Wired Dissects Sony as PS3 Effort Falters

PetManimal writes "Wired has an excellent analysis of Sony as it struggles to overcome the failures of the 1990s and make the PS3 live up to its promise. Sony is counting on the PS3 turning around the company's fortunes, but it may have been too ambitious. Besides being hamstrung with an unusual company culture that emphasizes small hardware teams and proprietary formats, Sony's efforts to make the PS3 kill several birds with one stone and appeal to a wider customer base is turning off the PS3's core support network: gamers. From the article: 'Then there was the decision to build Blu-ray into the PlayStation 3. Sony's logic seemed ironclad: Not only would the hi-def drive's huge storage capacity allow for far-more-realistic and complex games, the PS3 would carry Blu-ray into millions of households and drive sales of HDTVs as well. As it turned out, however, Blu-ray has done nothing good for the PS3. Blu-ray was the main reason gamers weren't able to get the new machine last spring: The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.'"

Comments

sweet

[dolson]

I was waiting for The Daily Dose. And here it is!

Re:sweet

[Dr. Eggman]

Wanna go for overdose?

http://news.com.com/Let+the+PS3+games+begin/2008-1 043_3-6110352.html From Cnet news
"We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we've proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that's going to be with you again for 10 years."
I wonder if the PS3 will be a better price in four year when the PS2 is through its 10 year life cycle?

Of course, I don't think Wired's article is all doom and gloom. Really, it's just pointing out Sony is betting the house on this one; something that I and many other Slashdotters had already realized. It could go the other way too, though. If the PS3 is a success, it could be bigger than the walkman for Sony. I may not wish to see Sony succeed, but I have to admire their courage to risk so much.

Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I have no clue who to cheer for.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[AKAImBatman]

Nintendo.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[snard6]

Don't cheer, just take out your checkbook. They like the sound of money much more than cheering.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Frag-A-Muffin]

...and I have no clue who to cheer for.

Nintendo.

This is more insightful then you know. It's the only gaming company left that doesn't have some ulterior motive. Sony wants the PS3 to push its bluray format into every living room. Then you have Microsoft battling that by siding with the HDDVD camp, cuz THEY also have interest in the "living room".

Meanwhile, Nintendo wants to make games, and fun ones at that. You can argue it's motive is to try to tie in the DS and sell more of those (or vice versa). But at least it's still game related.

I for one am siding with Nintendo on this one, and not only because I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but because I want my gaming to not be affected by some stupid political battle of the formats. I don't want to be caught in the middle of a format war that no good can come of.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[voice_of_all_reason]

My checkbook made just made a funny noise and said: "YOU REQUIRE MORE VESPENE GAS"

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Pluvius]

[Nintendo is] the only gaming company left that doesn't have some ulterior motive.

Are you kidding? The only reason Nintendo can't be said to have an ulterior motive is because they have no leverage with which to accomplish any ulterior goal. Am I the only one who remembers the draconian censorship policies and ludicrous licensing fees that existed back when Nintendo was the only store on the block?

Nintendo is a heartless corporation, same as the other two. You don't notice only because it has been mostly irrelevant for the past decade. I might not be rooting for Sony or Microsoft, but I'm sure as hell not rooting for Nintendo.

Rob

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[AttilaB]

You are either unaware of, or are ignoring, Nintendo's history of anti-competition practices:

http://digital-law-online.info/cases/24PQ2D1015.ht m

Also, back in the days of the NES, they used to limit the number of titles that a publisher to release in a given year.

All three companies do what is in their own best interest, regardless of what's best for the consumer. Feel free to take sides, but you are kidding yourself if you think somehow Nintendo are the "good guys".

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Lauwenmark]

Are you kidding? The only reason Nintendo can't be said to have an ulterior motive is because they have no leverage with which to accomplish any ulterior goal.

I don't think (s)he was kidding. Nintendo had no ulterior motive than making profit, by trying to monopolize as much of the gaming market for itself. Why did Nintendo experiment so many "unusual" gaming devices ? Simple: to attract as many customers as possible, grabbing them before less inovative competitors. Somtimes, it was a huge success (Gameboy, NES), sometimes it wasn't (VirtualBoy, NES64). But their core strategy stayed constant during the last 30 years: focus on the gaming business, and try to cut the grass before their opponent's feet by "being the first" in the innovation field.

