By David Radd
This has been by far the longest generation of consoles the gaming industry has seen, but the next cycle of consoles is going to start this year with the Wii U. Nintendo is pushing their console out the door earlier than the competition, in no small part because they desperately need a new console to inject life into their earnings reports. The Wii U also sets the tone for this console generation, even if it isn't going to meet some people's expectations.
Some people have been holding out hope that Nintendo is going to unveil the final version of the Wii U and it's going to blow everyone away with its graphics capabilities. That scenario, however, is looking more and more unlikely all the time. While multiple developers are on record saying that the Wii U's hardware is in a state of flux, unofficial sources continue to place its power comparable to the Xbox 360/PS3, not above them. Driving a stake through the heart of those wanting Nintendo to try to advance beyond the graphical capabilities of the Xbox 360/PS3 is the Nintendo CEO and President himself, Satoru Iwata.
"As we will showcase the Wii U at E3 in June this year, the detailed announcements must wait until then, but we are aiming to make a system which shall not be forced into competing with the others where the contenders can fight only with massive developer resources and long development times as their weapons," said Iwata during aninvestor Q&A. "Looking at the software for home console systems, there are certain the software titles for which very rich graphics must be reproduced on HD displays and which demand a large number of developers to spend a very long time to develop. It is one of the truths that a certain number of such software titles must be prepared, or the consumers will not be satisfied. But we do not think that any and all the software must be created in that fashion.”
"When you look at Nintendo's software, extraordinary rich graphics, massive gameplay volume and astonishing rendition effects are not necessarily the appealing point,” he added. “It is, in fact, important for us that our games are appealing in other ways as well."
So it seems highly likely that Nintendo is doubling down on new features for the Wii U and not getting involved in a horse race with the competition on hardware power. This fits with Nintendo's philosophy of the past several years (compare DS vs. PSP, Wii vs Xbox 360/PS3 and 3DS vs. PS Vita) where the emphasis is on the quality of their own software, not “extraordinary rich graphics” as Iwata puts it. And for Nintendo to suddenly change course at this point would be both confusing to developers and to the consumer – besides, if they were going to brag about how much more powerful their hardware was going to be, they would almost have certainly done that by now.
While no one should be that surprised over the direction that Nintendo seems to be taking, it's slightly more shocking what Microsoft's rumored plans for the next Xbox (which I'm going to refer to as the Xbox 720 for simplicity's sake, not the code-name Durango) will be. One set of rumors from a credible source said that the Xbox 720 will use a development platform similar to Windows 9 and Windows Phone. It isn't too difficult to imagine this happening, since the new Metro UI for the Xbox 360 is very evocative of the latest Windows Phone, not to mention being Kinect friendly.
And speaking of Kinect, rumors place that as central to Microsoft's plans for the Xbox platform going forward. The boldest of reports on the console say Kinect will be central in its functionality with enough power to track fingers from up to four players. The Xbox 720 is said to incorporate augmented reality and directional sound, and the new controller has a touchpad. This touchpad has many bells and whistles, with an HD display and functionally that allow it to work as a “remote control when you're watching TV, a browser when you're on the internet, extra buttons and information when you're playing a game or a portable display when you want to take your game with you.”
All of these features are said to be the true focus of the Xbox 720, with Microsoft “playing it safe” when it comes to the GPU and CPU. It's hard to imagine this console won't be at least a little more powerful (or at least have a much more generous allotment of RAM), but focusing on features, particularly features that are not necessarily directed towards core gamers is an amazing 180 from where Xbox started out.
When Microsoft launched the Xbox, the focus was solely on hardcore gamers who were mostly male. I'm pretty confident that the original Xbox controller (nicknamed Duke) was never focus tested on women, given its sheer mass and bulk. The console was designed to appeal to the most hardcore of gamers with the most advanced graphics at the time and an emphasis on broadband multiplayer – yes, not just system daisy-chaining or dial-up Internet (which was still incredibly common back in 2001) but broadband specifically. Even the advertising for the system was in your face with the tagline “No Power Greater than X”. While the system was consistently a money loser for Microsoft, they were sewing seeds for the future.
Sure enough, when the Xbox 360 launched to the market (one year earlier than the PS3, reversing what happened with the PS2 and original Xbox) those same hardcore gamers that were playing series like Halo, Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six online multiplayer for the Xbox migrated over to play even more Halo, along with Gears of War and Call of Duty. Xbox Live has set the standard for a console network, and while few would argue it's a flawless experience (how many ads really need to be embedded in the dashboard anyway?), most still prefer it over what the competition offers.
So Microsoft has its claws in deep with a majority of the hardcore gamers in the U.S. and the U.K. (if sales numbers are to be believed). Microsoft doesn't want to stop with just bringing in the most dedicated of gamers; they have ambitions to be the platform of the future, not just in your den, but on your living room TV and in your phone. It's part of the reason why they're bringing more of Xbox Live to Windows Phone and Windows 8, along with making the Xbox 360 more like a Windows experience.
The Xbox 360 has seen a gradual shift in its marketing and focus; sure, it's still all aboutCall of Duty gamers on Xbox Live, but now it includes much more than that. The tagline for the Xbox 360 is currently “Jump In”, which is definitely more friendly to a wider audience and it's complemented by the peripheral Kinect. Now, as a gaming device Kinect has some kinks to work out but it has still sold 18 million units. What's more, it is potentially the tip of the iceberg for a whole new way for people to interact with electronic devices, and has wide potential for mass market use in a number of fields, as shown below.
If the strategy of focusing on Kinect 2.0 and a touchpad controller is true for Microsoft, it's clear whose market they're going after: Nintendo's. Yes, it could be that the Wii U and Xbox 720 will actually be going after a similar mass market audience. This leaves Sony in an interesting spot – they could target a similar audience or they could keep on the track they've been on and possibly make the PS4 many, many times more powerful than the competition's consoles; for now, I'm going to theorize that their emphasis will be on the latter instead of the former.
If the PS4 is really a case of Sony doubling-down on technology rather than bells-and-whistles, I could see two extreme scenarios possibly happening. The first scenario is absolute victory for Sony – gamers choose the most powerful system on the market (not unlike how many moved on from the Wii to the Xbox 360/PS3 in the past couple of years), and peripherals like the Move or a touchpad controller can be added afterwards to address whatever market need there is for them. The second is complete defeat for Sony – the inability to anticipate the mainstream desire for extra features on their console relegates the PS4 to third place and the sheer cost of making games on the system drives developers away and eats away at first-party profit margins.
I can't say right now which scenario is more likely to be true – there are so many random variables (including what exactly the PS4 will be) that divining the truth would require a soothsayer. Right now, Nintendo is holding back revelations about the Wii U until E3 2012, Microsoft has dismissed rumors of an Xbox 720 reveal during E3 2012, and Sony has openly admitted that they “will probably be the last to announce something.”
The only certainty is how much different this new console generation will be over the current one (consider how differently this generation started with the momentum of the PS2/Xbox/GCN console race) and it will be fascinating to see how it all breaks down.
