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Revolution May Launch Last
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has publicly stated that the Revolution may be the last next-gen console to market. From the article: "Until today, Nintendo has said only that the Revolution will be released in 2006 in North America, without specifying any date. Iwata's comments indicate that the console could appear after the launch of Sony's PlayStation 3, which is currently slated for a spring 2006 launch in the US. Microsoft's Xbox 360 will arrive on store shelves during the 2005 holiday season worldwide."
Well, you have to keep in mind that Nintendo sells a huge portion of their system in Japan, who don't have such legislation forcing the move yet. Also, there have been rumblings that the date for digital broadcasing may be pushed back to 2008. The HDTV resolution would have been nice in the Revolution, but it's not a necessity. They also have not said it isn't capable of HD altogether either. They may support lower end HD like 720p, but they certainly won't be requiring it from developers like Xbox360 is. Then again...if enough people complain Nintendo may change their mind at the last minute as well. It all depends on how cheaply they can build their hardware and still be able to sell it at a decent price.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
+4 insightful for perpetrating that false statement.
HDTV is not going to be required in the US.
HDTV is most certainly not going to be required anywhere else.
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This isn't really a surprise. I don't think anyone would argue that Nintendo is now definitely locked into the runner-up position in the race for dominance in the home video game console market, with Sony and Microsoft going toe-to-toe for the title of top dog. It seems to me that Nintendo has decided to adopt a different philosophy than the other two companies, marketing its products to a combination of children gamers and those who are interested in novel new game ideas. As a result, Nintendo has slipped into a niche market (which I like to call "the Disney of video games") that seems to be keeping it alive.
What's more interesting to me these days is that Nintendo's hand-held console dominance now stands a real chance of being usurped (by the PSP) for the first time since they entered the market with the original Game Boy. Others such as Sega and Atari tried but failed due to the fact that Nintendo was king of home (TV) consoles at the time, but now Nintendo is limiting itself to its more niche audience with the (comparatively gimmicky) DS and could be seriously threatened by the PSP's more broad appeal.
Despite all this, however, I predict that Nintendo will be around for quite some time (in one form or another at least). Their ability to shift gears when needed (remember how the original NES revived the dying home console market in the first place?) and to develop/market new and innovative -- if not practical and appealing -- ideas will assure them some kind of presence for the forseeable future.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Also, don't forget that the console market is not a zero-sum game. Many gamers will want multiple consoles -- so just because most people are buying XBox or Playstation doesn't mean they *won't* buy Revolution.
in fact, the delayed introduction might even be an advantage. After everyone buys their Playstation/Xbox, they save their money for a few months, play out the first big PS3/360 games... and then have the spare cash to buy a new Revolution.
At any rate, the Revolution looks like a very strong console, on the game front -- especially if it's true that it can play all of nintendo's old games. I can play the latest games, AND SuperMario, AND Starfox 64, AND Perfect Dark... all on the same box? Count me in. :)
multifariam.net -- yet another nerd blog
First off, the question of high definition support is entirely beside the point. I personally would love to play Mario and Zelda in glorious high definition, but if you honestly think it's going to contribute to Nintendo's "failure" next generation, you need to get a clue. First off, the analog shut out won't be in 2006, it most likely won't even be in 2007, according to the FCC itself. They won't even do the analog shutout until at least 85% of household TVs can receive all digital broadcasts, which some estimate could be another 20 years. Realistically we're not looking at switching over to all digital broadcasts until 2010-2015, which falls squarely into the realm of "the generation after next". Secondly, now that we've established that Nintendo isn't somehow cutting off all their customers, we can move on to the other flaw in your argument- high definition video was never going to be a selling point of the Revolution anyway, it's *not* a system like the Xbox 360 or PS3. Whether the Revolution succeeds or fails will be based entirely on its supposedly mind blowing new concept, *not* what resolution it outputs in, it was never going to figure into a customer's decision to purchase it. Hell, the DS (unfortunately) outputs in a drastically lower resolution than the PSP and is currently stomping it worldwide. That's proof that if you pack your system full of enough other features, stuff like resolution doesn't matter. Not to say I *condone* this practice- not at all, I think the money Nintendo is saving by foregoing high definition support will be trivial at best- but I *am* saying that this isn't as big an issue as many people are making it out to be. Now that we have that garbage out of the way, let's move on to the real issue at hand. I'm going to explain exactly why I don't think the Revolution will fail at all. E3 was a very revealing show this year; not literally, in the sense that the PS3 and Xbox 360 were physically unveiled, but in the sense that know exactly where all 3 major competitors are heading next generation. Sony and Microsoft are at each other's throats, they're going to fight to death over the 18-24 male demographic and have designed systems that are almost identical. Both companies will be pouring millions upon millions of dollars to edge out the other and it's