There are certain losses to not having a HDD, but the price of the Pro is now basically identical to standard retail for a Wii (allthough I saw some stores have the Wii for 2190 NOK now. The Elite is now 2995 NOK in most stores and the Arcade and Core are being phazed out slowly because of hardware complaints here in Norway. They are cheap though, the Core is now around 1300 NOK and the Arcade around 1500 NOK retail.
PS3 has dropped to 3495 NOK most places, and is offered along with Broadband packs for as little as 1995 NOk some places.

I think the Wii's 3rd party support is best compared to the PS1. No one was banking on the PS1 when it came along, they were either on the opposing consoles or refused to leave the last generation. But it picked up steam and eventually became dominant in all areas. PS2 had the PS1's support out of the gates, it didn't have to amass anything. I just hope it doesn't take the Wii as long as the PS1 did to get that kind of support.

bdbdbd said: But that's more things in common with PS2, everyone was on board with DC, that was released earlier and all the real games were put on GC. 3rd parties turned to PS2 because they had to, since it was the only way to make money. Their last choice. Look at the PS2 launch lineup, if you call it serious 3rd party support, you must be out of your mind. Neither were PS2 the choice of hardcore, when GC and XBox were on the market. But it didn't help them. The only difference in your post is, that PS2 wasn't cheap in comparision. @Rock on: Did you know that Wii is the first Nintendo console without "Nintendo" in its name?

 if by everyone was on board with the DC you mean sega, then yes. that system was dead from the start.

also, the majority of all launches are sub par. look at the wii, you had twilight princess and....?

of course hardcore gamers bought the ps2. by the fall of 01 (one year after launching in the US) it had: 

GT3, twisted metal black, ICO, and jak and daxter as 1st party published titles.

klonoa 2, GTA3, devil may cry, midnight club street racing, SSX, tony hawk 3, ff-10, MGS2, RE: code veronica X, NBA street, SSX tricky, virtua fighter 4, and spy hunter as 3rd party published titles.

so, the exclusive home (in most cases) of metal gear, gta, gt, final fantasy, virtua fighter, twisted metal, and devil may cry was considered secondary by 3rd party developers. yeah right. 

The Wii itself isn't geared towards casuals. It was designed to appeal to more than the traditional gaming audience, big difference. The problem is that most all of 3rd party efforts are casual or youth based. Nintendo has increased it's library of casual friendly games, but NOT DECREASED it's traditional games development.

I think the biggest problem with the "hardcore" is that the definition of "hardcore" has changed significantly over the years, and Nintendo's IP's have not, and they have not really had many sucesses with the newer "hardcore" audience in their attempts (I would label Metroid Prime trilogy as a successful "hardcore" appeal personally, but not so much several other titles like Geist or Eternal Darkness, despite that some people really do think highly of the titles).

tastyshovelware said: bdbdbd said: But that's more things in common with PS2, everyone was on board with DC, that was released earlier and all the real games were put on GC. 3rd parties turned to PS2 because they had to, since it was the only way to make money. Their last choice. Look at the PS2 launch lineup, if you call it serious 3rd party support, you must be out of your mind. Neither were PS2 the choice of hardcore, when GC and XBox were on the market. But it didn't help them. The only difference in your post is, that PS2 wasn't cheap in comparision. @Rock on: Did you know that Wii is the first Nintendo console without "Nintendo" in its name?  if by everyone was on board with the DC you mean sega, then yes. that system was dead from the start. also, the majority of all launches are sub par. look at the wii, you had twilight princess and....? of course hardcore gamers bought the ps2. by the fall of 01 (one year after launching in the US) it had:  GT3, twisted metal black, ICO, and jak and daxter as 1st party published titles. klonoa 2, GTA3, devil may cry, midnight club street racing, SSX, tony hawk 3, ff-10, MGS2, RE: code veronica X, NBA street, SSX tricky, virtua fighter 4, and spy hunter as 3rd party published titles. so, the exclusive home (in most cases) of metal gear, gta, gt, final fantasy, virtua fighter, twisted metal, and devil may cry was considered secondary by 3rd party developers. yeah right.

