Poorly, but it seems to have worked fabulously for the Wii. I suppose they learned their lesson from the Gamecube years.

There is more software and better software on the Wii than the GameCube.  Especially so when considering the mass consumer.

I think Nintendo is going to launch early. Together with Microsoft and Xbox 3 probably. It's part of their disruption plan. And it's not gonna have the name 'Wii' in it.

Cheap, $299 tops.

But I dunno what they gonna have to truly disrupt with next time since everyone already has motion controls and at least one of MS/Sony will probably implement a 3-D vision tech.

^Yes I know disruption ain't as simple as Ive portrayed above.

OK, when GC launched at $200, the PS2 and XBOX were priced at $300.  When the Wii launched at $250 with a game, the 360 was $300 and $400 (for the popular model), and the PS3 was $500 and $600 (for the popular model).  That is a huge difference in terms of pricing advantage.

(edit: keep in mind that PS2 and XBOX were at $200, only a half a year after the GC launch)

The GC was the only one which could not play DVD's, which was considered a big deal at that time.  So the GC was the console with fewer hardware features for a slightly lower price.  This is analogous to where the Wii will be by 2011.

@catofellow: Looking at the historical trends, Xbox 720 will be released in 2009.

Wiis advantage is the games. No matter what Sony and M$ put out as controllers, Wii still has the games.

For the price advantage, the advantage wasn't Wii being cheap, but the competitors being expensive. Even that 360 has been the cheapest console for half of Wiis lifetime, it didn't gain similar momentum. The sell-out for 2 years was NA specific thing. Nintendo likely isn't going to ramp the price high because it would create a barrier for consumers to get the console.

The controller problem is easilly avoided with controller emulation.

Large storage costs money and raises the price of the console. Smaller flash storage is cheaper and overall it's also faster.

OMG. You picked that up! I'm impressed.

So my 1^st and 2^nd points are using contradictory arguments. In fact my 2^nd point is using the argument I tried to disprove with my first. I don’t for a second believe in historical points, but I was just thinking of covering my bases. This is what I mean:

If he says he expects no 1^st launch because of historical then my 1^st point is showing how the historical argument is very weak. I put the 2^nd point there so that IF Nintendo were to go historical (which doesn’t make any sense) then why not copy the only twice-in-a-row-successful  company in history?

You could probably have picked up that I don't think the 2^nd point is significant since I didn’t deliberate on the point at all. If it was a serious debate I would’ve put point 2 as a subargument to point 1.

Capiche?

I'm sorry but I can't count the Saturn because it failed so badly. It actually slipped my mind. I did however NOT forget my beloved DC. I guess there's 2 reasons why I would disregard it.

1. It was kind-of mid gen. I mean just compare it's graphics with that of the Xbox

2. It failed

I'm sorry Sega. I still love you.

@Superchunk

You're right I'm wrong. There I said it. I shouldn't have put nr 2 there.

Now for my disclaimer :P
I was very pissed of at some of the arguments and had little time to respond. Was multitasking you see. I shall not do it again.

@Dr. Grass: But now you're just picking your own rules to count out what contradicts what you said. We all know that 360 is the best selling current gen HD console. Wii excluded and we still consider Sony as the official market leader. Both of the two make a lot of sense when we count out everything that proves otherwise.

We could also count out N64 and GC for them flopping so hard in relation to competition (making the time between the release of SNES and Wii 16 years).

say wut?

Edit: Check 2posts down.

Oh and I wouldn't disregard GC and N64 because they finished in respectable, if unstellar,  positions.