Was Nintendo right to opt out of the graphics arms race?

[burninmylight]

SvennoJ said:

burninmylight said:

It really feels like we aren't in disagreement, but just making some of the same points from different angles.

Like, if your main idea is that it was all about marketing, then I'm with you. I just think that the marketing stemmed around motion controls and new ways to play, not the price point. I think people would have bought the Wii if it was an X360 with a Wiimote; it might not have sold 100 million hardware units, but let's stop acting like that's the only statistic that matters.

Do you think Dr. Phil and Oprah wouldn't have promoted the Wii if it cost $400 and could output games in 720p? I'm not going to tell you what you heard about people online saying, "If only Wii games had HD graphics." I'll just say that you must not have been on VGC or in many gamer forums 15-20 years ago. I joined this site about 15 years ago; I heard it plenty. 

Yeah, it's both, but mainly marketing. The lower price point helped but checking Google, the Wii sold for average $435 on Ebay after launch. People wanted it anyway. 

And yeah the simple controller was the main attraction to the blue ocean. To my parents and anyone else new to console gaming, the standard controllers are rather intimidating with 12 buttons and 2 analog sticks. Here comes something you can simply swing around, point at the screen and press one button to play.

Oprah Winfrey did a giveaway of the Xbox 360 with Kinect to her entire studio audience in a 2010 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. 
MS copied the marketing, Oprah isn't looking at the price ;) Nintendo approached the Dr Phil show I would assume.


I don't know if the Wii would have sold so well at $399. Sure initially it would have sold the same, but as we are seeing now, later adopters look for lower prices. The lack of cheaper slim consoles is slowing current gen adoption down.

September 2009 - Nintendo Wii price dropped to $199
May 4, 2011 - Nintendo is dropping the suggested retail price of its Wii™ system to $149.99 and including a Mario™ game with the Wii hardware.

That was possible because it started at $250

Taking a graph from this site

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/466596/ps5-vs-wii-sales-comparison-november-2025/

So at 34 months price drop to 199, at 54 months price drop to 149, keeping those holiday sales boost going.
(Kinect launched at 48 months on Wii's timeline, WiiU at 72 months)

I don't think Wii would have reached over 100 million sales if it had started at $400. So yeah we agree, Wii would have been a success regardless. Nintendo would have made a bit less money, fewer consoles, fewer game sales, more expensive game development.

Bolded: Damn, I didn't even think about that, but good point... I mentioned people putting each other in headlocks at the store to get one (I'm being facetious in case anyone can't tell, I don't think this literally happened), but I didn't even consider the scalping market. If people were paying north of $400 USD to get their hands on a $250 console, they'd pay $400 for a 360 with a Wiimote in the box.

Nintendo would have made a bit less money, fewer consoles, fewer game sales, more expensive game development.

Most likely. It probably doesn't sell 100 million units at that price, and assuming that it still had the infamous Nintendo level of online service, I don't think it's pulling too many people away from CoD, Battlefield and Madden off of XBL and PSN. However, I do think that it gets some of the generations greatest hits that just weren't capable on the Wii that exists in our current timeline. I'm confident that if Capcom could have put Resident Evil, Street Fighter IV and Turbo HD Remix on it as straight ports, it would have. Konami would have brought the Metal Gears and that Castlevania reboot. Sega would have brought Bayonetta, Yakuza and Sonic '06 Generations. Ubisoft would have brought Assassin's Creed. We know that there was a prototype build of Arkham Asylum for the Wii that never got far off of the ground, so Eidos/WB were interested in getting Batman on it. With a more consistent serving of third party hits, the Wii has stronger legs near the end of its lifecycle and doesn't hit the same cliff it did around 2010.

For all I know, those games could have flopped on the HD Wii like they did on the Wii U for the few ports it got. But a big reason why they flopped on Wii U was because Nintendo spent an entire generation sending the message to the kind of gamers that those games appeal to, to go elsewhere for those games. The other big reason was that the Gamepad didn't add any appeal to people to abandon their current ecosystems. It's possible that an HD Wii would have allowed Nintendo to send a more inclusive message with its marketing to say, "Our console is big enough for casuals AND dedicated gamers!", and Nintendo wouldn't have had to spend years digging itself out of that hole in terms of image.

Of course, as the OP suggests, this is all just a thought exercise.