Nintendo's gonna have 3 million units per month for three months? One month maybe (globally). The people calling for this insane production boost must know something Nintendo's not revealing to the rest of us. Some projects can be cancelled, but it would be silly to pull the plug on anything that's already cost 8 figures. Makes much more sense to port it to 360 or better yet go to Sony and beg for money. PS2 had 414 third party games at the end of 2002, but it's not really a fair comparison because it had been out for an extra year. Better would be Microsoft with 176. Nintendo's previous system had a 12% market share. It'll take more than just being better than that. PS1 did not have the PlayStation brand or the 12 years of building developer relations that goes along with it. Also, back then, Sony was not a strong publisher, and its internal efforts had been jokes consisting primarily of its own crappy licenses. Sony's not the new kid on the block any more. They know the industry, and the industry knows them. I do think they're too arrogant for their own good, but that doesn't negate the good things that they have going. Let's see Nintendo try to sell a $600 system and see how far they get. You can only get so far on the basis of one company. We saw that with N64 and Gamecube. At least on N64 they had Rare, but now they don't even have that. Third parties are needed to win. They need to start embracing them and stop doing everything based on their own needs. That's what got them in trouble in the first place. I want to see a company willing to spend. That to me says they're serious. Aggressive marketing, losses on hardware, shopping for exclusives, online gaming, whatever it takes. It can be argued this isn't the smartest move, and perhaps Nintendo's too small to do it, so cutting corners was probably their best strategy. We saw Microsoft reduce about 25% months ago, and they're just above the 10 million mark. Sony's halfway to that point and has a lot more room to reduce. The difference between N64 and now is that N64 lost all its exclusives before it even had a chance to get them. Microsoft may not have wanted shorter lifecycles perse, but their goal of launching earlier than the competition resulted in it. PS3 already has third party support. It doesn't need to get it. Obviously, going forward, we are talking about something different, but there are enough major projects already in the works that developers will be looking at sales of those to determine where to go next. Sony doesn't even have any first party games out yet. They never feel the need to launch with a killer app. If they did, we'd have seen God of War II on PS3, where it probably should have been. Bingo. Once Nintendo's quick start disappeared combined with lackluster third party sales, support dried up. The exclusives are meaningless, though. Well, maybe not quite meaningless, but largely pretty close to it. Mario, Pokemon, SSB, etc. are all excellent exclusives to have, but as far as third parties, the list ranges from "Who cares?" to "Okay, maybe even pretty good," with an emphasis on "Who cares?" Their biggest exclusives are spinoffs that we already know won't sell as well as the main franchises (we saw this with both FF and RE already) that are going to be on other systems. Making a profit over the long term at the expense of short term losses is how the industry works. Nintendo can have a profit annually (primarily from its portable sales but whatever), but the others are willing to be more aggressive.

Some projects can be cancelled, but it would be silly to pull the plug on anything that's already cost 8 figures. Makes much more sense to port it to 360 or better yet go to Sony and beg for money.

Either way, its bad for Sony.

Nintendo's previous system had a 12% market share. It'll take more than just being better than that.

Well, they've got a 34% marketshare right now, and much more than that on a month-to-month basis WW.

PS1 did not have the PlayStation brand or the 12 years of building developer relations that goes along with it. Also, back then, Sony was not a strong publisher, and its internal efforts had been jokes consisting primarily of its own crappy licenses. Sony's not the new kid on the block any more. They know the industry, and the industry knows them. I do think they're too arrogant for their own good, but that doesn't negate the good things that they have going. Let's see Nintendo try to sell a $600 system and see how far they get.

Nintendo wouldn't launch a $600 console. Sony's arrogance DOES negate the good things they have going, because that arrogance RESULTED in the high price tag and bad press which alienated customers and caused this giant post-launch drop-off in sales.

You can only get so far on the basis of one company. We saw that with N64 and Gamecube. At least on N64 they had Rare, but now they don't even have that. Third parties are needed to win. They need to start embracing them and stop doing everything based on their own needs. That's what got them in trouble in the first place.

Nintendo understands this. However, when they aggressively pursued third parties with Gamecube, they failed. They failed because MS could pony up money, and Sony had the install base. Do you think that Sony needed to buy exclusivity on third party franchises after 2002? Even when Nintendo ponied up the cash for RE4, it still went to Sony, probably for free, because they had the install base. Nintendo are going after the install base. That is the only way to secure major third party support in the long term. In the short term, they've got a dev. cost advantage.

I want to see a company willing to spend. That to me says they're serious. Aggressive marketing, losses on hardware, shopping for exclusives, online gaming, whatever it takes. It can be argued this isn't the smartest move, and perhaps Nintendo's too small to do it, so cutting corners was probably their best strategy.

You continue to underestimate how big Nintendo is, and prove you haven't really examined their strategy. As I have said, they had enough in the bank to have two XBox-like embarrassments in a row if they so chose. They haven't cut any corners, they've merely challenged the conventional wisdom within the industry, which is that a company has to risk billions upon billions in an arms race with their competitors to have any chance at success.

We saw Microsoft reduce about 25% months ago, and they're just above the 10 million mark. Sony's halfway to that point and has a lot more room to reduce.

Sony's halfway to what point now?

A 25% reduction for Sony just gets them down to what? Still above wholesale, I imagine. They are in danger of losing money on each PS3 sold for the entire life of the console. They better hope they are able to reduce by 80%+ to get to the $100-150 sweet spot that Nintendo will be on the lower end of in 5 years. 

The difference between N64 and now is that N64 lost all its exclusives before it even had a chance to get them.

Another difference is that Nintendo owned all the biggest franchises of the day, had just landed the rights to James Bond, and were in the midst of establishing what became the second most popular franchise of all time over on Game Boy. Sony owns only one uber-franchise today.

Microsoft may not have wanted shorter lifecycles perse, but their goal of launching earlier than the competition resulted in it.

