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Possible Early Release for the Nintendo Wii
ForensicPenguin writes "CNN has an update on a possible early release for the Nintendo Wii console. From the article: 'While Nintendo has not made any formal announcements about the launch date for the Wii, most of the industry has expected the machine to hit retail at approximately the same time as Sony's PlayStation 3 (which is set for November 17). Now, industry observers — and insiders — say they expect the system to be available in October, with late September a dark-horse candidate.'"
There is a God, and He doesn't like Sony.
Haiku for you!
Sony to Nintendo : People love us, they don't care how much we charge, they don't care how expensive the games are, they don't care that were really just revamping and polishing the same old game concepts. We win...
Nintendo to Sony : We'll beat you on price, we'll beat you on innovation, we'll beat you to market. P.S. Die in a fire.
Microsoft to Consumers : Look at all the fun you can have buying an Xbox 360 AND a Wii for the cost of a PS3...
Nintendo to Microsoft : You.. in teh fire too.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Rumor has already been denied.
Gamecube games? Will it have more games than Gamecube? Will the price be set noticably below Sony and M$ like that Gamecube was?
But Microsoft didn't really get enough units manufactured for launch and Nintendo may have learned from their mistake. So it's very possible that the launch will be later than this guess.
Nintendo engineers have revealed that the accelerated release will happen thanks to "a flashy glowing star thing we found in the employee fridge. After that it was simply a matter of holding B and running to the right."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The editors must love watching the various console fanboys and trolls fight over what will happen 6 to 12 months from now. I am going to wait untill a game I actualy want to play (MSG4: Substance comes to mind and no I don't care what platform it ends up on) is released before I commit to any of these systems. P.S. Someone pease reply to this message with something about how the 360 is out and "the best console ever".
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
I heard it on /. so it must be true.
I think that I wiill just wait and sii what Ninetendo says before getting iixcited.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
They have repeatedly said that it will not launch until the 4th Quarter this year. I don't see any reason this should change. However, I do see an early October launch as a possibility. It would still be in Quarter 4. In fact October 1st is a Sunday , and ass we all know Nintendo loves to release consoles on Sundays. We'll just have to wait and see.
How about you?
Damn dude. You just disqualified yourself for the easiest job on the planet.
Perhaps being an industry analyst is harder than I thought.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Dvorak's latest column on how the Wii launch will flop and PS3 supply will outstrip demand because the litmus paper turned blue in baking soda! Also, other highly unrelated speculative material cobbled together with tissues, tube socks, a turkey baster, paperclips and a rubber band! Tune in Monday for tips from MacGuyver on how to jump start a dirty old semi.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory &refer=conews&tkr=7974:JP&sid=au6z1KDVwCZc
Demented But Determined.
I was in Gamestop and EBGames the other day, and happened to look in the pre-order section for Wii games. Several of the games were listed as being released on October 2nd. COuld this be foreshadowing, or just a made up date?
I still think that the Wii will be bought by more people because of the affordable price. If anything, after-school programs could buy/receive a donated Wii for much less than the PS3. It can also target lower income families who might be able to afford a Wii.
It would be nice if it came out earlier from the standpoint to rabid...err...enthusiastic gamers, but there may actually be more advantage in coming out around the same time as the PS3. If Wii comes out at the same time as PS3, the stark contrast in price will be more apparent. And coupled with PS3 shortages, Wii could gain a lot of sales by being both cheaper and more available. Being innovative and having a stronger launch line up would also help Wii versus PS3. This also depends on Nintendo being able to meet demand too. If they come out early and then have low supplies when the PS3 comes out, they won't be able to press that advantage. But given the lower cost of producing the Wii, it is likely that supplies won't be as big an issue for Nintendo. This of course is all speculation.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Is it possible that Nintendo is not manufacturing Microsoft Xbox 360s and their units/day capacity might also differ?
This is a horrible idea.
After all, I don't know if I'll have enough saved up to buy all the Wii stuff I want by then!
I remember hearing once that Nintendo was planning on releasing the Wii shortly before Sony released the PS3; I seem to remember that their release date was going to be adjusted such that no matter what Sony was planning on doing, the Wii would be released first.
Perhaps, with the console-gaming world enraged about having to spend over half a thousand dollars on the PS3, Nintendo doesn't really care any longer.
Can anyone confirm this statement? If not, where the hell did I hear it?
I have a confession. I am a Sony fanboy. I am also the target audience for the PS3... older, an "early adopter", professional and informed. I know that the PS3 is the most advanced of the three systems. I also understand that the Xbox360 CAN compete with it, though. Unfortunately, I also have a skill called "fiscal responsibility". That means I won't lay $60-70 bucks to play Oblivion on Xbox360 or PS3 when I can play it for $40 on PC. That also means that my new console for the year will probably be a Wii. After all, I was raised on Atari and Nintendo so I can consider it "getting back to my youth." Either that or the cheapest mid-life crisis ever at $250 or less.
From the article: "Because of manufacturing problems, Microsoft was not able to come anywhere close to meeting worldwide demand." The way I remember it, Microsoft forced retailers to sign a "sell-out" contract, artificially inflating demand for the product by witholding units. So it completely sold out on day one, and by day two they were selling for big money on eBay and everyone just had to have one. It was less a mistake on Microsoft's part than the calculated manipulation of consumers. Unfortunately, they couldn't carry the process through to the next step, as the warehouse stockpile soon disappeared. IMO, this served them right. Stop playing with people's minds and just release an affordable system that you have researched and tested before throwing onto the shelves. I still hate the name, but the Wii will hopefully be that system.