So, how is that different from Microsoft and Sony ? Well, the goal of those two doesn't seem to make a lot of direct profit with their gaming devices, but rather use them as 'front-ends' to technologies they promote. They play a game of technological reputation: the one with the best-looking gaming device will won the label of "cool brand", and the key technologies associated with their machines will get a boost (PS3 is using Blu-Ray + PS3 is cool = Blu-Ray is cool; PS3 is a Sony product + PS3 is cool = Sony is cool). I think that Sony and MS don't care if XBoxes and PS3s are sold without any direct profit: they are seeking about indirect returns.

And Nintendo ? Well, their strategy seems to be very different. They are still focusing on gaming - and only gaming. They underline the 'social' trait of gaming. They push forward new input devices technologies to provide a new experience to players. Why ? I think that's because they're trying to make profit out of the gaming market itself, instead of using it as a display case for their technological skills.

In that respect, I think saying that Nintendo "has no utter motive" is quite accurate: Nintendo produces games and gaming devices to sell games and gaming devices, while MS and Sony produce those as advertisements for themselves and their other technologies.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[buzzzz]

While I understand the concept that Game Companies should focus on games, I for one am excited about the possibility of someone finally getting it right and integrating the living room into a single device. One can just let one's imagination run with the possibilities of that scenario.

Controlling devices in your house by doing stuff with in a game for example? :)

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[masklinn]

The point GP was trying to make wasn't that a company was somehow less evil than the others, but that one of the company focused solely on games while the others had hidden/parallel agendas and didn't gear their hardware towards pure gaming.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[brkello]

This is only insightful to fanboys. Nintendo wants to make money off of you just as much as anyone else. In fact, Nintendo is making more money off of you than the other companies. Xbox sells at a loss. So wouldn't make that Nintendo more evil? Kidding aside, I want all three to do well so that competition is healthy.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[AKAImBatman]

Am I the only one who remembers the draconian censorship policies and ludicrous licensing fees that existed back when Nintendo was the only store on the block?

No, but apparently I'm the only one who remembers why they were so Draconian.

Hello? Video Game Crash of '83/'84 mean anything to anyone? What caused the crash? Too many poor quality cartridges hitting the market. What did Nintendo's contracts require? A limited number of cartridges per publisher.

You also seem to forget that Nintedo was the first company to embrace third parties rather than tolerate them. Atari never liked Activision and IMagic. Mattel and Coleco wanted all the profits to themselves. Nintendo said, "sure, sign on the dotted line."

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[SyncNine]

That amount of storage space for games would be nice to have, but really wont be utilized for a while, and only for certain types of games.

Actually, according to Microsoft (several times) the HD-DVD add-on will never be used for games, period, end of discussion. See reference material here and here and here, just to show a few examples.

Aside from that, I agree with your post. MS isn't doing this to promote a format as much as they're doing it to spur more sales of their console. $600 for an HD-DVD player is still a decent price at the moment, and if you consider that most people considering the add-on will already have the X360 at that point, it looks a lot more like $200 to them. Plus, it's a completely non-requisite component for the system -- as opposed to the PS3, where the BD-drive is so important to Sony that they've delayed the console launch TWICE because of it. I'm all for Sony taking as long as it takes to get it right, but there's a point where their 'top-of-the-line' console starts to look like a very, very expensive way for them to promote their new (and ultimately doomed, like UMD, betamax, and mini-disc) proprietary media format.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[nexarias]

Where did your fluffy image of Nintendo come about from? They're not innocent, they want money too -- and bad. I've heard criticism towards Sony as a sequel-maker, but these very same Nintentards ignore the fact that Nintendo are probably the mother of all milkers.

One word: POKEMON. Let's not start on Mario, Zelda, and their various incarnations. "But they're fun!!", you whine. People who bought the sequels on the PS2 found them fun as well.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Pluvius]

No, but apparently I'm the only one who remembers why they were so Draconian.

Hello? Video Game Crash of '83/'84 mean anything to anyone?

How about the word "overreaction"?