Do you not understand what "goal" and "strategy" mean? Launching early is a strategy, massive profits is a goal.

PS3 already has third party support. It doesn't need to get it. Obviously, going forward, we are talking about something different, but there are enough major projects already in the works that developers will be looking at sales of those to determine where to go next.

PS3's third party support is now only stronger than Wii's due to MGS and FF, and we have yet to have a major industry media event for game announcements since the consoles launched. The biggest franchise still up in the air is Kingdom Hearts, roughly as popular a franchise as MGS.

Sony doesn't even have any first party games out yet. They never feel the need to launch with a killer app. If they did, we'd have seen God of War II on PS3, where it probably should have been.

Resistance and Motorstorm, their only two hits, are both first party.

Bingo. Once Nintendo's quick start disappeared combined with lackluster third party sales, support dried up.

Nintendo did not have a quick start with GC. They had 2 good months in one region. Wii has had 5 good months in all three major regions, and has (no surprise) constantly improving support.

The exclusives are meaningless, though. Well, maybe not quite meaningless, but largely pretty close to it. Mario, Pokemon, SSB, etc. are all excellent exclusives to have, but as far as third parties, the list ranges from "Who cares?" to "Okay, maybe even pretty good," with an emphasis on "Who cares?" Their biggest exclusives are spinoffs that we already know won't sell as well as the main franchises (we saw this with both FF and RE already) that are going to be on other systems.

Well, exclusive "spinoffs" on Wii have outsold the main series counterpart on PS3 twice already (Tony Hawk and Sonic). That's not too bad.

I'd just say "wait until the major media events." I'm not sure when they're all coming. And remember that if you want to talk about third party mega-franchises, Sony merely has a 2-0 win over Nintendo. Not enough to win a console war on.

Making a profit over the long term at the expense of short term losses is how the industry works. Nintendo can have a profit annually (primarily from its portable sales but whatever), but the others are willing to be more aggressive.

Its how you've been taught the industry works. Its the prevailing wisdom of the day. However, that loss is supposed to keep your system cost down, and get it into homes faster than your competitors. Thats why companies subsidize their consoles early on. When a company already losing money needs to cut the price just to stay in the game sales-wise, they're in trouble.

And one of the key traits of the "Blue Ocean Strategy" is the ability to break the cost:value relationship. Nintendo made something more valuable to consumers which costs less to make with games like Wii Sports. It is designed to do exactly what you're attacking it for.

 

The next time you're at the mall, think about stopping by Barnes and Noble, finding the book "Blue Ocean Strategy", and reading the first few chapters. Should be required for anyone trying to discuss "console wars".

Nintendo's gonna have 3 million units per month for three months? One month maybe (globally). The people calling for this insane production boost must know something Nintendo's not revealing to the rest of us.

Why do they need to produce 3 millions a month for three months? If you mean HappySquirels nummer, all he pointed out was that all systems get a boost during the holidays, and that more or less 50% of the sales comes from that time.

Some projects can be cancelled, but it would be silly to pull the plug on anything that's already cost 8 figures. Makes much more sense to port it to 360 or better yet go to Sony and beg for money.

I don't think that I never have stated that that they will pull the plug on projects that is going, I do think that PS3 wont get so many new project as the PS2

PS2 had 414 third party games at the end of 2002, but it's not really a fair comparison because it had been out for an extra year. Better would be Microsoft with 176.

Nintendo's previous system had a 12% market share. It'll take more than just being better than that.

Yes it does, thats why it is so intressting to see that the 12% market share company is selling close to PS2 levels. So far nothing indicates that a slow down will occur. I mean Wii is selling without any games at all.

PS1 did not have the PlayStation brand or the 12 years of building developer relations that goes along with it. Also, back then, Sony was not a strong publisher, and its internal efforts had been jokes consisting primarily of its own crappy licenses. Sony's not the new kid on the block any more. They know the industry, and the industry knows them. I do think they're too arrogant for their own good, but that doesn't negate the good things that they have going. Let's see Nintendo try to sell a $600 system and see how far they get.

Yes Nintendo might not succed selling a 600 USD system, BUT thats why Wii is 250 USD. It wasn't Nintendo that called Sony and said, price you consol at 600 USD thats an order. It was Sonys choice and now they have to live with it. The PS1 was a new kid on the block, but because it had its headstart and that Nintendo got arrogant, Nintendo lost the 3rd parties. PS1 got the 3rd party support that Nintendo pissed on.

What is the good thing Sony has going with their 600 USD consol?

You can only get so far on the basis of one company. We saw that with N64 and Gamecube. At least on N64 they had Rare, but now they don't even have that. Third parties are needed to win. They need to start embracing them and stop doing everything based on their own needs. That's what got them in trouble in the first place.

I think you totally has missed that DS already broaden the market with Brain Age and so on. If Wii Sport/health/play/music/motorsport and mario/zelda/metroid can drive sales untill they got 30 millions way before PS3. Nintendo will get they 3rd party support they need.

I want to see a company willing to spend. That to me says they're serious. Aggressive marketing, losses on hardware, shopping for exclusives, online gaming, whatever it takes. It can be argued this isn't the smartest move, and perhaps Nintendo's too small to do it, so cutting corners was probably their best strategy.

Their best strategy? You do understand that they didn't need aggresive marketing and losses on hardware to get one of the fastest launch since PS2?

We saw Microsoft reduce about 25% months ago, and they're just above the 10 million mark. Sony's halfway to that point and has a lot more room to reduce.

Well if you think Sony just can make a price drop the moment they go under 600 USD in production cost, I can tell you that they need to regain the money they have lost during launch. The consol is sold with almost 200 USD in loss!

The difference between N64 and now is that N64 lost all its exclusives before it even had a chance to get them.

