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Forums - Sales - Lifespan of the Wii?

Shane on 25 April 2007

Once their current projects are complete, developers will be looking at how those projects do. They're not going to jump ship on their future PS3 projects on that basis unless their current ones bomb. If FFXIII does as well as it usually does, Square's not going to throw their hands up and say "We did what we originally anticipated, but Wii has more users, so screw Sony." Unit sales of PS3 are going to be so heavily tied to pricing for the first couple years that it's a tough call just how well they'll do initially. If it's any indication, which it may or may not be, by the time PS2 shipped 15 million units in the US and Japan (leaving out Europe for the sake of ease), it had sold just shy of 10 million of them. I get the feeling Sony will meet their 2008 targets whether they need to or not.



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robjoh on 26 April 2007

Shane said:
Once their current projects are complete, developers will be looking at how those projects do. They're not going to jump ship on their future PS3 projects on that basis unless their current ones bomb. If FFXIII does as well as it usually does, Square's not going to throw their hands up and say "We did what we originally anticipated, but Wii has more users, so screw Sony."

Unit sales of PS3 are going to be so heavily tied to pricing for the first couple years that it's a tough call just how well they'll do initially. If it's any indication, which it may or may not be, by the time PS2 shipped 15 million units in the US and Japan (leaving out Europe for the sake of ease), it had sold just shy of 10 million of them. I get the feeling Sony will meet their 2008 targets whether they need to or not.


If Nintendo Wii is sitting on 3 times the user in Japan, no 3rd party publisher will say screw the Wii owners we are going with the PS3. It was the same when DS and PSP launched. The PSP had the support and DS as all belived would die hadn't. Now 3rd party is selling like crazy on the DS in Japan. More important if the PS3 version doesn't sell as well as SE thought you will find that Sony will get dramatical lower support (Of course we can't say anything about this yet).

I have not said that Sony wouldn't deliver 15 million consols until 2008. I have asked if they are going to sell that many? Because if not, we might find that the next year they only ship 5 millions.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

robjoh on 26 April 2007
Legend11 said:

A lot of companies have charts comparing their product to the competition and it both plays up their strengths and showcases their competition's weaknesses.  Here's an example of what the chart would look like for Microsoft: 

 

                                   "Now who's playing with power?" 

                                     Xbox 360                                   Wii

                    Ram          512MB                                       88MB

                    CPU          3200Mhz PPC Triple-Core          729Mhz PPC

                    GPU          500Mhz 10MB eDRAM                243Mhz 3MB eDRAM*

High Def Capable        Yes                                             No

*Nintendo refuses to give out more information on it's GPU or to give any comparison benchmarks against the Xbox 360.  It's believed that their GPU is a generation or possibly two behind the Xbox 360's so the comparison stats for the GPU do not give an accurate representation of how much more powerful the Xbox 360's is compared to the Wii's.

 


May I ask why this matters? Nintendo has gone as far as possible to state that they aren't fighting the HD wars, and that they are all about gameplay. So far I don't thing anybody who bought Wii for Wii Sport belives that they will be able to get Gears of War. As long as Nintendo keeps feding the Wiimote fans happy it can age very well.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

bdbdbd on 26 April 2007
Legend11 said:
bdbdbd said:
Legend11 said:

I'm just surprised that a machine with 88megs of memory, a 729Mhz processor, and a gpu clocked at 243mhz is going toe to toe and winning against far more power machines.  It'll be interesting to see how the machine ages compared to the other two consoles. 

I have a feeling that starting next year both Microsoft and Sony will play up the stats of their machines compared to the Wii (sort of similar to what Nintendo and Sega once did except this time the numbers will be so lopsided that people will do a double take).  I know if I was marketing either machine that's what I would do to try to stop the Wii juggernaut.  I doubt the vast majority of Wii consumers know just how weak their system is compared to the other two and think because it's next generation it must be near similar in power when they aren't even in the same league.


 

You could think that console does not age, as long it's popular and gets games at decent rate. It's not the power, it's the gameplay. Besides, i think everyone knows, that high-end PC:s are more powerful than high-end consoles. You see, if you want powerful machine to play with, you buy a PC, if you want better gameplay, you buy a console. Now someone might mention the price between high-end PC and console, and thats true. Consoles compete against PC:s with price and useability. Now looking at how gameplay differs between 360/PS3 and Wii, we have a similar argumentation, between differen consoles, that what we had between PC gaming and console gaming. Oh, PC also has free online and superior community than all the consoles combined. I think it would be bad marketing to focus on competitors weaknesses instead of own strengths, the point is to make people realise themselves, in which one console is better than others. And with Wii, its strenghts are more easy to see.