The crash had nothing to do with games being prurient; it had to do with them being bad. So the censorship policy was pointless (not to mention vague and haphazard). And quality control doesn't require higher licensing fees, just stricter licensing policies. And it was very easy to have stricter licensing policies than Atari did; just keep people from releasing games on your console with no oversight whatsoever. The publisher's limit wasn't necessary nor was it very effective; a number of companies created subsidiaries to publish games for them, such as Konami's Ultra and Acclaim's LJN.

Rob

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[AKAImBatman]

The crash had nothing to do with games being prurient; it had to do with them being bad.

That's actually an urban legend. The Video Game Crash was a result of too many games for the market to support, combined with a general feeling by the public that they were just a fad. While the likes of E.T. and Pacman didn't help anything, they certainly weren't the cause. The cause was attempts by retailers to clear their excess stock by marking down large numbers of titles. This started a chain reaction that lead the public to stop buying console games and focus on computers.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[ravenshrike]

Um, the reason that the 360 isn't using HD-DVD is because MS wanted to get a jump on the console market and the tech wasn't ready yet. If they had released the 360 this year, it would probably come with HD-DVD standard. As for not using the space, one of the first games to come out for the PS3 will use 22 gigs. Programming rapidly scales with the amount of space available.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Hello? Video Game Crash of '83/'84 mean anything to anyone?

Hell yes. It meant cheap games in the bargain bin at Sears!

What caused the crash? Too many poor quality cartridges hitting the market.

Oh, come on! Kool-Aid Man and E.T. were the pinnacle of video game entertainment!

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[Jfarro]

that argument doesn't really hold true...it would if HD DVD was built into the 360, but as an add on, it can be argued the gamers were given a choice, and though the company itself may back the HD DVD format...the console is entirely independant. Sony didn't make that choice, they're tring to bring the format war to the consoles, as well as handhelds. MS didn't really make that jump.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[spysmily1]

Ulterior motive, isn't trying to gain money from the consumer the motive for all of these companies. The Big N is just trying to fit into the market still with it's innovative machine. Innovative being, I'm sorry for letting all of you, our customers down for the last few generations of machines, but please let us have a place in your wallets...er..hearts. They know they would not be able to compete with the other 2 so they come up with something that catches the eye. Believe me, if Nintendo had a new media format to pimp, they would. Remember they still don't even know what a cd or dvd is considering the fact that none of their machines support either format, until recently, the mini-disc thingy.

Re:Great, Sony vs. Microsoft

[buffer-overflowed]

Since 1985, there have been a total of 7 main-series console Super Mario games, one of which was an archive(All Stars). 3 for the NES, 1(or 2) for the SNES, 1 for the N64, and 1 for the Gamecube. A 7th(or 8th depending on whether or not you count All Stars) is coming out in 2007. It will be the third 3D main-series Mario title released in just over 10 years, and the 7th(or 8th if you count all Stars) game in the Super Mario series released for a console in just under 22 years. Now if we count handhelds(3 unique handheld games), cameos(tons), spinoffs and the like, that number increases(to 140 appearances in 26 years), but that's not really fair to do. Super Mario RPGs, the Yoshi series, the sports titles, etc. they're all different games, just sharing the same character. And the cameos may as well not even count.

Add one and subtract a few years from that if you want to count the original Mario bros. Oh and add one if you want to count both versions of Mario 2.

There have been a total of 6 actual console Zelda games(unless you count four swords), since 1987. 3 2D, 3 3D. A 4th 3D is coming out this year. It will be the 8th Zelda in just under 20 years. There were 4 unique portable Zeldas(first in 93), with a 5th due out early next year.

Metroid? 1 for the NES, 1 for the SNES, 2 for the Gamecube, 1 for the Wii. In just over 20 years. There's also 3 handheld games(with a 4th rumored). So 8 games in 20 years total.

Kid Icarus? 1 game. 20 years.

Mario Party? No fucking argument here, there's a new game of this almost every year.

In the meantime, Jak and Daxter, a game first released in 2001, has already seen 4 console games in the main series and one handheld game, with another 2 games supposedly slated for 2007(one portable, one console). That's just under 1 game a year. The same holds true of Sly Cooper and Ratchet and Clank. Metal Gear Solid will have seen 4 in 9 years(decent pacing). And Final Fantasy will have seen 7 main series titles in 9 years(little fast). Madden(and most Sports games) are 1 a year.