Yes and it still rusched out from the stores, on brand alone. PS3 isn't selling on brand alone and one year from now when the exclusives that is announced comes, Nintendo will probarbly have a lead that is close to 10 millions. Which means that the new games announced, now, will either go multiplattform with xbox360 or be on Wii.

Microsoft may not have wanted shorter lifecycles perse, but their goal of launching earlier than the competition resulted in it.

PS3 already has third party support. It doesn't need to get it. Obviously, going forward, we are talking about something different, but there are enough major projects already in the works that developers will be looking at sales of those to determine where to go next.

Yes again PS3 has 3rd party support for now, that doesn't help if no new exclusivs is coming. PS3 isn't alone in the market, it can't play wait and see. So far Sony is living on its first party titles, resistance and motorstorm. Which isn't going that well. The difference between Nintendo and Sony is this: Nintendo decided to go for broaden the market meanwhile Sony is fighting to get to the old market, it seems that Nintendo is doing the right thing.

Sony doesn't even have any first party games out yet. They never feel the need to launch with a killer app. If they did, we'd have seen God of War II on PS3, where it probably should have been.

False, the two must hyped games is first party, Resistnace and Motorstorm.

Bingo. Once Nintendo's quick start disappeared combined with lackluster third party sales, support dried up.

First 3rd party sales for Wii is much better than PS3 WW, PS3 is living on its first party titles. Wii have tons of quick ports selling more than exclusivs on PS3 at least in USA. 3rd party sales on Wii isn't bad at all looking at what they get. A tie ratio of 3rd party games in USA on 1.588 isn't bad at all, again looking at which crap they got for launch. The good games isn't coming until later this year, with MySims, Boogie and so on. Games that we might think is really bad, but that is targetting the female market, a market that neither Sony or Microsoft is even playing at.

And what evidence have we that Wii launch sales just will die away? PS2 has never stopped selling.

The exclusives are meaningless, though. Well, maybe not quite meaningless, but largely pretty close to it. Mario, Pokemon, SSB, etc. are all excellent exclusives to have, but as far as third parties, the list ranges from "Who cares?" to "Okay, maybe even pretty good," with an emphasis on "Who cares?" Their biggest exclusives are spinoffs that we already know won't sell as well as the main franchises (we saw this with both FF and RE already) that are going to be on other systems.

Yes because everybody thought that the PS3 would win easily, I think you are missing the point here: Nintendo is winning NOW, that means more support after this point. Do you think that SE will give next FF (after that one which is announced) if sales is at GameCube levels for PS3 and Wii has PS2 levels? I mean DS got dragon Quest.

Second no exclusivs isn't meaningless, it is what sales a consol. One exclusive that you seem to ignore is still Wii Sport, which is the start of a serie that seems to become Wii:s Nintendodogs (WW sales 12,09 million), Brain Training (7.33 Million WW), and so on. Nintendo is broading the market today, forgett about the old series, as EA showed with Sims their is other games than male 14-22 year old.

Making a profit over the long term at the expense of short term losses is how the industry works. Nintendo can have a profit annually (primarily from its portable sales but whatever), but the others are willing to be more aggressive.

Yes they are more aggressive, and they are lossing money fast, Microsofts xbox division has never showed profit, PS3 is lossing money and has so far not shown any momentum at all. Sony thought that their brand would do everything and they have failed so far.

Note: Nintendo DS vs Sony PSP history seems to totally fail to teach us anything, that player that goes for broading the market will win. Simply as that, because today we have elder folks, femals and so on that isn't playing at all, and Brain Training/Nintendodogs has showed what can happend if you do it right!

Shane said: Nintendo's gonna have 3 million units per month for three months? One month maybe (globally). The people calling for this insane production boost must know something Nintendo's not revealing to the rest of us. Some projects can be cancelled, but it would be silly to pull the plug on anything that's already cost 8 figures. Makes much more sense to port it to 360 or better yet go to Sony and beg for money. PS2 had 414 third party games at the end of 2002, but it's not really a fair comparison because it had been out for an extra year. Better would be Microsoft with 176. Nintendo's previous system had a 12% market share. It'll take more than just being better than that. PS1 did not have the PlayStation brand or the 12 years of building developer relations that goes along with it. Also, back then, Sony was not a strong publisher, and its internal efforts had been jokes consisting primarily of its own crappy licenses. Sony's not the new kid on the block any more. They know the industry, and the industry knows them. I do think they're too arrogant for their own good, but that doesn't negate the good things that they have going. Let's see Nintendo try to sell a $600 system and see how far they get. You can only get so far on the basis of one company. We saw that with N64 and Gamecube. At least on N64 they had Rare, but now they don't even have that. Third parties are needed to win. They need to start embracing them and stop doing everything based on their own needs. That's what got them in trouble in the first place. I want to see a company willing to spend. That to me says they're serious. Aggressive marketing, losses on hardware, shopping for exclusives, online gaming, whatever it takes. It can be argued this isn't the smartest move, and perhaps Nintendo's too small to do it, so cutting corners was probably their best strategy. We saw Microsoft reduce about 25% months ago, and they're just above the 10 million mark. Sony's halfway to that point and has a lot more room to reduce. The difference between N64 and now is that N64 lost all its exclusives before it even had a chance to get them. Microsoft may not have wanted shorter lifecycles perse, but their goal of launching earlier than the competition resulted in it. PS3 already has third party support. It doesn't need to get it. Obviously, going forward, we are talking about something different, but there are enough major projects already in the works that developers will be looking at sales of those to determine where to go next. Sony doesn't even have any first party games out yet. They never feel the need to launch with a killer app. If they did, we'd have seen God of War II on PS3, where it probably should have been. Bingo. Once Nintendo's quick start disappeared combined with lackluster third party sales, support dried up. The exclusives are meaningless, though. Well, maybe not quite meaningless, but largely pretty close to it. Mario, Pokemon, SSB, etc. are all excellent exclusives to have, but as far as third parties, the list ranges from "Who cares?" to "Okay, maybe even pretty good," with an emphasis on "Who cares?" Their biggest exclusives are spinoffs that we already know won't sell as well as the main franchises (we saw this with both FF and RE already) that are going to be on other systems. Making a profit over the long term at the expense of short term losses is how the industry works. Nintendo can have a profit annually (primarily from its portable sales but whatever), but the others are willing to be more aggressive.