A lot of companies have charts comparing their product to the competition and it both plays up their strengths and showcases their competition's weaknesses.  Here's an example of what the chart would look like for Microsoft: 

 

                                   "Now who's playing with power?" 

                                     Xbox 360                                   Wii

                    Ram          512MB                                       88MB

                    CPU          3200Mhz PPC Triple-Core          729Mhz PPC

                    GPU          500Mhz 10MB eDRAM                243Mhz 3MB eDRAM*

High Def Capable        Yes                                             No

*Nintendo refuses to give out more information on it's GPU or to give any comparison benchmarks against the Xbox 360.  It's believed that their GPU is a generation or possibly two behind the Xbox 360's so the comparison stats for the GPU do not give an accurate representation of how much more powerful the Xbox 360's is compared to the Wii's.

 


Or should there read after the "*" that "since Nintendo refuses to give out any technical information about GPU and CPU, we just pulled these numbers out of our ass". Or the correct way using the official information: 360: RAM 512 MB Wii: RAM yes * 360: CPU triple core 3200 MHz PPC Wii: CPU single core IBM PPC "Broadway" * 360: GPU 550 MHz 10MB eDram Wii: GPU ATI "Hollywood" with eDram * 360: HD Wii: No HD *Nintendo refuses to give out any technical information consisting the power of the Wii. And this type of listing would make Wii look equal to 360. Only way to market 360 so, that it wouldn't look stupid, would be "cheap HD" (Core version), and this would be targeted more to Sony, when Sony would attack with "everything what PS3 can do". Only argument from M$ against Wii is "no HD".

Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

Legend11 on 26 April 2007


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Erik Aston on 26 April 2007

In fact, that may be a key reason Nintendo DIDN'T release specs of their system. They didn't want to get the bad press, and they didn't want MS or Sony to draw comparisons.



"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.

robjoh on 26 April 2007

@Legend11 You still have answered my question about why hightech as in CPU and GPU will be imprtant later when already now one of the advertised game is far behind anything xbox360 and PS3 can do.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

bdbdbd on 26 April 2007
Legend11 said:

The stats I provided were leaked by third parties and based on documentation they were provided by Nintendo.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/699/699118p1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii


I am aware of where the specs came from. But you missed my point that they didn't come from Nintendo (or IBM or ATI) directly and Nintendo haven't confirmed them in public. So publishing rumors as a fact (even that you would know them being facts), usually isn't the best marketing strategy. If they would market against Nintendo with non-confirmed specs, how long would it take for someone from Nintendo come up and say that "we have never brought Wiis specs to public, they are releasing only rumors". And what would M$:s marketing look after that? Erik: Not maybe, it IS the key reason.

Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

Legend11 on 26 April 2007


HappySqurriel on 26 April 2007
Legend11 said:

Even though Nintendo didn't release the information and it came from some of their third party developers the information is still valid unless Nintendo calls it flat out lies (which it hasn't).  Don't you think Nintendo would have said something by now considering the information is even on the Wii's wikipedia page and has been covered and repeated by many gaming websites and a few magazines if the information wasn't true?  Nintendo has never denied that information so why would they if Microsoft used it?  A denial requires that the information be untrue in the first place...

And as for graphics, most people don't realize just how bad the graphics of the Wii are compared to the competition , even some of the people on this site which are some of the most hardcore when it comes to gaming don't seem to realize it.  Just look at crossplatform games such as Call of Duty 3 and the differences are jaw dropping, it's like going from little league to the major league, that's the kind of difference they have in graphics and that's what Microsoft and Sony have to get across to the public.

As for the Wii's controller being the selling point, Microsoft or Sony should have a parody ads (well maybe not Sony since they are using motion control as well) showing two people competing against each other (in a first person shooter for example), one using a Wii like controller and the other using a standard controller and watch the person using the standard controller kick the other person's ass.

Anyways Sony and Microsoft need to start doing something and stop giving the Wii a free pass.


The obvious point is people have bought (and are buying) the Wii because of the controller; few people who are interested in the Wii believe that it is more powerful (or even similar in power) to the XBox 360 or PS3, they don't think it has the best online multiplayer, and they don't think it has a HD-Movie format. No one who plays the Wii at their friend's house and decides to buy one is going to go into a store and see a chart and care whether the PS3 or XBox 360 is more powerful. Any attempt to insult the Wiimote will likely backfire as everyone who wanted (or owned) a Wii would look at you like you simply didn't "Get It".

Microsoft has the correct approach ... Focus on what you're doing and why it is great and when asked compliment Nintendo on taking the risk with the Wii. It looks far better (all around) for a company to reply "The Wii is a great system and we're glad Nintendo took the risk; but we decided we wanted to produce games like Gears of War which has Amazing Graphics, super Inteligent AI and is one of the best online games ever produced." then "The Wii is a fad because we didn't think of it".