WARNING: Long post ahead! Multiple quote boxes! Beware! :)
Borkachev said:Come on, you must have a better argument than a slippery slope. Deal with those questions when they arise: for now, all anybody is asking is for a harddrive and HD support.
These two are not like the other things in your list -- they should be standard features at this point for any gaming system, because they enable support for what have become standard features in games. Harddrive caching, downloadable content, demos, standard modern TV resolutions: these aren't just nice little extras anymore, they're features we've (rightly) come to expect.
It's not just a slippery slope, it's the fact that Nintendo has marketed the Wii as a different device than the 360 or PS3. Nintendo is not attempting to compete with Sony or Microsoft on graphics or features, they are offering something completely different. This is what people who want the Wii to have all these things most often fail to realize.
And don't confuse HD graphics with PS3/360 level graphics. Even the PS2 and the original XBOX supported HD resolutions--that's all we ask, but with slightly more universal support to reflect the Wii's supposedly enhanced power. This wouldn't have cost them much.
Maybe that's all you ask, but it's not all most people are asking. Even so, say the Wii supported 720p resolution. Developers might be tempted to support 720p just to put another item on their list of features at the expense of quality. You just can't render the same amount of effects at 720p as you can at 480p -- you need 2.7 times the horsepower for that resolution. Nintendo doesn't want to discriminate between HDTVs and SDTVs, they want developers to target 480p. Put it this way: Your game can use 1x effects or 2.7x effects. If you use 1x effects you can support 720p, and then SDTV owners only get to see 1x effects at 480i. Or your game can use 2.7x effects and then SDTV owners get to see 2.7x effects at 480i, and HDTV owners get to see 2.7x effects at 480p.
I hope I've explained this well enough. Basically, when you're asking for higher resolutions, you are asking for more horsepower.
Loss leading is not a poor strategy. It's a risky strategy, but one that can pay off in spades. Loss leading is what allowed Sony to absolutely clobber the competition (including Nintendo) for the last 2 generations. If the PS1 or 2 had sold at a profit from early on, they would be remembered as minor blips in gaming history. Instead, they were two of the most profitable systems in history over the long term.
The problem is, loss leading is only a good strategy when you're the only one doing it. Note my original post where I said "the market doesn't have room for three loss leaders (paraphrased)." Loss leading is only necessary when you offer a similar product to your competitors, and you must offer it at a loss to compete on price and hope to make back the money on software. Nintendo is not offering a similar product to its competitors. See above paragraphs.
And Sony didn't win the PS1 and PS2 generations because of a loss leading strategy, they won because they had massive developer support. What if Nintendo had tried a loss leading strategy with the Gamecube? Well, the `cube already had a price advantage over the Xbox and the PS2, so if Nintendo had tried that strategy, it would have meant that the Gamecube would have been much more powerful. Would that have been good for Nintendo? Absolutely not! The PS2 was already the weakest system and still sold leaps and bounds over the Xbox or Gamecube, because many other factors were at play.
This is the truth, as I see it: if Nintendo had chosen to lose $50 per system instead of profit $50, the Wii could have had a harddrive, HD support, and a lot more, and cost the same as it does now. Even if they'd chosen to break even, it would be miles beyond what we actually got. As it turns out, it wouldn't have done Nintendo one bit of good, since they couldn't possibly be selling more systems than they are now. But don't tell me it couldn't have been done, or that it would change some magical quality that would turn the Wii into something else.
You basically made my argument for me. Of course it could have been done. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.
. What system you want KH3 to be on?
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