going to end up being a stalemate, mainly because Sony has a much larger user base and Microsoft has a much larger bank account. Nintendo, however, is taking an entirely different approach. I've come to realize now that the DS was more or less a field test for that they're doing with the Revolution- it's a piece of electronics that introduces something completely new and innovative which offers the possibility for radically different games and is appealing to people who have never even had a casual interest in gaming. In an interview, the head of Nintendo's European division commented that, despite everyone's expectations (including mine), the DS is *not* eating into the sales of the GBA, and that's because it's attracting a different type of gamer for the most part. Nintendo hopes to replicate this phenomenon on a much larger scale with the Revolution- it is going to be a system that introduces an entirely new way to play games, and that is going to attract brand new gamers. While Sony and Microsoft duke it out over the established gaming public, which, admittedly, is very large, Nintendo is going after the vast untapped *sea* of potential customers that are the non-gamers, and they're doing this right under Sony and Microsoft's noses. I think Nintendo has finally realized that they simply can't compete on a marketing level with Sony and Microsoft- they don't have the vehemence, they don't have the sheer will, and they certainly don't have the talent for it. So instead of trying to wrestle customers away from their deeper-pocketed competitors, they're going down an entirely different route and making brand new customers. It won't be an overnight thing, but their army of converted gamers will grow and grow to the point where Nintendo will
First and foremost, that the PS3 will launch in Spring 2006. The PSP was supposed to launch worldwide at the end of 2004. Ask our European friends how accurate Sony's launch forcasts are.
The PS3's GPU isnt finished yet. The first Cell prototype was unveiled in March, and it wasn't even the version that will be used in the PS3. I have not heard if that is finished yet.
No one knows how far along the Revolution is. Some people take a lack of news to mean that it is behind, but they said the same thing about the DS before it beat the PSP into every territory.
Wait and see. Nintendo will likely wait for 3 things: the production capacity to meet demand, launch titles to sell the machine, and the infrastructure for their online network. The Revolution will launch when they have those three things or November 2006, whichever comes first.
At the price the next generation of consoles are being rumored to sell at (as much as $400!), I think I'll stick with my one spare gaming PC. I was going to jump into the console market finally, but I'll wait a year or two until the prices drop at least 50%. If they think I'm going to spend $400 for a box and a single controller and $70+ per game on top of that, they're out of their freaking vending-machine-panty-sniffing minds.
Honestly, coming out last is the best thing Nintendo can possibly do. Here's my reasoning.
Nintendo's Revolution is already going to be cheaper than the other consoles, and is still very likely to make money per console. If the Revolution came out first, a lot of people (erroneously of course, but we've already seen how the persistant erroneous statements that the GameCube was 'just for kids' and 'has no adult games' hurt it) will assume that because it is both cheaper and coming out first is must therefore be worse that the Xbox 360 and PS3. However, by coming out last and cheaper, Nintendo simply makes many gamers who failed to look before they lept feel stupid for spending $100-$150 more for consoles that aren't significantly better.
Additionally, Nintendo has a history of being copied. Regardless of whether the controller is a red herring or the sole source of revolution, coming out last gives Nintendo the edge in that they can keep their Revolution secret for longer. If they were coming out before or at the same time as their competitors, they'd need to release information on the Revolution around the same time as Sony and Microsoft and give them plenty of time to make similar improvements or copies of the technology.
Even now, a lot of the hardware for the Xbox 360 isn't even set yet. Of course, if the Revolution is solely within the controller that hardly matters because surely whenever the controller is revealed the secretly assembled crack teams of Sony and Microsoft will be ready to make quick prototypes of their own similar controllers. However, I find it likely that the controllers are a red herring. Perhaps half the revolution lies within the controller, but I predict that either the revolutionary controller will require something that requires special hardware within the console to work, or is useless without the other console half of the revolution.
In any case, releasing last, Nintendo's secret can be kept so until the hardware for the other two consoles is immutable.
Also, being last means that technology will have improved, and thus opening up more opportunities to make a console as powerful as Sony's or Microsoft's without the crazy costs.
The last point is that, remaining last Nintendo can take a good look at the mistakes Sony and Microsoft make, and not repeat them. With the article concerning the design of the competitor's CPUs claiming they are hardly as good as was claimed, Nintendo could easily make a similar CPU that is not plagued with the same problems.
That's my take on it all.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
But can it do it well? Believe it or not, I too have modded my X-Box, and I have noticed obvious flaws with emulation. The Big-Ass Emulator Disc is slow and sometimes quirky. The Project 64 X Disc only plays a handful of games well enough to be playable. Let's not forget the fact that interface amongst emulators is far from standardized, and support (of all types) is very limited.
/shrug.
As a techie, it was no difficulty to mod my X-Box, but as a gamer I want my games to work well.
Maybe I'm wrong, but the X-Box just doesn't cut it for an emulation machine.
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.