Browny
Smash Hater
So I wrote this at work today, figured it pretty much constitutes a blog, so I thought Id post it here. This was regarding the following statements sent in a public email about the console rumours.
- Being more powerful than current gen consoles. Where is the market for this? 360/PS3 have a stranglehold on gamers who care about good graphics. The first problem is that they are trying to re-capture a market that left them long ago. Those ships have sailed. Lucky for nintendo, theyre busy fighting each other while the DS and Wii continue to print money. The second problem is that even if they do overpower the 360/PS in terms of graphical power, that wont last long. It wouldnt be more than 12 months until they both release new consoles which aim to blow the new ninty console's specs out of the water. They wont care about the cost of the console, never have and never will and it'll still sell among their target demographic which most DEFINITELY will not be able to afford 2 inflated-cost consoles. Speaking of which, Nintendo is going to have to put a considerable price increase over the wii if it really does want to match gen 8 consoles. But the casual market is so much bigger, the wii is twice as popular as the ps3/360 not just because of ninty fans buying it regardless but because every person who wants a console for their kids but doesnt exactly have five hundred and ninety nine US dollars for it. The casual market is growing and wont stop anytime soon, THATS where the money is. Nintendo cant cater for the casual players AND the ones who care about graphics since people are going to be faced with an even more extreme situations of costs when the only option is to buy one or the other, do they go with their long-favoured 360/PS3, or make the change to nintendo? As I said before, I beleive that market is lost forever.
Nintendo learned from their mistakes with the GC which was an attempt to copy more modern consoles and their graphic-centric designs and since then they havent made a single bad decision. Everything rearding the DS to the Wii to DSi to 3DS is a brilliant money making scheme, none of which focused on overpowering the other consoles with graphics. I trust nintendo now to always make the right financial decisions however this rumoured console sounds like anything but. I'll hold my breath from official word from ninty, but really I think they are smart enough to not make a very expensive console. The question remains to me; how powerful can you make a console while minimising the price? Ninty doesnt need a huge profit margin from it, the (3)DS will continue to smash world records for sales, I hope they can use this buffer to keep whatever new console they make, cheaper.
- Blu-ray. I dont know what to think here. Personally I cant beleive solid-state media hasnt made blu-ray redundant yet (piracy related?). Would Nintendo switch to Sonys format or would they make their own proprietory like with the GC... Of course im unimformed here, but blu-ray just doesnt seem all that likely to me.
- This is a terrible idea. Way to make an expensive controller for functionality that will be a gimmick, will suck, and will add weight to the controller; increasing fatigue rates. I dont see it happening.
- Well this at least is believable.
- The same drive, able to read GC AND blu-ray discs? well this would be interesting... no comment lol.
- Well it couldnt be any worse than the Wii's online haha... Microsoft/Sony have so much more resources dedicated to this... Yeah it could take it on, in the sense that when asked 'which console do i get to play online games' the new console wont get a big red cross through it like the wii does. Whatever it is, it would have to be free.
- One of my favourite parts of this rumour, the 'hardcore' gamers. We need to separate this group into 3 categories though since they seem to have joined to make a horrible mess. Theres the people who play games which are rated M15+ and call themselves 'hardcore', as if FPS arent the most popular video games and the average age of gamers isnt 33. The gamers who are (hardcore) enthusiasts in the sense that they want to 100% complete everything and buy tons of games, and those who are actually hardcore and play games with a serious sense of competition with online organised matches etc. Now which 2/3 of those aspects are completely out of nintendos control... And we are left with online organised matches etc. Its the game devs which make a console 'hardcore'. Now they abandoned the Wii in droves due to technical limitations and pereptions of demographic etc, its a shame since the install base (ie; money) potential was so large. If devs only knew how popular the wii would eventually become, destroying the competition, things would have been different. So nintendo can do all they want to woo potential 'hardcore' gamers to the console, but it wont mean anything unless the devs make it work. We have the same issue as before though, all of the real hardcore gamers already own a 360/ps3. The devs would only invest in making the console legitimately cater for 'hardcore' gamers if those players actively make the switch to nintendo. It might have been possible with the wii due to its low cost, owning a PS/360 + a wii is a very common thing amongst households. But if ninty is gonna go all out with graphics and bump the cost up etc, as I said before, I really dont think the legitimately hardcore players will actually make the switch.
- Dolphilution IMO
Yes I know all of that above looks like a big emo rant and hey it probably is. The only reason I could think of Nintendo giving up their Charlie Sheen formula is if they have deemed they now control such a significant share of the market and an install base including many PS/360 owners, that they can go on an all-out offensive and take the market they lost with the GC while relying on the countless millions who will buy the console regardless. Those who might not be able to afford it will still buy the (3)DS so ninty still has an install base somehow and those same people are not likely to buy a ps/360 anyway, even if they happened to be consideradly cheaper and the wii will still outsell ps/360 anyway. Obviously microsoft and sony are in no position, and probably never will be, to make such a move in the video game market so Nintendo really could take advantage of this.
Now that my optimistic scenario of the best possible outcome
But to me, this all hangs on how much Nintendo will settle for in the cost of their console. For that strategy to work, it must be cheaper than other gen 8 consoles. You have to give that lost market 2 reasons to switch (cost and likelihood of strong dev support due to consoles popularity and power). How powerful and feature-packed can this new console be, while not being outdone within 12 months by its competitors? I think Ninty being the first entrant into gen 8 consoles would be a good move but they are going to need a drastically reduced profit margin if they want this to work the way I think it would work ideally... But would Nintendo really risk their ever-growing domination of the market in an attempt to grab even more? Is it worth it? Those are the hardest questions to answer.