What? Nintedo will ramp up production as long as they have to. Even if this would mean 10M per month for next ten years. But it's not a quick thing to do. Porting to 360 plays to M$:s pocket, you don't have any reason to buy more expensive console, when cheaper console has same games. Not a fair comparision? If we are looking at the competition that GC was facing. Any other way to look at it would be unfare or at least unrealistic. People are interested in a console, which has a lot of games and there were lots of cheap games available already when GC and Xbox was released. This is the reason why manufacturers want headstart from its competitors. It really didn't matter that what GC had, the thing that did matter was what PS2 had. GC 3rd party support dried because 3rd party on PS2 sold better. It's as easy as that. Of course Nintendos strong first party is bad for 3rd parties. But still, with same advantage in sales for GC, what PS2 had, would have given enough room for 3rd party to make better money with Cube, than with PS2. And you do wonder why Nintendo isn't selling a system as expensive as PS3? Well, look at the sales figures. Sony doesn't have air to drop the PS3:s price, but they have to. Nintendo have much more air to do that, but they don't need to. Also M$ has more air to drop price than Sony has. Thinking of aggressive approach, Nintendo has it if we compare to its competitors. Just look how different it is. I don't know what the marketing will eventually be, because so far Wii haven't had a real need to market it. Spending more money than you could afford, is not very clever. Bankrupts don't benefit anyone. You are not familiar with the thinking that Iwata brought with him to Nintendo. They are using a lot of 2nd party for their own franchises. This was seen on GC, but it did lack from 3rd party support. There are two types 3rd party games that are important: exclusives and multiplatform. Exclusives give you a benefit over competitors and multiplatform doesn't give that benefit to competitors. It's big if you get competitors exclusive go multiplatform. If exclusives don't matter, then what does? Multiplatform games benefit Wii the most, because it's cheapest. No reason to buy more expensive console for same games. So competitors need exclusives. So does Wii. It doesn't matter whether exclusives are 1st or 3rd party as long as they are exclusives. Nintendo is putting a lot of effort to 3rd party at the moment, and it is working, at least if you look at the titles announced. In fact, Miyamoto is in charge of helping 3rd parties in their games, and if you know who Miyamoto is, thats much bigger investment to 3rd parties, than M$ or Sony could invest. M$ is in about 10M, Sony 3M. 360:s lead is about the same today, that what it was when PS3 was released. But Nintendo is in about 6M, and catching M$. By the end of 2007, Wii should pass 360, and PS3 still 6M behind. Only this time it's 6M behind two of its competitors and the other is making more gap.

Losing exclusives is definitely bad for Sony, but here's the thing: those projects are still coming out for the PS3. Nintendo's always started off strong in marketshare, then faded. Let's see how fast they fade this time. They definitely will fade, but it's a matter of how much. Sony still needed to pay for exclusivity. We saw this with GTA. Nintendo got RE4 because they farmed Zelda GBA out to Capcom, which was a good move. Problem is you won't see Nintendo either paying for an exclusive or just simply taking on the marketing like Microsoft did for Gears of War. They just hope the developers will come to them with an offer. Nintendo hasn't challenged conventional wisdom. They've used the same wisdom they've used for years. Go with the slowest processor, and let Sega take a massive chunk of the marrket. Go with the best money making format, and let Sony take complete control of the market. This "It's about the games" BS isn't new, and it's very short-sighted. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but it's certainly not some genius innovative tactic that they haven't tried before. If Sony can reduce 25%, it would put them in the $600 range. They should hit that mark by fall. A price drop then would still be losing money, but it wouldn't be as substantial as what they were giving back at launch. Sony doesn't have any 20 million sellers, but they've got a bunch that can move systems. I'd take Gran Turismo over any other franchise from any other company any day. If Kingdom Hearts doesn't go to Sony, who would it go to? I think we all know the answer to that isn't Nintendo. Resistance and Motorstorm are both second party, though both the developers may as well become first party. Their first internal game will be released next week, their first major internal game is probably Warhawk with a September release, and their first established franchise game is probably going to be Getaway for the holidays. 4 months is not a lengthy period of time. Neither Sonic nor Tony Hawk put up solid numbers on either of the two consoles thus far, though it has been proved in the past that Sonic is the one franchise that can put up big numbers on Nintendo platforms. Sony doesn't just have FF and MGS. They have plenty of other franchises of varying sizes that Nintendo doesn't have and won't have (GTA anyone?). For Nintendo to really get aggressive third party support, they're going to need to have a sizeable lead on both their competitors in another 12-18 months. N64 had a similarly fast launch. Once people found out the major franchises, many of the same ones Sony's still got locked today, weren't going to be on a Nintendo platform, they bailed. PS3 is selling on brand alone. Their big games won't be out for months. The numbers have been examined in previous threads, and there are a lot of games where PS3 third party numbers are outperforming Wii ones. But the numbers are ultimately pretty close. The problem with this is that Nintendo has double the installed base. What happens when it's no longer double? What happens when Nintendo actually starts trying with its first party releases? There's no more evidence that Nintendo's sales will drop than that they will continue like this forever. What we do know is that there won't be a significant boost. It's a safe bet FF will not be a DS game. Exclusives that can sell and sell systems aren't meaningless. Exclusives like Cooking Mama are. Let's say Wii Sports moves 10 million units. That will put it right up there with Mario 64. The system that was on sold 33 million units, a figure which would be good enough for third. As I said, Nintendo needs more than just in house titles. What I learned from DS vs. PSP is that Nintendo's portable market dominance was the most important factor. Nintendo will no doubt continue to explore new ways to produce more units, but as you said, it will take many months for them to do so. In terms of second parties, Nintendo's lost a lot of them. Certainly the more noteworthy ones bailed during the Cube generation, finding new homes with Sony and Microsoft. The problem is the only multiplatform games Nintendo is encouraging are again not big names. They're not going to steal a DMC or a GTA like Microsoft did. System power prohibits it.