September, eh?
Maybe they're going to release on September 9th. Dark horse consoles released on September 9th always do well, right? Certainly, getting crushed by a Sony Playstation after release on that date never happens...
Although, ideally, you ought to wait until 2009 for 9/9/9
Personally, I'd bet on a worldwide launch where Nintendo hopes to break records for most consoles sold in a month (or two); that way early in January Nintendo can announce that they outsold Microsoft 20:1 and Sony 10:1 (worldwide) over the holiday period [numbers just to make a point, not real guestimates].
I haven't traditionally been a huge Nintendo fan but right now they've got me by the gonads and the Wii causes me some serious strife.
It's important to remember this is still speculation.
If the news here was in any way important, remembering it would be more important, I guess....
Still, your basic point is solid: predicting Nintendo's actions based on those of Microsoft as a precedent might be a liiiittle bit unreliable. You think? I think.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
When I heard September I was scared, scared it would be delayed and pushed past Christmas.
The Wii is going to need A TON of advertising money, more than either of the other consoles if it wants to "be all it can be".
Also both Sony and Nintendo have a nasty habit of launching in Japan first...
The simple way to spin that so Sony/MS can think they are better is for the media to just talk about dollars of sales rather than number of units sold. Watch about a week after each launch, they'll tell Nintendo's sales as "10 million consoles sold the first day" and Sony will ensure the press releases are like "The PS3 had $500 million dollars in sales in it's first week, setting a new record for the company."
And in other news, the Gates Foundation has bought six billion Xbox 360s for every person in the world, making the Xbox 360 clearly the market leader.
So Nintendo might not be able to hold back the Wii much longer? Is this news of an early wii a leak?
They can't exist in third place for much longer...
Nintendo is profitable. They make money on their current consoles and games. By contrast, Microsoft's lost $7 billion in the last four years trying to gain market share with the Xbox and stuff like MSN.
It may be that Nintendo needs more market share -- I've heard arguments either way. You could make just as good an argument for MS's XBox division being in crisis as for Nintendo, though.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
"There's no change in our plan to release the console in the last quarter of this year. We are planning an announcement in September and it may be causing some confusion.'' - Yasuhiro Minagawa, spokesperson for Nintendo Co. Ltd.
This comes after the CNN article from yesterday, which is pretty much just restating what they previously said. October also falls in the last quarter, so who knows, maybe they'll announce in September, "New console next month for $199."
Rational argument? On /.?
Get ye out of here, you compiler's exception handler event for badly written code!
if nintendo lets their wii out early.....
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The thing is, console gamers have been preconditioned for late released few-games-at-intro consoles like the PS and xBox series.
...
All Nintendo has to do is wait until September and then start an all out assault by releasing their consoles in certain markets, with full introduction in October, to complete total console domination.
The main reason to hold off on full release is to ensure there are lots of games for many different types of gamers available, and to stagger the announcements so it feels like everyone is going Wii and noone cares about PS3 and xBox360 any more.
Strategy beats tactics every time. Well, except when you've got the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
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Nintendo didn't deny the rumor so much as say that we'll just have to wait until September to find out. Still, a September release seems HIGHLY unlikely.
Expecting a full multi-nation rollout in September, with games available for multiple game genres might be impossible.
But targetted city/region release with limited games in September, staggered for maximum media domination, followed by total system rollout in October is possible.
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I am going to wait untill a game I actualy want to play
You have gone to the Nintendo Wii site, right?
There's lots of games in lots of genres for the Wii to play.
The only people who should hold out are people obsessed with FPS. Don't recall tons of games for that, just a couple for the Wii.
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I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your magazine.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
It's newsletter dude.
I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the PS3, because then the price of all the ps2 games I've ever wanted will drop dramatically....
Oh, and I'll probably buy a wii after xmas...when I find out how much they're going to charge/bleed us for playing the older nes,snes,n64 games on the newer system.
As for the Wii, my biggest fear is that their controller will be hard to use, which means less console sales and less games by 3rd parties. Their graphics are not on par with the other next gen consoles so that makes them look even less attractive to 3rd party developers who are in competition with each other to make the latest and greatest in a sea of games...
...The deciding facor to ANY console's future is getting the majority of GOOD 3rd party games.
The other side of the third party coin, though, is that the new HD-image games are far more expensive to develop. Nintendo is partly trying to counter that with the Wii's older tech and lower resolution; you aren't at the level of producing a Hollywood movie to crank out a game with this one, is the idea. Turning out a King Kong-level game for the Sony and MS systems is an expensive, and high-risk, proposition, in a way that won't be true for the Wii.
What Nintendo desperately needs is to make the Wii, and its funky controller, easy for the third party studios to develop for. If it's clunky to use or to develop for, yep, Nintendo may be cooked.
(My money's on: Sony and MS have overshot the HDTV market, which isn't as mature as they'd projected. This Christmas's must buy is going to be a Wii. I have 12-year-olds, I know what they're talking about at least in my kids' circle of friends. The kids who pooled their money to buy an original XBox can't afford a 360, let alone a PS3. I'm a Netflix junkie and love the idea of wide screen movies, but the HD monitor thing isn't there yet for me, not at the total cost of a monitor even before the $500 console. Sure seems like Nintendo's got the sweet spot this time around, at least in prospect.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.