and look where all these patches have gotten us. broken games. I stopped caring about skyrim on PS3 cause the first round of updates did not fix the frame rate issues. Perhaps it has now I dont know.

Before HDDs and memroy storage in consoles, developers were forced (held accountable) for releasing a game that worked. Now they know they can quickly patch it up if shit happens.  Now a few years from now when PS3 is no longer in production, will I be able to connect my PS3 online and download these patches from the PSN network to get the game to work?

consoles unfortunetley turned into a cheap man's PC. At least with a PC patches are acceptable because you can always find them years from now on some gaming site server, should you wish to play the games again.

this is the one thing that made consoles so popular and great. Having the ability to pull out an old system, put the game in and play without it saying there is an update avaialble must updated before play.

The problem I have with this theory is that it is directly contradicted by the data provided by the current generation of consoles. If what you've said was true then the leader in digital distribution this generation should be Sony, whose lowest-capacity SKU has 20 GB of space, rather than Microsoft, which has sold tens of millions of units with under one GB of space or just 4 GB of space: 1/40th and 1/5th of the lowest PS3 model, respectively (and that model has been unavailable for years now!), and nowehere near sufficient for DLC/downloaded titles.

But the data point to the 360 being the current leader in digital distribution this generation. This is especially notable since, of the three current generation platforms, the 360 is the most difficult and expensive to have its HDD expanded. So either digital distribution remains less important than it is being portrayed above, or the public is willing and able to go through a greater hoop than plugging in a cheap SD card/external HDD. I personally suspect it's a combination of the two.

And if push comes to shove, and initial data points to your fears being correct, it would be a simple measure to ship later units with an included SD card/external HDD. Especially since every 3DS includes an SD card from day one. I honestly don't see the problem, market-wise.

If we are dealing with moms and grandparents, I don't think they will need more than 8GB for a video game console. It is also extremely easy to swap the HDD for PS3. If they have that much trouble, they can ask their boyfriends and husbands. :P

You also missed the part where I said it should have removable HDD AND USB ports.

Which numbers do you want me to cite? If you don't accept analysts, then what do you want? Nintendo doesn't release their figures. As for games themselves, Activision themselves stated that Call of Duty: Black Ops had over 20 million map packs sold in a year of being on market (source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/09/call-of-duty-black-ops-has-moved-20-million-map-packs-to-date/)

That puts the attach rate of COD map packs at 1 pack per retail title sold, or greater.

Certainly, people will go out and buy an SD/USB to add on memory for content, but what you've done is called "Adding a step in the conversion funnel". That is, you're adding an additional step in a given process to get users to purchase something. In all web-based services, that is a very bad thing, because you lose users in the process.

I agree that SD cards are cheap - in fact, they are so cheap, I have no idea why Nintendo didn't put a larger card in the WiiU. That is my entire point. The more space that the WiiU has by default, the more likely a user is to download content. Nintendo earns a percentage of each piece of content sold, even if its third party. Therefore, any money spent on the cost of the card would be made up and then some by the user purchasing content. If Nintendo failed to do that, then they have two reasons:

1) They genuinely do not understand the online market and online user. This will be disasterous for them, because online components of next-gen consoles will be a huge factor for all companies.

2) They do understand the market, and are choosing to ignore it. This would mean that they do not believe that this market segment will be a key component of their user base. If that is the case, then they aren't anticipating many core users or titles to come to the WiiU, which is a huge problem.

As for the argument of "If people want DLC, they will go to any lengths to get it". That is very, very wrong. If that were true, then no publisher would bother with marketing, press releases, or anything to notify users of DLC, its availability, or work with online services to push and promote downloadable content. Additionally, there are tons of white papers/sources out there that will state time and time again that users are far more likely to purchase content, or purchase a downloadable title if they are aware of it. Self-discovery is very over-rated in the digital world, and marketing is still key. What does that mean in regards to memory? Not every user will go to great lengths to get content, such as buying an additional hard drive. You'll notice that every time the Xbox 360 had a major bundle with a big AAA game such as Call of Duty, they never bundled it with the 4GB model. Why? DLC. They knew the user would want that content. And as stated, we're going to see a huge shift in Microsoft back to having a default HDD, because they now have a method to recoup the costs of the hard drive via content.

Internal memory will be huge. Mark my words. I am willing to eat my own words if I'm wrong, but I am certain I will not be wrong about this. Both the next Xbox and Playstation will have more hard drive space available than the WiiU. Not by a small margin, but by dozens of times' more space. That will allow them to leverage that significantly to defeat Nintendo next generation.

Those are the numbers I wanted, thank you.

You misrepresent my argument. I said that people will go to considerable length if they really want something, not to "any" length. THat would be preposterous - if I had said it. But since you're rpelying to an argument I didn't make, that can be safely ignored.

You exaggerate significantly in three respects.

1. Your binary breakdown of Nintendo's understanding of the online market is overly simplistic and does not allow for any particular strategy outside of what is already outlined here. Hell, this doesn't even allow for the very real possibility of Nintendo packing something like a 16GB SD card with the system, like they packed 2GB with the 3DS.

Certainly, my argument is predicated on the argument that Nintendo does not pack in an SD card. I've said multiple times that if they did indeed pack in a card, the likelihood of greater DLC/online support by 3rd parties increases significantly. But with no announcement, that makes me very hesitant to believe Nintendo will do it.

2. You insist that this decision is going to cut out great swaths of DLC buyers from the Wii U without citing any numbers or studies as to how many people that sort of decision is likely to discourage in the console space, adjusted for price normalization. Some will stop, certainly, but it's not possible at this point to establish how many.

I don't believe there are any numbers available, outside of the fact that few developers bothered with DLC on the Wii. That could be very telling of how they are to treat the WiiU if a favorable storage solution isn't offered to consumers from the get-go.

3. DLC is not going to be the primary deciding factor of the console war, and you cannot equate hard drive size with DLC advertising mindshare

Where did I equate hard drive size with advertising mindshare? My statement was concerning users' purchasing habits - that many seek to purchase content, but a lack of space may cause users to simply not purchase content. Its not only content, but other discovery methods for gaming - videos, demos, and the like.

The length to which you are letting this exaggeration color the conversation is worrying.

The lengths to which you are dismissive of online gaming and the need for a sizable hard drive is worrying. We will have this discussion a year from now, and I don't believe you're going to like what is happening to the WiiU in regards to its online presence against the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. But I do not believe I'll be wrong because my analysis is incorrect, but that Nintendo has addressed my issue with the console.