See the difference here yet? A lot of the franchises established not even 10 years ago are hitting 5th and 6th installments, while most of Nintendos are only slightly above that(three games max).. despite having been around a decade or more longer(in the case of the PS2 platformers, 15 years+ longer). Oh, and no one, and I mean no one, can challenge the Blue Bomber, Megaman, for sheer milking. There were 9 main-series Megaman games alone, another 8 X platformers, and 4 Zeros, and now ZX. This isn't mentioning the RPG spinoffs or the 3D games(of which there were 2!) or the Arcade games, etc.. Nobody, and I mean *nobody* drives a character/franchise into the ground like Capcom can(23 platformers total in 20 years! And that's being conservative!). I think if you total it up, there's been a new megaman game with basically minor tweaks(and a franchise update!) from the previous one, every year since Megaman's inception(sometimes twice a year!). He's like the Madden of platformers, only even older and slightly more promiscious(Castlevania is getting pretty bad here of late too, but mainly on portables).

Just for the record.

[LWATCDR]

Sony didn't invent the transistor radio. An American company did with the help of Texas Instruments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

Re:Just for the record.

[Snarfangel]

Sony didn't invent the transistor radio. An American company did with the help of Texas Instruments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

This sounds like a truthiness challenge. I'd say Sony is TI's Portugal.

Re:Just for the record.

[MoFoQ]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

  It was Sony, then a small, aggressive concern, who produced Japan's first transistor radio, the TR-55 (in 1955). Sony's greatest success was the pocket sized TR-63 released in 1957. It was the first transistor radio to utilize all miniature components and was the first Japanese radio to be imported into the U.S.A.

They may have not "invented" it persay but they did make the first transistor radio to use all miniature components. It's just like Edison...he didn't invent the light bulb...just perfected it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bu lb#History_of_the_light_bulb ).

Re:Just for the record.

[arodland]

If you can't spell "per se" properly, then there's absolutely no chance that you understand it well enough to use it in writing.

Re:Just for the record.

[LWATCDR]

No they didn't.
The first transistor radio sold to the public was the Regency TR-1. Sony didn't get into the market until three years later. They made a good product and it is popular with collectors but it would be like saying Oldsmobile invented the automobile.
The transistor radio became a mainstream consumer item only when companies in Taiwan and Hong Kong started producing the super cheap little radios that you often see in sixties sitcoms.

Re:Just for the record.

[AzsxQuii]

I second that statement. What our friends in asia managed to do, was to come up with quality control measures that made the production lines produce more reliable components. The rest is... History.

Re:Just for the record.

[phasm42]

Look closer. It says Sony made Japan's first transistor radio. Regency made the first commercial model, and Intermetall probabaly produced the first one, although not commercialized.

Re:Just for the record.

[MoFoQ]

I didn't say they were the first to invent (plain)....but the first*

Just with Oldsmobile...they may have not been the first to invent the automobile but they do have an impression list of "first"'s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile#Oldsmobile _advances

• ...first American car company to export an automobile.
  
• ...first speedometer to be offered on a car..
  
• The United States Post Office Department orders its first motor vehicles from Oldsmobile.
  
• ...first car company to outsource parts to third-party suppliers.
  
• ...first automotive use of chrome plating.
  
• ...first monoblock V8 (to introduce on the market)
  

Re:Just for the record.

[MoFoQ]

sorry... /. doesn't have a spellchecker....

and like Peter Griffin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Griffin#Persona lity ), only when I'm drunk can I spell better.

Re:Just for the record.

[LWATCDR]

I picked Oldsmobile for that very reason. Oldsmobile produced a good car with many improvements. Sony produced a good radio with a few improvements.
The article said that Sony invented the the transistor radio. which is wrong.

Re:Just for the record.

[lmfr]

x is y's Portugal.

I've seen this a couple of times, but I don't understand it. Could you please explain it? Thanks.

Re:Just for the record.

[Snarfangel]

Stephen Colbert:

Anyway, while crafting my scathing reply, I forgot whether I usually call Oregon California's Canada or Washington's Mexico. So I went to the Internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia to check their extensive entry on this show. I love Wikipedia. Any site that has a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight. Anyway, it turns out I call Oregon both California's Canada and, on April 6th, Washington's Mexico. But thinking about it now, that's giving Oregon too much credit. They're more like Idaho's Portugal. So what I'm going to do is, I'm just going to log on to Wikipedia here and I'm going to change it. You see, any user can change any entry and if enough other users agree with them it becomes true. There. Now, "Oregon is Idaho's Portugal" is the opinion I've always held; you can look it up. If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way ... and it can, thanks to tonight's word: wikiality. Now, folks, I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopaedias. I've said it before ...

