Erik Aston said:
BengaBenga said:
People tend to "forget" that Nintendo always had very competitive hardware. WiiHD will probably be very close to what the competitors will release in terms of horsepower. The Wii was Nintendo's only possibility to survive even if sales totally failed. Nintendo is now a very healthy company with loads of money to spend on R&D. Besides that it WILL have the 3rd party support from the start next-gen. 3rd parties won't make the same mistake again. Besides with closer hardware specs 3rd parties don't even have to chose.
The casuals will of course be informed that every Wii game can be played on WiiHD, which will probably launch with WiiSports 2, which will have much better motion controls.
Sure Sony and Microsoft will try to catch the casual gamer, but that will be hard.
If Nintendo makes its next-gen consoles as strong as PS4, but at $250 AND Nintendo quality casual games I don't see how they can lose the next gen.
For more on this read Malstroms latest article. Even if you don't agree it's still a very interesting read on business strategies. |
WiiHD? Wii Sports 2? I'm sorry, but Malstrom never said that's part of Nintendo's strategy. Because it isn't. There will be no WiiHD. There will be no Wii Sports 2.
I didn't say Malstrom said that. I meant: for more on disruption etc. see Malstroms latest article.
If you think the next Wii won't be HD I think you'll be surprised. Within 5 years HD televisions will be the normal TV's. HD will definitely be incorporated in Nintendo's next console, but it will be presented as something new. And probably for a part of Wii's audience it will be by that time.
Whether it will launch with WiiSports2 remains to be seen, but at least it will be something with the same philosophy. Cheap, Simple but very attractive. And Nintendo will certainly not promote their next console by explaining that it plays the exact same games. "Hey, buy this new console because it plays old games!" Nintendo are about creating NEW experiences, if you haven't noticed.
Sure Nintendo will. If PS3 would have had complete BC it would have sold better. Wii will sell alot. If people can buy the new Wii, but have the idea that all the games they bought are still valuable, that's a big selling point. If all the people switch from Wii to the competitor they can't play WiiFit and WiiSports etc anymore. And for Pete's sake, Nintendo aren't earning this money now simply to blow it on R&D for next gen. To some extent that's why they keep large cash reserves, but it isn't to develop a sustaining innovation like a graphical leap or improved motion control. That would be a SNES move or a PS2 move, and Nintendo are no longer looking for sustaining innovations like those.
Surely Nintendo won't "blow" all their money on R&D. But they have much more money to spend than probably ever before. If they spend it wise today they can benefit tomorrow. Don't forget that R&D doesn't need to be hardware only. They can also spend money to improve their production facilities, to be able to produce more efficiently in the future.
I'm not saying they won't add something completely new, but for the most part the new console will be an improved version of Wii.
Nintendo's core business also contains their main games. They are, despite the "revolution" of the Wii dependent on a "regular" game console that suits the Mario's and Zelda's. These core fans of Nintendo cannot be forgotten and they'll demand improvement in the visual department as well.
If Wii continues like this, it will have a massive audience, which at a certain time will want something better.
Look at iPod. First a disruptive idea, after that sustaining your key advantages. And one more thing... Wii wasn't Nintendo's "only possibility to survive." They had no debt, high profits and large cash reserves throughout the PS2 era. In fact, Sony vastly increased their first party development and introduced a handheld console as a desperate attempt to copy Nintendo's traditional advantages and get the same kind of stability and profitability. That's how good of shape Nintendo was in last gen.
Iwata said that Wii's "underpowered" specs were necessary to assure that Nintendo would survive even if the console was a complete disaster. Development for Wii was well underway when DS became the massive success it is now. Their low end risk assesment will probably have incorporated a PSP win on the handheld market.
Everything looks very fine for Nintendo now, but investors weren't very happy during the Gamecube days. Sure their financial managing has always been of an almost unparalleled level, but developing new hardware (console and handheld) and software requires high investments.
I'm pretty sure Nintendo would have rather released a console with a little more power, but couldn't take that gamble.
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