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Nintendo Dismisses Online For GC Successor
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GamePro article discussing Nintendo's public attitude to online gaming, even as it extends to the GameCube successor. According to Nintendo's senior VP George Harrison, "[Online gaming] is a consideration. We're looking into it for the next iteration of the GameCube. We just don't believe consumers are ready for it. Right now, no one's paying for subscriptions. The real test comes when you have to start coughing up $15 per month." However, analyst Michael Goodman doesn't concur: "The game console isn't just a game console anymore. It's evolving into a home entertainment system. Nintendo has refused to acknowledge that and it's hurt them."
The much better article on gamesindustry.biz doesn't leave out some important details that like this article. Mainly:
"Microsoft and Sony have now rolled out online services in all three major global territories for their consoles, but the numbers of subscribers remain relatively low - with estimates for the combined numbers of console online gamers ranging from one to two million players, only a tiny fraction of the 60-million odd installed base of the two consoles." (emphasis mine)
Yes, Sony and (especially) Microsoft may be establishing themselves as an 'online' brand. But they are not getting a very big finnancial benefit out of it, and will it be a big boost in the long run? If brand was all that mattered, shouldn't Atari be ruling the market right now?
Not to take away from your post but the N64 - financially, was a sucuess.
I think you mean that it made a profit, which may be true. But I'm looking at the larger levels: Marketshare, developer mindshare, user mindshare, even cool game mindshare. Sure, some amazing stuff was put out on the system but it was despite of the limitations of the console, not because of the power of the console. Compared to what could, and even perhaps should have been, the N64 bombed.
Part of this is handwaving, because I can't show screenshots, but with my knowlege I can see how the N64 would have looked if its fairly-impressive polygon power was backed up by enough memory to hold real textures; I won't claim it could have unseated the Playstation but the fact is it would have been head-and-shoulders above the Playstation in visual appearence, in a way that it really wan't in the cartridge incarnation. (For a modern demonstration of the importance of textures, compare a last-generation DC game with a first generation PS2 game, before the PS2 developers really figured out how to get textures going across the bus correctly; while the PS2 had more power, the DC's relatively large texture buffers held enough data to make up for the polygon difference handily; frankly some DC games still impress me.)
FWIW, I know more Dreamcast owners in my personal circle of geek friends then N64 owners. In fact I know 3 confirmed DC owners, and I can only think of one N64 candidate (I'm not sure he owns one). And the Dreamcast is typically considered a major failure for Sega, despite being a pretty cool system in a lot of ways.
I'm not trying to be a fanboy or an anti-fanboy (is there a term for that?); I really hate to see Nintendo making what I see as another blunder brought on by excessive conservatism. In this field, it's a "trend" after six months and a full-fledged pattern after two years, but it seems to take Nintendo as many as four or five years to catch on to those things. Given that they do a lot of crazy stuff (that silly little e-Reader, for instance), some of which sticks and some doesn't, this strongly says "insular corporate culture" to me. It's a tribute to them they've made it that far on such an insular culture, but long-term it's still a liability, despite their demonstrated abilities to handle it somewhat.
"The analyst is wrong. Game consoles are NOT home entertainment devices, they are game consoles. "
I think causality is in question. PS2 has a DVD player, and it also sold well. Therefore, the PS2 sold well because of the DVD player.
Actually there is some truth to that. The launch titles on the Ps2 sucked, but in Japan the units were gobbled up because in Japan, DVD players were spendy items and the PS2 was competitive.
However, system sales does not a successful system make. Nintendo may not be in as many homes as Sony, but they sure as hell don't mind the millions of copies of software they sell every few months when they release a new game.
Nintendo's in a better place than Sony. They have a following that'll chase them anywhere they go. Sony, on the other hand, is very much vulnerable to Microsoft or any other ambitious company who wants to make a new console. Sony doesn't have Mario or Fox McCloud to lure people over.
Sony will be kicked out of it's roost one day, but Nintendo will always have it's following. Sort of reminds me of Apple in some ways.