think the Wii will see colors, then DVD, then possibly a bump in WiFi range or Bluetooth connectivity, a change in the sensor bar configuration, a "fix" for GameCube titles and channel caching so that menu navigation is faster all around, etc etc ... These will all be incremental bumps that each make the Wii a little bit better, but nothing that breaks backwards compatibility or disrupts the software library. Whatever Nintendo does to the console, whether minor performance changes or cosmetic changes, it'll always be called the Wii and it'll always be $249 (or thereabouts) and it'll always be a good value. Nintendo will continue to make it for as long as people will buy (and re-buy) it. It'll be much like the iPod model: From adding touch-sensitive dials to bigger harddrives and batteries to color displays to video, whether its a first generation brick or a fourth generation brick or a mini or a shuffle ... they're all simply, 'iPods'. By the end of this cycle, I think both Wii's and DS'es sales numbers will be irrelevent ... and obscene. |
Hah. Never thought of it like that. Its possible!