Shane said: Losing exclusives is definitely bad for Sony, but here's the thing: those projects are still coming out for the PS3. Nintendo's always started off strong in marketshare, then faded. Let's see how fast they fade this time. They definitely will fade, but it's a matter of how much. Sony still needed to pay for exclusivity. We saw this with GTA. Nintendo got RE4 because they farmed Zelda GBA out to Capcom, which was a good move. Problem is you won't see Nintendo either paying for an exclusive or just simply taking on the marketing like Microsoft did for Gears of War. They just hope the developers will come to them with an offer. Nintendo hasn't challenged conventional wisdom. They've used the same wisdom they've used for years. Go with the slowest processor, and let Sega take a massive chunk of the marrket. Go with the best money making format, and let Sony take complete control of the market. This "It's about the games" BS isn't new, and it's very short-sighted. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but it's certainly not some genius innovative tactic that they haven't tried before. If Sony can reduce 25%, it would put them in the $600 range. They should hit that mark by fall. A price drop then would still be losing money, but it wouldn't be as substantial as what they were giving back at launch. Sony doesn't have any 20 million sellers, but they've got a bunch that can move systems. I'd take Gran Turismo over any other franchise from any other company any day. If Kingdom Hearts doesn't go to Sony, who would it go to? I think we all know the answer to that isn't Nintendo. Resistance and Motorstorm are both second party, though both the developers may as well become first party. Their first internal game will be released next week, their first major internal game is probably Warhawk with a September release, and their first established franchise game is probably going to be Getaway for the holidays. 4 months is not a lengthy period of time. Neither Sonic nor Tony Hawk put up solid numbers on either of the two consoles thus far, though it has been proved in the past that Sonic is the one franchise that can put up big numbers on Nintendo platforms. Sony doesn't just have FF and MGS. They have plenty of other franchises of varying sizes that Nintendo doesn't have and won't have (GTA anyone?). For Nintendo to really get aggressive third party support, they're going to need to have a sizeable lead on both their competitors in another 12-18 months. N64 had a similarly fast launch. Once people found out the major franchises, many of the same ones Sony's still got locked today, weren't going to be on a Nintendo platform, they bailed. PS3 is selling on brand alone. Their big games won't be out for months. The numbers have been examined in previous threads, and there are a lot of games where PS3 third party numbers are outperforming Wii ones. But the numbers are ultimately pretty close. The problem with this is that Nintendo has double the installed base. What happens when it's no longer double? What happens when Nintendo actually starts trying with its first party releases? There's no more evidence that Nintendo's sales will drop than that they will continue like this forever. What we do know is that there won't be a significant boost. It's a safe bet FF will not be a DS game. Exclusives that can sell and sell systems aren't meaningless. Exclusives like Cooking Mama are. Let's say Wii Sports moves 10 million units. That will put it right up there with Mario 64. The system that was on sold 33 million units, a figure which would be good enough for third. As I said, Nintendo needs more than just in house titles. What I learned from DS vs. PSP is that Nintendo's portable market dominance was the most important factor. Nintendo will no doubt continue to explore new ways to produce more units, but as you said, it will take many months for them to do so. In terms of second parties, Nintendo's lost a lot of them. Certainly the more noteworthy ones bailed during the Cube generation, finding new homes with Sony and Microsoft. The problem is the only multiplatform games Nintendo is encouraging are again not big names. They're not going to steal a DMC or a GTA like Microsoft did. System power prohibits it.

When in time did Nintendo have great sales in the first months? Yes, N64 and SNES... but that´s all.

If you learned Nintendos name won the DS:PSP fight you should look at the sales again and realize DS is selling better than GBA ever did. THis is not because of their brand name, man. Don´t kid yourself.

Nintendo has plenty franchises Sony doesn´t have and btw GTA will still sell more 360s than PS3 because of the lower price and because Microsoft is willing to do everything to win against Sony.

Where is the Wii a Fad? Because it sells well? This is so silly I can´t even make a comment on it. Even if it is a Fad it will have great 3rd party support when the Fad ends and will sell because of the new games. The PS3 won´t - there are no new games.

You really think FF and Metal Gear will save the PS3? That´s what Nintendo thought about Zelda, Mario, Golden Eye, Banjo Kazooie and F-Zero back in the N64 days...did it help?

The Wii will have greater 3rd party support and more exlusives plus the best 1st party games in the world plus the better price point, plus the bigger target audience. The PS2 sold at least 10 million units cuz of EyeToy and Buzz in it´s last two years. These games appeal to the casual gamers and Nintendo is getting the casual gamers now. NOT Sony. And Sony will never get them. But Nintendo will get the better 3rd party support. It doesn´t matter what you say believe me. I checked it and stood about two hours in front of the big mountain near my home and I screamed: "Move! Move!"....but it didn´t move. Give it up.

 

 

 

Losing exclusives is definitely bad for Sony, but here's the thing: those projects are still coming out for the PS3.

Yes they are, but also to the cheaper xbox360, why would anybody buy the 200 USD more expensive machine?

Nintendo's always started off strong in marketshare, then faded. Let's see how fast they fade this time. They definitely will fade, but it's a matter of how much.