First, i think you should take a look about the post i replied to. Second, any of those points i made, aren't untrue. DC was the first in the market, so it was used, like 360, as a stepboard to next generation, ready to move on. GC had good 3rd party support from the start, with comparatively high-rated games, but it ended quickly because of its dissappointing sales. 3rd parties go where the money is, and it's hard to believe that they would deliberately choose the platform that is the hardest to develope for, unless there's more money to make that way. So it was their last choice by default. Yes, Wii had TP, but PS2 had nothing. So, looking at the attach rates, GC and Xbox really were the hardcore choices.

bdbdbd said:   First, i think you should take a look about the post i replied to. Second, any of those points i made, aren't untrue. DC was the first in the market, so it was used, like 360, as a stepboard to next generation, ready to move on. GC had good 3rd party support from the start, with comparatively high-rated games, but it ended quickly because of its dissappointing sales. 3rd parties go where the money is, and it's hard to believe that they would deliberately choose the platform that is the hardest to develope for, unless there's more money to make that way. So it was their last choice by default. Yes, Wii had TP, but PS2 had nothing. So, looking at the attach rates, GC and Xbox really were the hardcore choices.

attach rates were great for nintendo, haha.

i understand what your saying in that, from a development standpoint, people didn't prefer to develop for the ps2. from a money making standpoint, they loved it. after the 5th gen, then weren't many developers thinking the gc had a chance the ps2. 

ps2 got FF10, 10-2, 11, and 12 and the gc got cc. ps2 got metal gear 2, 3 and gc got a remake. ps2 got 4 gta games and gc got none.

plus, when the DC came out, many developers didn't move on. sq was finishing ff-9, ea gave nothing, etc. people were still all about the ps1. aside from sega, there were few killer apps.

anyway, yeah. cool.

vanguardian1 said: The Wii itself isn't geared towards casuals. It was designed to appeal to more than the traditional gaming audience, big difference. The problem is that most all of 3rd party efforts are casual or youth based. Nintendo has increased it's library of casual friendly games, but NOT DECREASED it's traditional games development. I think the biggest problem with the "hardcore" is that the definition of "hardcore" has changed significantly over the years, and Nintendo's IP's have not, and they have not really had many sucesses with the newer "hardcore" audience in their attempts (I would label Metroid Prime trilogy as a successful "hardcore" appeal personally, but not so much several other titles like Geist or Eternal Darkness, despite that some people really do think highly of the titles).

wii's marketing is geared towards (mainly) non gamers. that's why wii sports got tons of promotion and prime 3 got next to non.

sc94597 said: One thing, The ps2 wasn't the cheapest console last gen the gamecube was. Everything else is good.

you are correct. Dreamcast was also cheaper. PS2 and Xbox launched at 300.

Rock_on_2008 said: Lets see both Nintendo Wii and the PS2 share quite a few things in common. 1. The PS2 was last generation's shovelware machine it had a lot of good games on it but there was also a lot of crap games on that system. The Nintendo Wii is the shovelware console of this generation and has a lot of good games already but it has had a lot of crap games. 2. The PS2 sold over 120 million consoles in its life time so far in 7 years. The Nintendo Wii is expected to reach 120 million years in 5 to 6 years time. 3. PS2 was the market leading console of its generation smashing its competition in sales and appealing to all gamers both hardcore (minority) and the casuals (majority). The Nintendo Wii is the market leader of the current generation and its smashing its rivals, Wii is popular with all gamers both casuals and hardcore. 4. Both PS2 and Nintendo Wii have the inferior consoles of their generation in regards to graphics , memory and storage capacity, where its rivals had superior consoles. 5. Both Nintendo Wii and PS2 are the cheapest consoles of their generation.

1. true
2. true
3. true
4. true, however PS2's difference is far smaller in degree than Wii's difference. This is apparent in that so far there have been no multi-plat current gen games designed for Wii and ported to other two. Once this begins, and it will, then this difference is as unimportant as it was last gen.

5. Not true. GC was always cheaper than PS2. Games sell consoles a lot more than prices.

 

#1 on your list is by far the most important item for market dominance. People go where the games are, shovelware or not. 

the GC was cheaper - otherwise, i agree