Anyway, you get the gist.

Re:Just for the record.

[MoFoQ]

I know....Sony didn't invent it....they invented* it.

* - [Insert fine print here]

Blah...

[GundamFan]

I am half expecting the PS3 to be a smshing sucess at this point.

I would like to call this the inverse internet expert principal or IIEP (in short the louder and more athoritative the armchair expert is the less accurate they become) but not only is the acronym probably taken... I don't think it is a new idea.

Blah... Why do I care? I'm mostly a PC gamer.

Re:Blah...

[7Prime]

Blah... Why do I care? I'm mostly a PC gamer.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious.

Re:Blah...

[GundamFan]

Errr... Last I checked it wasn't a bad thing... I won't likey buy any console at launch... my fun budget is a bit tied up at the moment (the Core 2 Duo calls to me) but I am almost 100% sure Microsoft won't fool me again. Fell free to use this post as an excuse to spread irrational Wii love (not that the Wii is good or bad... just some people are irrational about it.)

Re:Blah...

[7Prime]

If anything is irrational here, it's this statement:

I am almost 100% sure Microsoft won't fool me again.

Reminds me of a song by a little-known rock band I've listened to, called, The Who, you should listen to it sometime.

Re:Blah...

[ravenshrike]

The ticket sales were only poor in comparison to a blockbuster hit. For a movie that would have seen absolutely DISMAL ticket sales without the hype, it did pretty friggin well. It's already pulled more than it's production budget, unlike Serenity even though S was a vastly superior movie. Sure as hell made a lot more money than it would have were it badged Pacific Flight 121. Not to mention that there's all the merch sales and DVD release.

Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Yvan256]

Between the high price of the PS3 and all its delays and problems, and the relatively high cost and problems of the Xbox 360 (along with the "Xbox 1.5" perception by most people), how can Nintendo not jump from 2nd to 1st place?

Yes, they were 3rd in the USA, but world-wide they were 2nd, just a bit ahead of the Xbox. Given their larger marketshare when you take the Nintendo DS into account (marketshare, i.e. which % of console(s) owners have a Nintendo system), you have to wonder what the future holds for Microsoft (still in the red with the whole Xbox division) and Sony (betting it all on the PS3, which seems to be a failure before it even starts).

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[jpardey]

If gamers didin't care about the valve games, gta, graphics, processing power, or standard first person shooters, then yes.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I've seen a number of comments about Nintendo being #2 world-wide recently but haven't seen any numbers to support this. The only recent numbers I've seen (like this) have xbox #2 on world wide rankings. Am I just missing a better source for numbers or is the whole Nintendo is #2 thing one of those internet spread myths?

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Yvan256]

If gamers didin't care about the valve games, gta, graphics, processing power, or standard first person shooters, then yes.

Then how do you explain the success of the PS2, despite its crappy 3D? Because let's face it, except for a handfull of games such as the Gran Tourismo serie, the Gamecube is far superior to the PS2 in terms of graphics (and so was the Dreamcast, at least in terms of resolution).

As for first person shooters, I never understood how people could play these games with stupid analog sticks anyway. I predict this genre will thrive on the Wii because of the controller.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[fotbr]

*some* gamers

For valve's games, GTA, graphics, processing power, and FPSs I have a PC. Why would I pay for a 2nd, overpriced PC to attach to a low-res monitor and play with substandard controls?

I'll probably get a Wii, mostly for the virtual console so I can play all my old favorites without needing multiple boxes attached, without using PC emulators and having to find roms. But I lost interest in most consoles after the SNES & Genesis

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Pluvius]

Yes, but that is true of any console and there are resons to believe that this won't happen with the Wii; the main reason to bet on the Wii is Nintendo.

That would also be the main reason to bet against the Wii. So you're back to Square One.

you can not judge an early build of a game on the polish of the control mechanism

You also can't judge the viability of a controller based on a fifteen-minute demo at E3, but that's what a lot of Nintendo fanboys are doing.