This is a intressting statment, the only time Nintendo have started this strong is with N64 and SNES. SNES became the market leader, after winning Japan and N64 failed because of lack of 3rd party games. SNES didn't fad, N64 did. Reason? Because it didn't become the dominant plattform. So far nothing prevents Wii to pass xbox360 WW after this year and totaly cement the leadership in Japan. Last Media Create numbers showed a sale for PS3 on 15k, meanwhile Wii sold 50k. There is almost no new games coming out for the next three months for PS3 in japan. During this time Wii gets DQ: Swords and Brain Age, plus Paper mario. So holding that distant shouldn't be a problem for Wii. We have a senario for PS3 that is closer to N64 than PS1 here, PS1 won because massive amount of games, N64 lost because of lack of games. Even FF and MSG wont regain a 3 million lead in Japan.

Sony still needed to pay for exclusivity. We saw this with GTA.

Nintendo got RE4 because they farmed Zelda GBA out to Capcom, which was a good move. Problem is you won't see Nintendo either paying for an exclusive or just simply taking on the marketing like Microsoft did for Gears of War. They just hope the developers will come to them with an offer.

Nintendo hasn't challenged conventional wisdom. They've used the same wisdom they've used for years. Go with the slowest processor, and let Sega take a massive chunk of the marrket. Go with the best money making format, and let Sony take complete control of the market. This "It's about the games" BS isn't new, and it's very short-sighted. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but it's certainly not some genius innovative tactic that they haven't tried before.

No Nintendo has done something totally new, they have openly stated that this time we aren't a part of the "tech" race. We will give you a new experience. The GameCube was stronger than PS2, N64 was stronger than PS1. The "tech" race did made Nintendo lose more users everygeneration.

If Sony can reduce 25%, it would put them in the $600 range. They should hit that mark by fall. A price drop then would still be losing money, but it wouldn't be as substantial as what they were giving back at launch.

And how big must that price drop be to make an impact? If Sony drop their price with 100 USD, Microsoft drops their to 300 USD. Sony have put themself in a situation were they have priced themselves so that they can't win a price war. Sony needs to win this on games alone.

Sony doesn't have any 20 million sellers, but they've got a bunch that can move systems. I'd take Gran Turismo over any other franchise from any other company any day.

Yes you do, and I like that game also. But if you have missed something Sony needs at least a 10 million+ game to regain market share.

If Kingdom Hearts doesn't go to Sony, who would it go to? I think we all know the answer to that isn't Nintendo.

Why can't it be Nintendo? If Nintendo gets a userbase alon 15-17 million and Sony just have 8-9 million in the end of this year. 3rd party support isn't something given. (by the way I am not saying that this game can't reach xbox360 either, but to state that it only can be given to Sony or Microsoft is wrong)

Resistance and Motorstorm are both second party, though both the developers may as well become first party. Their first internal game will be released next week, their first major internal game is probably Warhawk with a September release, and their first established franchise game is probably going to be Getaway for the holidays.

Published by sony.

4 months is not a lengthy period of time.

Neither Sonic nor Tony Hawk put up solid numbers on either of the two consoles thus far, though it has been proved in the past that Sonic is the one franchise that can put up big numbers on Nintendo platforms.

We have only numbers of 1 week so far for Sonic on Wii (in USA) and has so far sold out Sonic on PS3.

Sony doesn't just have FF and MGS. They have plenty of other franchises of varying sizes that Nintendo doesn't have and won't have (GTA anyone?).

GTA will hit xbox360 which has far more games and a cheaper price in the same day. PS3 wont be saved by GTA.

For Nintendo to really get aggressive third party support, they're going to need to have a sizeable lead on both their competitors in another 12-18 months.

N64 had a similarly fast launch. Once people found out the major franchises, many of the same ones Sony's still got locked today, weren't going to be on a Nintendo platform, they bailed.

Yes, to bad that people seems to bail PS3 now, when we all now that MSG4, next FF is coming and so on.  Wii only need to continue the momentum for this year to get more 3rd party support. They are already now starting to get EA and Ubisoft on the wagon. Capcome has this week shown three games, 1 port and 2 new games. Sega gives Nights exclusive to Wii. EA MySims and Boogie so far exclusivs. Ubi, Red Steel. You can't state that their is no intresst in giving support to Wii, mayby you should read this link:

 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amWmy6_JG16U&refer=home

It shows that the 3rd party already now see Wii as a good plattform to devlop for. 

PS3 is selling on brand alone. Their big games won't be out for months.

Yes and you think it is going well so far? Or what are you trying to say? By the way try half a year. 

The numbers have been examined in previous threads, and there are a lot of games where PS3 third party numbers are outperforming Wii ones. But the numbers are ultimately pretty close. The problem with this is that Nintendo has double the installed base. What happens when it's no longer double? What happens when Nintendo actually starts trying with its first party releases?

So let us see here: Total 3rd party software sales on Wii in USA = 3,346,250, and on PS3 in USA = 2,105,500. It isn't even close and it doesn't matter if PS3 user base has a higer tie ratio than the Wii as long as Wii is selling more 3rd party games totally

If you are intrested I can give you a top 10 if you want between PS3 and Wii. It is nice reading for Wii, not that nice for PS3.

There's no more evidence that Nintendo's sales will drop than that they will continue like this forever. What we do know is that there won't be a significant boost.

Then I ask again, didn't PS2 sell very well during a long time? You can't go into a discussion and state that the sales will drop of and than try to argument that we can't prove that is will keep selling. Yes it might soon start selling less, but there is noting that shows that PS3 will suddently start selling more either.

It's a safe bet FF will not be a DS game.

Never stated this, but it was a safe bet that DQ wouldn't go to DS once upon a time also.

Exclusives that can sell and sell systems aren't meaningless. Exclusives like Cooking Mama are.

Cooking Mama, might be meaningless but it makes one more game in the catalog. Nintendo has their exclusives today that is selling systems. Wii Sport and Zelda. Soon mayby Super Paper Mario, later MySims (sims has sold more than 15 million on PC alone) has the potentional and Boogie to.

