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Nintendo Confirms New Console In 2005
GweeDo writes "It is official. Nintendo will be releasing their next console right along side Sony's PS3 in 2005. The news was released here by cube.ign.com. They also went on to say that Retro Studies is working on a Prequel to Metroid Prime. The best quote to all you people that said Nintendo was leaving the console market is this: 'Iwata emphasized Nintendo's plans to stick in the console industry by saying, "When we withdraw from the home game console, that's when we withdraw from the video game business."'"
Their hard-nosed stance on emulation is hypocritical, actually. Nintendo representatives have gone on record as saying that emulation is illegal, period, offering no qualifiers. Oddly, the recent hit Metroid Prime offers a full version of the NES Metroid, played via an emulator on the Gamecube.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
In February of 2001, Sega announced that they would focus solely on making games for other systems.
"Indeed, Sega has fallen, they are down, posting quarterly losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the fourth time in a row, but they are not out. In fact, Sega's future appears to be a bright one as the company is now officially third party. From now on, Sega will only be making games for other companies' systems."
Read the entire article here.
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It's a seuqel that is planned, which makes sense as the game's ending (at least at 100%) leaves open the possibility. Considering that Prime takes place almost immedeately after the first Metroid, I don't see how it could easily spawn a prequel.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
From the infogrames corporate faq:
Sega's biggest advantage was having a faster CPU than the SNES, which helped a lot for sports titles (which required lots of sprites, but not necessarily lots of color or excellent sound). Still, the two systems were similar enough that both consoles shared the US market pretty much equally.
$400, actually, compared to the PSX's $300 (which came out a few months later). The Saturn was a monster at handling 2D graphics, and did quite well in Japan, but developing 3D graphics was harder. And, since developing was easier for the PSX in general, that's where all the big popular US titles went.
"LIGHT YEARS" is an exaggeration. The DC isn't as powerful as the PS2 (by virtue of coming out much sooner), but the level of power is certainly comparable; one should be able to port a title to either without great loss (and the DC is much easier to develop for, also). The problem is, when Sega's multi-millionaire financier died, the company folded its console business rather than trying to really compete. Whether the DC could've made a go of things is debatable, since support dried up soon after Sega discontinued the hardware.
In general, the most "powerful" console is rarely the most popular one (the X-Box is likely to continue that trend). But coming very late to market with only marginally better hardware hasn't helped Nintendo's market share over the years. Still, unlike Sega and Microsoft who sold consoles as a loss, Nintendo profits on each one sold and should have little trouble staying in the business for as long as they want to.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
It's got nothing to do with raw CPU power (regardless of the clock speed). Rather than rehash it all, read this.
i think what screwed it was that ps2 was LIGHT YEARS ahead of DC tech-wise - the first-mover advantage was simply negated this time
Hell no! The PS2 was NOT light years ahead of the Dreamcast. The problem with the Dreamcast were its controllers and the lack of software for it. What helped kill sales for Sega was the PROMISE by Sony that the PS2 would be light-years ahead of the Dreamcast. So people hung onto their PS1s and waited before shelling out any cash for the Dreamcast since the PS2 was right around the corner. When the PS2 came out, it was marginally better than the Dreamcast, but by then it was too late.
Actually Sega had a great system and at the right time, not too far behind the PS2 in raw 3d power (compare Tokyo extreme Racer 2 on the Dreamcast and PS2 to see what I mean) particularly if you take into consider several fundamental features it had that the PS2 lacked:
4 controlloer ports (to the PS2's 2)
Built in 56k modem (later upgradeable to ethernet port).
Antialiasing (made away with jaggies common to 3d consoles running at such a low resolution.
Great selection of release titles
Easy to develop games for with the option of coding a game for the default Sega OS or having your game load Windows CE w/Direct X (5.0 I believe).
Plus the VMU's with the neat little screen for your controller were pretty neat (battery life sucked though).
However they did not opt to counter the Sony marketing hype at the time, nor offer a console w/ a DVD drive (although they did release a gold dreamcast w/ DVD in Japan). And as such they failed by not advertising it properly. That coupled with them selling the Saturn and the Dreamcast at a loss they ended up giving up on making hardware. So ultimately hardware doesn't make the console, addressing customer needs/wants, proper marketing and making it easy to code for all add up.
I ended up buying a PS2 just because of the game catalog. I would have stuck it out with my Dreamcast but I eventually ran out of games to buy for it ( I would have loved to buy Armada 2, or Panzer Dragoon for it...).
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Actually, Sonic was synonymous with Sega. The problem was that Sonic was Sega's only franchise. Let's just look at the NES/Master System and SuperNES/Genesis eras. Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Sega had Sonic. That's it. Now step forward to the N64/Saturn days. Sega had a multiple-month head start on Nintendo, but Saturn didn't have a Sonic title at launch. Their only franchise, and it wasn't ready until after N64 came out, with a Mario title at launch. That was Sega's Waterloo. They didn't make the same mistake with Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure, but it was too little, too late. The fanboys were gone. Shame. I loved those early Dreamcast commercials. :-)
I have to wonder if GameCube's slow start has the same root cause: No franchise at launch? Luigi's Mansion didn't have the Mario mystique, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, fun as it is, doesn't work because you're just throwing a bunch of franchise characters out of their elements and into a fighter. Unlike Sega, however, Nintendo can get by on reputation. Mario is a given on any Nintendo console. We knew Zelda was coming from the demo reels. Announcing the return of Metroid created plenty of buzz. Maybe things will pick up now that they've arrived (or are on the horizon, in Zelda's case).
Look at it this way: Would XBox 2 stand a chance if Halo 3 was 6 months late? Heck, will the current XBox stand a chance if Halo 2 is 6 months late?
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