Rob

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the main thing that Nintendo has going with the Wii is that it is a unique product in a market full of generic products; the PS2, PS3, XBox, XBox 360, and Gamecube are virtually identical products that differ only in graphical quality and price (I have yet to see a XBox 360 that could not play exactly the same on the XBox).

The biggest advance for the 360 outside of graphics wasnt in gameplay, but usability. Xbox live fully integrated into the system with downloadable demos, xbl arcade games, leaderboards, and persistent chat and friends list capability is something that honestly takes a few months of use and may not be totally appreciable by people who havent owned the system. Unfortunately nintendo chose to forego most of this, and i think this is gonna hurt bigtime.

As for the control schemes, both of you guys are right. Articles for various games at different points in their development cycles have been extremely positive and extrememly negative. Its up to the developers to make it work, and if nobody can, well, we might just have to blame nintendo for making it too hard to use properly. Either way, we wont know until we try it out for ourselves on finished products. Its similar to the ds in terms of the love/hate people have with the control scheme. Personally i hated playing metroid using the stylus as my aiming device, and wont buy other games that control that way because of it. The touch screen has thorough use in first party franchises, but not so much in the average third party game- for the success of the wii developers have got to do better with the wiimote than with the ds.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Perseid]

Hmm. You do realize that you're making judgements based off of a pre-release build you have not played of a launch title running on a pre-release build of a system you have not played. I mean, I understand that speculation is half the fun right now, but isn't that still a bit...premature?

Personally, knowing Nintendo, I would bet that the Wii controller works very well. Nintendo, for all their faults, usually doesn't mess around when it comes to the hardware. Right now developers are saying to themselves, "Hmm. This is cool. But...what the hell do we do with it?" If they figure that out, I think Nintendo will be fine. Although I suppose my speculation might be a bit premature. :)

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[grumbel]

You do realize that you're making judgements based off of a pre-release build you have not played of a launch title running on a pre-release build of a system you have not played.

We are three month away from launch, not a year, not two years, if they still havn't figured out how to actually use the controller correctly for all the games that will get released, which most information seems to hint, then thats a very bad sign. The Wii controller isn't an added gimmick like the motion sensing in the PS3 controller, its the primary way to interact with the Wii and one of the main reasons why the Wii is interesting.

And nope, I don't believe all problems will magically fade away just because its Nintendo. First of even Nintendo has its fair share of problems in the past (GBA without light) and secondly a lot of problems are much more fundamental and can't just be wiped away with a bit of polish, some require wastly different game design and that is something that simply won't happen very soon, which might mean we end up with a lot of weak third party tiles.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[brkello]

Uh, you want to declare Nintendo a winner when it isn't available to purchase yet? What a ridiculous statement.

Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated the handheld market, that didn't help them in the past. So that completely invalidates that point.

Nintendo can not jump to first for many reasons. They still have the kiddy image. Their control scheme may turn out to just be gimmicky (I know, people said the same thing about the DS and it worked out, but still could be true for the Wii). Have no idea what kind of hardware issues they will have. Have no idea how they will treat their third party producers (this is one thing that has damaged them a lot in the past). It has a horrible horrible name (nitpicking here). There are tons of little variables that you could factor in that will make them come out 2nd or even third.

Obviously, they have some big advantages: being unique, being much cheaper, and having a good lineup of release games (even if all of them will not have Internet capabilities). But to declare them victors is daft at this point. Slashdot is horribly biased towards Nintendo. There is a whole rest of the world out there and we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[masklinn]

Yes, they were 3rd in the USA, but world-wide they were 2nd, just a bit ahead of the Xbox.

They weren't. During the respective lifespans of the consoles, 21 million GameCubes were sold versus 24 million Xbox.

Now benefit-wise, Microsoft lost $2b while Nintendo once again racked in profits.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[PMadavi]

It seems to me like games, not hardware drive the industry. PS2, while an inferior machine to the Xbox and Gamecube, had the most developers making the most appealing games. I bought a PS2 because I knew it had the "best" games (or the ones that appeal to me the most - don't get the mario/zelda/metroid worship). So unless Sony loses a lot of their exclusives, it seems to me like they should retain most of their market share over the life of the PS3. The other thing is that in a few years, when developers get a hang of writing the PS3, the games should really blow the other systems out of the water, given the specs. If they retain exclusivity, and can hold on long enough, PS3 could make a big jump at that point.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[masklinn]

There already has been a lot of disapointment when people found out that RedSteel didn't have real sword fighting and turning the character around seems to be problematic in many games.

