Wii's 2 year resistance

[Bodhesatva]

RolStoppable said:

Borkachev said:

While I'm a fan of Nintendo and what they've accomplished with the Wii, they dropped the ball on this one. HD support should have been a top consideration in designing the system.

Going without HD support was a very wise decision. Nintendo didn't have strong 3rd party support for a whole decade, if Wii games would cost about the same as 360/PS3 games in development, Nintendo would have had next to none 3rd party games at launch and in the following months. Also, the price of the Wii would have been higher and most people would have to pay for a feature they couldn't use.

Lowest development costs and highest install base are the best way for Nintendo to get 3rd parties back on board.

Some people say that the inferior graphics of the Wii will prevent it from getting multiplatform games and the Wiimote/Nunchuck combo requires games that are built up from the ground specifically for the Wii which is the second big reason why the Wii will suffer major 3rd party support.

But what happens if the Wii becomes the primary platform for developers? It will mean lots of 3rd party exclusives, because why should developers bother to make ports to the HD consoles that are expensive, plus the controls would need to be adjusted (which could make certain games inferior on the HD consoles). Developers will have to choose to make a Wii game for $5 million or a 360/PS3 game for $20 million. Once the Wii has passed the combined install base of the 360/PS3 (should happen at latest in march 2008), it will be an easy decision which game to make.

Nintendo has done many things right this time, not supporting HD was one of the best decisions they made.

Agreed. I'd totally agree that HD support would be an obvious choice if it came at no additional cost.

But it does cost money -- both to develop and to produce. Increasing HD support for the Wii and its games would bump the price of the system itself considerably, and probably push the games to 59.99 instead of 49.99. Saying that Nintendo should have included more HD capabilities is precisely the same as saying that they should have made a console with better graphics and a higher price. I strongly believe the system would be doing less well if that were the case.