If the Wii had been HD from the start, it would have had a higher price, less shovel ware, and fewer casual buyers, because it would have been over 300 bucks.. The Wii doesn't need HD, it needs non-lazy developers looking to make quick easy money.

Yep and the Conduit received such a kick ass reception....

/sarcasm off

 Not neccessary since there were cheaper GPU that can handle HD especially with most of Wii games graphics. Ps3/360 went with the most updated GPU at the time. PC has lefted SD 20 years ago. Nintendo went cheap they could have easily added more power to their console and still made huge profits.

At some point Nintendo and especially Regie are going to have to stop blaming others for the lack of serious third party games on their platform and assume their responsability........

This is a business, if there was major bucks to be made on the Wii they would have been all over it for a while.
And please stop saying it's all part of a conspiracy, a guy like Kotik has most likely never held a controller in his hands and barely knows the difference between HD and regular graphics. All he sees is how to maximize the company profits and especially his stock options grants....

The idea is that the narrow demographics are easily targetted, because they've already "raised their hand" as being in that demographic -- by buying a HD console.  Thus, they are much more easily targetted.  Since the HD marketshare is greater than 50%, and porting from HD-to-HD (since they are largely similar in specs) is cheap, the HDs make for a much more lucrative target platform... for "hardcore" games.  The devcost is more for HD games... but that's easily outweighed by the actual market size differences.

it just so happens that said "narrow fanbase" tends much more towards the HD consoles than the Wii.  Its just simple mathematics -- the crowd isn't there on the Wii, because much of the demographic just isn't interested those kinds of games.  This is pretty obvious from the last 3 years of attempts to bring "hardcore" gaming to the Wii.

There's nothing Reggie, or anyone else, can do to change this.  If Nintendo wanted "all the oceans", they should have made a console that appeals to the hardcore gaming crowd as much as the HDs (requiring a loss on HW, likely).  They chose the blue ocean only, and this is the drawback.

Oh well.  They are still rolling in cash.  I don't know how a console maker who has "fallen" to "only" having like 40% marketshare sold each week can really complain.

"The idea is that the narrow demographics are easily targetted, because they've already "raised their hand" as being in that demographic -- by buying a HD console. Thus, they are much more easily targetted. Since the HD marketshare is greater than 50%, and porting from HD-to-HD (since they are largely similar in specs) is cheap, the HDs make for a much more lucrative target platform... for "hardcore" games. The devcost is more for HD games... but that's easily outweighed by the actual market size differences.

it just so happens that said "narrow fanbase" tends much more towards the HD consoles than the Wii. Its just simple mathematics -- the crowd isn't there on the Wii, because much of the demographic just isn't interested those kinds of games. This is pretty obvious from the last 3 years of attempts to bring "hardcore" gaming to the Wii.

There's nothing Reggie, or anyone else, can do to change this. If Nintendo wanted "all the oceans", they should have made a console that appeals to the hardcore gaming crowd as much as the HDs (requiring a loss on HW, likely). They chose the blue ocean only, and this is the drawback.

Oh well. They are still rolling in cash. I don't know how a console maker who has "fallen" to "only" having like 40% marketshare sold each week can really complain."

Porting is not cheap. It's just that they don't have to adjust as much. And the market being for that means more competition. Not seeing the flaw in that is how Sony, Microsoft, and many of the third parties lost money. Narrow demographics are BAD for business, because it creates a smaller pool.

Reggie can't change that. Third parties need to change it.

Why ?

To make Nintendo happy ?

What's in it for them ?

The big problem is that making this new customer base aware of your product when you are not Nintendo is not cheap. Not at all..

In most cases it actually costs more to raise awareness for the product than to develop the product itself....

Yep.  The Wii definately needs HD graphics so Nintendos' sytem can Under sale like 360 (which had a year head start) and the PS3 (came out the gate same month) so it can be out sold by the under powered hand helds that also have million of million saling games without the HD look.  Someday though Devs will see Wii's light and make the comittment.  Till then even with HD all we get is part2 and part3 to the same pretty looking game.  "Oh! Look.  Its Barbie!! Next year its "Oh, look. Its Barbie with a Hat!!" Yeah, but she's in HD!!!

Getting the Wii HD isn't going to change things much, the only huge benefit really would be if traditionnal gamers that stucked to HD suddenly moved to the Wii because it has HD support.

Otherwise, HD or not you are still stucked with the problem of how to make this new customer base aware of your products without spending a fortune in the process........

Nintendo only wins because their brand is so strong and old that people are aware of what they do ( and the general press relates it) and they don't have to spend fortunes on marketing ( they do spend a lot but it could be a lot worse).


Traditionnal gaming has always been :

Spend the majority of your cash in development, knowing marketing/advertising costs will be relatively contained as the targeted users follow what you are doing and you don't have to do a lot to raise their awareness...

Issue with the Wii is the opposite :
- spends less in development but spend more in marketing/advertising...

Now I don't know about you, but if a game is going to have a 50 million$ budget, I rather have the majority of it been spent on content I will enjoy than on advertising which I will not get any benefit from as a user.....

I mean when you purchase a coke, or a car, a significant part of the cost of the product is actually marketing/advertising for that product and frankly I could care less as a consumer..

"Why ?

To make Nintendo happy ?

What's in it for them ?"

That is a strawman point, ignoring what I actually wrote.

"The big problem is that making this new customer base aware of your product when you are not Nintendo is not cheap. Not at all."

Nintendo did NOT do it cheaply. They spent millions on marketing. Do your damn research.

Nintendo makes games mainstream people like. You and many developers obviously think there is some magical formula they can't copy.