I find every single aspect about this rumour quite hard to believe . In fact this all looks more like a fanboys dream which they couldnt separate from real world scenarios. I dont believe I'm biased against nintendo, seeing how Ive bought all of their consoles except the 3ds (yet), 2 on launch day, but just nothing about this rumour seems right to me.
- Being more powerful than current gen consoles. Where is the market for this? 360/PS3 have a stranglehold on gamers who care about good graphics. The first problem is that they are trying to re-capture a market that left them long ago. Those ships have sailed. Lucky for nintendo, theyre busy fighting each other while the DS and Wii continue to print money. The second problem is that even if they do overpower the 360/PS in terms of graphical power, that wont last long. It wouldnt be more than 12 months until they both release new consoles which aim to blow the new ninty console's specs out of the water. They wont care about the cost of the console, never have and never will and it'll still sell among their target demographic which most DEFINITELY will not be able to afford 2 inflated-cost consoles. Speaking of which, Nintendo is going to have to put a considerable price increase over the wii if it really does want to match gen 8 consoles. But the casual market is so much bigger, the wii is twice as popular as the ps3/360 not just because of ninty fans buying it regardless but because every person who wants a console for their kids but doesnt exactly have five hundred and ninety nine US dollars for it. The casual market is growing and wont stop anytime soon, THATS where the money is. Nintendo cant cater for the casual players AND the ones who care about graphics since people are going to be faced with an even more extreme situations of costs when the only option is to buy one or the other, do they go with their long-favoured 360/PS3, or make the change to nintendo? As I said before, I beleive that market is lost forever.
Nintendo learned from their mistakes with the GC which was an attempt to copy more modern consoles and their graphic-centric designs and since then they havent made a single bad decision. Everything rearding the DS to the Wii to DSi to 3DS is a brilliant money making scheme, none of which focused on overpowering the other consoles with graphics. I trust nintendo now to always make the right financial decisions however this rumoured console sounds like anything but. I'll hold my breath from official word from ninty, but really I think they are smart enough to not make a very expensive console. The question remains to me; how powerful can you make a console while minimising the price? Ninty doesnt need a huge profit margin from it, the (3)DS will continue to smash world records for sales, I hope they can use this buffer to keep whatever new console they make, cheaper.
- Blu-ray. I dont know what to think here. Personally I cant beleive solid-state media hasnt made blu-ray redundant yet (piracy related?). Would Nintendo switch to Sonys format or would they make their own proprietory like with the GC... Of course im unimformed here, but blu-ray just doesnt seem all that likely to me.
- This is a terrible idea. Way to make an expensive controller for functionality that will be a gimmick, will suck, and will add weight to the controller; increasing fatigue rates. I dont see it happening.
- Well this at least is believable.
- The same drive, able to read GC AND blu-ray discs? well this would be interesting... no comment lol.
- Well it couldnt be any worse than the Wii's online haha... Microsoft/Sony have so much more resources dedicated to this... Yeah it could take it on, in the sense that when asked 'which console do i get to play online games' the new console wont get a big red cross through it like the wii does. Whatever it is, it would have to be free.
- One of my favourite parts of this rumour, the 'hardcore' gamers. We need to separate this group into 3 categories though since they seem to have joined to make a horrible mess. Theres the people who play games which are rated M15+ and call themselves 'hardcore', as if FPS arent the most popular video games and the average age of gamers isnt 33. The gamers who are (hardcore) enthusiasts in the sense that they want to 100% complete everything and buy tons of games, and those who are actually hardcore and play games with a serious sense of competition with online organised matches etc. Now which 2/3 of those aspects are completely out of nintendos control... And we are left with online organised matches etc. Its the game devs which make a console 'hardcore'. Now they abandoned the Wii in droves due to technical limitations and pereptions of demographic etc, its a shame since the install base (ie; money) potential was so large. If devs only knew how popular the wii would eventually become, destroying the competition, things would have been different. So nintendo can do all they want to woo potential 'hardcore' gamers to the console, but it wont mean anything unless the devs make it work. We have the same issue as before though, all of the real hardcore gamers already own a 360/ps3. The devs would only invest in making the console legitimately cater for 'hardcore' gamers if those players actively make the switch to nintendo. It might have been possible with the wii due to its low cost, owning a PS/360 + a wii is a very common thing amongst households. But if ninty is gonna go all out with graphics and bump the cost up etc, as I said before, I really dont think the legitimately hardcore players will actually make the switch.
- Dolphilution IMO
Yes I know all of that above looks like a big emo rant and hey it probably is. The only reason I could think of Nintendo giving up their Charlie Sheen formula is if they have deemed they now control such a significant share of the market and an install base including many PS/360 owners, that they can go on an all-out offensive and take the market they lost with the GC while relying on the countless millions who will buy the console regardless. Those who might not be able to afford it will still buy the (3)DS so ninty still has an install base somehow and those same people are not likely to buy a ps/360 anyway, even if they happened to be consideradly cheaper and the wii will still outsell ps/360 anyway. Obviously microsoft and sony are in no position, and probably never will be, to make such a move in the video game market so Nintendo really could take advantage of this.
Now that my optimistic scenario of the best possible outcome