Let's say Wii Sports moves 10 million units. That will put it right up there with Mario 64. The system that was on sold 33 million units, a figure which would be good enough for third. As I said, Nintendo needs more than just in house titles.

Yes that is when the release Wii health, or wait for 3rd parties. You seem to miss that Nintendo is tapping to different groups, N-fans and casual gamers. Mostly Femals.

What I learned from DS vs. PSP is that Nintendo's portable market dominance was the most important factor.

Then you have missed something. The clear evidence is that Gameboy had a user group that was mostly male kids, meanwhile DS has a lot of female users and elder persons. Those two extra groups were drawn in because of Brain Training and Nintendodogs. Nintendodogs sold of 170k last month in USA alone, and that is its 19 month out in the market. It has crosse 4 million+ and is still selling. Not only that Nintendo DS have passed (according to Media Create at least) the GBA LTD in Japan, will most probarbly pass PS2 this year. Their is nothing about being dominant in the DS succes. It is also intressting that you draw up this about market dominance when Nintendo once upon a time owend the consol industry, and that didn't help them.

Nintendo will no doubt continue to explore new ways to produce more units, but as you said, it will take many months for them to do so.

They have stated that they have increased their production above one million now in april.

In terms of second parties, Nintendo's lost a lot of them. Certainly the more noteworthy ones bailed during the Cube generation, finding new homes with Sony and Microsoft.

The problem is the only multiplatform games Nintendo is encouraging are again not big names. They're not going to steal a DMC or a GTA like Microsoft did. System power prohibits it.

But it isn't multiplattform games that will sell Wii it is the big mass of exclusive games. And yes they are getting them. (PS. they are getting Guitar Hero 3 this fall)

Again let me state something that you have totally missed: Nintendo doesn't compete with the sony and Microsoft about the old gamers. They want to create new ones, in Japan their non-games seems to succed. If Nintendo can get a 15 million N-fans onboard to they will be happy, and mayby one or two PS2 gamers. But what they really want is 75 million non-gamers to buy their product. If they can succed with that, which I think is most possible learning from DS, they wont need the big old games. They needs to create new games.

Nintendo's always started off strong in marketshare, then faded. Let's see how fast they fade this time. They definitely will fade, but it's a matter of how much.

NO. Nintendo has always started strong in ONE MARKET, NA. They've been WEAK in Europe forever, and in Japan for 10 years.

Nintendo got RE4 because they farmed Zelda GBA out to Capcom, which was a good move. Problem is you won't see Nintendo either paying for an exclusive or just simply taking on the marketing like Microsoft did for Gears of War. They just hope the developers will come to them with an offer.

What good is it doing MS? They've got another exclusive killer app now. Just one, from several titles they've pimped. And those are second party relationships. Driving install base quickly, and keeping dev costs low, will ultimately result in Nintendo garnering far more support than even Microsoft could ever pay for.

And what good did it do Nintendo in the GC-era? Did they get ANY exclusive killer apps from third parties? No, they all left for the install base.

Nintendo hasn't challenged conventional wisdom. They've used the same wisdom they've used for years. Go with the slowest processor, and let Sega take a massive chunk of the marrket. Go with the best money making format, and let Sony take complete control of the market. This "It's about the games" BS isn't new, and it's very short-sighted. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but it's certainly not some genius innovative tactic that they haven't tried before.

Nintendo hasn't challenged the conventional wisdom with Wii? Good luck arguing that. I suggest you read Sean Malstrom's series of articles over at theWiikly.com, as well as the "Ask Iwata" interviews, at the Nintendo site.

Sony doesn't have any 20 million sellers, but they've got a bunch that can move systems. I'd take Gran Turismo over any other franchise from any other company any day.

GT is their ace, no doubt.

If Kingdom Hearts doesn't go to Sony, who would it go to? I think we all know the answer to that isn't Nintendo.

Hahahaha. Why not?

Resistance and Motorstorm are both second party, though both the developers may as well become first party. Their first internal game will be released next week, their first major internal game is probably Warhawk with a September release, and their first established franchise game is probably going to be Getaway for the holidays.

Second-party games are first party published, which is all that's worth discussing. They are games Sony paid to make and is publishing.

For Nintendo to really get aggressive third party support, they're going to need to have a sizeable lead on both their competitors in another 12-18 months.

I agree.

N64 had a similarly fast launch. Once people found out the major franchises, many of the same ones Sony's still got locked today, weren't going to be on a Nintendo platform, they bailed.

No. Once PS1 started building up a massive catalog, and a bunch of hype gathered around NEW franchises, people went to Sony. And Wii is crushing N64s launch outside of NA. I'll let you look up the numbers yourself.

PS3 is selling on brand alone. Their big games won't be out for months.

Evidence that brand doesn't matter very much; PS3 isn't selling well. 50% of initial sales goal, anyone?

The numbers have been examined in previous threads, and there are a lot of games where PS3 third party numbers are outperforming Wii ones. But the numbers are ultimately pretty close. The problem with this is that Nintendo has double the installed base. What happens when it's no longer double? What happens when Nintendo actually starts trying with its first party releases?

No. The numbers have been spun to appear close. The one area that is close is multi-platform titles, though that comparison did not include Tiger Woods and Rayman. Nintendo leads in exclusives, soon in multi-plats, and leads overall by a wide margin. And what do you mean "when Nintendo starts trying?" If they aren't trying now, Sony should be shaking in their boots.

There's no more evidence that Nintendo's sales will drop than that they will continue like this forever. What we do know is that there won't be a significant boost.

Of course there will be a significant boost. They're selling out right now, and increasing production. So we know for sure sales will get even better.

Exclusives that can sell and sell systems aren't meaningless. Exclusives like Cooking Mama are.

Cooking Mama can sell systems. Can't sell systems to young men, no. The original on DS has done 267K in NA through Feb. The new one will build on that. I for one am not going to be surprised when that TYPE of game is regularly producing million sellers on Wii in a few years.

Let's say Wii Sports moves 10 million units. That will put it right up there with Mario 64. The system that was on sold 33 million units, a figure which would be good enough for third. As I said, Nintendo needs more than just in house titles.

Wii Sports is a title more on a level with Pong, Super Mario Bros and Tetris. Except its the first such game which is taking off in all three major regions right away. Just wait and see.

What I learned from DS vs. PSP is that Nintendo's portable market dominance was the most important factor.

You continue to make the common mistake of putting faith in the company instead of the business plan. There is no such thing as a "good company," only good business plans. We can see with Sony's current slide that brand doesn't get you past launch.

The problem is the only multiplatform games Nintendo is encouraging are again not big names. They're not going to steal a DMC or a GTA like Microsoft did. System power prohibits it.

Nintendo planned for that. When they tried to compete for games like that with GC, they failed. Now they've decided to let the others duke it out for market share of power-hungry games that repeatedly hit the same audience, while they get the entirity of several other, untapped audiences. And its highly likely that a game like Cooking Mama for Wii will be far more profitable than a game like the PS3 version of DMC.

They did get a big steal in Guitar Hero, which may sell better to Ninty's "casual audience." And they nailed the Sims exclusively. Check the top 3 Sims games on PS2, and you'll find they slightly outsold the DMC PS2 trilogy. And those were PC ports, not ground up console builds like the new game.

DS domination is not entirely based on Nintendo's previous monopoly, but it is largely the result of it. I'm not a big Gran Turismo fan. What I meant was that it's the biggest global property. It can move millions in all three territories. The only thing I'd put in the same category is Final Fantasy, which also happens to be a PS3 exclusive. All publishers will release games for Wii whether it's first or third. That's not the issue. It's what kind of games they're releasing. Gamecube had what was close to a record setting launch (if not for Xbox), even though it fell off a cliff immediately after the hype died. DS is selling better than GBA ever did... in Japan. It's falling way short here. At 28 months, GBA was at 15.5 million units. DS is at 11.8 million. I'm curious to see how the GTA sales go down. Seems to be people think it's a foregone conclusion it will sell better on 360, but the PS3 version doesn't have to compete with Halo. As far as Nintendo's failure, we go back to how they had no major third party support. Wii needs more than just a bunch of exclusives put together in some guy's basement. People are buying the more expensive machine, but we go again to how the PS3 won't be $600 forever. Nintendo's stated for years they aren't part of the tech race, that gameplay was the most important thing, and that they thought that the focus on graphics was problematic. This isn't new. I'm not gonna convince people who believe it is new otherwise, as apparently they have not been paying attention to Nintendo's repeated statements of this nature long before Wii was even a factor. Sony can drop $100 at a pop. How many times can the others do that? Microsoft: once. Nintendo: zero. It's still not an attractive price until we see around $400, but they have a lot of room to move and several years to do it. The most sensible option at this time is to publish major games on both PS3 and 360. What third party killer apps (or even close to it) does Nintendo have? Even many Nintendo supporters don't expect them to get much. Wii is a good platform to develop for. It's just not a good platform to spend a lot of time on. This is the prevailing wisdom among third parties. A few months won't change that. Another year if all things remain constant might. Don't see how a top 10 of both systems proves your point. On the Wii side, we've got all 5 games Nintendo's released (including all of the top 4) alongside the third party games. On the PS3 side, it's primarily third party games, and the numbers aren't that different from the Wii numbers, despite half the userbase. I still don't see how Nintendo's tapped the casual crowd this early. This seems to be merely an assumption, though I'm really not sure what this is based on. Apparently the "surprising" success of the sequel to the system that sold 120 million units and not much more. 1+ million units a month does not allow them to both continue at the same pace and also have 9 million units available for the 4th quarter. People are just picking numbers to see who can win the contest to pick the most outrageous one. I'm waiting for the first estimate to use the word gazillion. Gears of War isn't doing Microsoft any good? Huh? Sony didn't pay for Motorstorm and Resistance... they just paid to market them. Which is a page out of the handbook Nintendo used to have. Sony issued a sales goal? Sony ever issues sales goals? Nintendo hasn't released games like Mario and SSB yet. If third parties can't even compete with Warioware, they're going to have some serious trouble when those games come around. It's a sad, sad day when people start pimping Cooking Mama as a system seller.

Sony's losing over $200 in the PS3, they're the last company to be able to drop the price $100 a pop.

If all major third party games go to both 360 and PS3, why spend $200 more for the PS3?

Wii games coming out now haven't had much time spent on them 'cause no one started working on it 'till last summer/fall after E3, and more still didn't bother with it 'till after its launch.  This holiday and next year we *should* see some more polished games.  Calling it the "prevailing wisdom among third parties" is just short-sighted.

Nintendo will up production as needed as often as needed, and they'll probably still be supply-constrained come Xmas.  Selling 9M worldwide for Oct Nov and Dec combined (4th quarter) is not completely out of the question though--I'd expect more like 7M tops.

Do you not know what "Sony is publishing the games" means?  They're basically putting the up-front money out there to pay the devs to make it, then they get that back from the sales.  Second-party games = Sony is paying the devs to make the games for them.

Sony's goal was to "sell" (ship) 6M consoles by March 31st 2007.  Estimates are they actually shipped 4.5M, and of that have only sold 3M.

Sony hasn't released its big hitters yet either, and are supposedly focusing more on first-party, and the third-party games can't compete with Resistance or Motorstorm as it is.  At least Nintendo has a true top tier title in Zelda out on the Wii that everyone is buying.

That's just those of your points that made actual sense, grammatical and otherwise. ;>