Which is why the controls were fully redone and "real" sword system was implemented post-E3 due to popular request.

And lets not forget the callibrarition, what if the Wii will be a hell to setup to work correctly?

Hello? We're talking about Nintendo here, the gameplay freaks that will fine-tune everything until they're sure the player'll have the best experience available.

Or what about online, there doesn't seem to be any online for third parties this years, meaning Nintendo yet again, nothing will support online right from start nor its third parties.

• It was published that third-parties wouldn't get network access till the beginning of next year. No one knows why, but that's pretty much a fact
• Nobody knows about Nintendo though
• The DS didn't have any online game for the whole beginning of it's life, BTW
• And finally the Xbox only went "Live" a year after the console's release (North American release: 15 Nov 2001, Xbox Live launch 15 Nov 2002)

You shouldn't pronounce the Wii dead over that just yet.

And lets not forget the lack of power of the Wii

Have you seen the leaked Madden demo video? Me sez that the Wii has more than enough power to please the eye.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[grumbel]

Red Steel has implemented full "real" sword fighting on the latest builds and managing the screen has been greatly improved; you can not judge an early build of a game on the polish of the control mechanism because they will continue to improve in any good game, this is something that bloggers (and fanboys) don't seem to get.

Red Steel was the first official Wii titel that we got to see, so I would have expected that they've shown us the best they have, if however *that* was the best they have, poor Nintendo. Now of course they can polish and improve the titel and maybe they will end up with something good, but so far I prefer to judge the games but what they are, not by what they might have been and so far Wii just couldn't deliever much of the initial hype.

Can I get a link to at least 10 articles (you did say most didn't you?) complaining about the Wii controller?

You can basically pick whatever hands on review you want, most of them have quite some negatives in it, some examples Heise, 1up and Kikizo. Some quotes "Using the controller with the bow & arrow for example doesn't make things much easier than using a standard controller,", "For a system whose agenda is to be more accessible, Wii sure makes Zelda complicated.". Now of course that doesn't mean that Wii will flop, but it means that programming for the Wiimote is hard if even Nintendo can't get it right for its most prominent launch title, for third party titles that could mean that the results are devestating.

No, the main thing that Nintendo has going with the Wii is that it is a unique product in a market full of generic products;

Uniqueness doesn't sell consoles, good games do. If Wiimote helps Nintendo to create better games, so be it, but there is still huge risk that plenty of games on Wii will turn out to look much worse and control much worse then on PS3 or XBox360, since they are just so many ways to use the Wiimote in a shitty way (see Tony Hawk...).

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[nissu]

Then how do you explain the success of the PS2, despite its crappy 3D? Because let's face it, except for a handfull of games such as the Gran Tourismo serie, the Gamecube is far superior to the PS2 in terms of graphics

Explaining the success of PS2 is easy: extremely strong Playstation brand, good timing and, most importantly of all, superior game library. PS2 has by far the best selection of games for any console ever. PS2 offers something for everyone, whereas Gamecube is seriously lacking in some genres (most notably shooters, driving games and non-cutesy action).

I'm not alone with my opinion that PS2 has the best games. In Gamerankings.com there are 40 titles for PS2 which have got a score of 90/100 or more. For Gamecube there are only 16 titles with a score above 90/100.

Lack of great games killed Gamecube. One or two truly great games per year is not enough - I hope Nintendo is not making the same mistake with Wii.

(and so was the Dreamcast, at least in terms of resolution)

No, it wasn't.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[poot_rootbeer]

If the games suck, Wii will flop and so far I havn't seen much to indicate that this is not the case.

You havn't [sic] seen much to indicate that it IS the case, either.

There already has been a lot of disapointment when people found out that RedSteel didn't have real sword fighting

And Ubisoft has responded by reworking the swordfighting engine to more closely track the user's movement. It's not "real" by any stretch, but gamers don't want "real"; they want to hack and slash.

what happens if you put the controller to the side in a first person shooter, will the character start to spin around like crazy? Or will there be some magic that detects when you are activly playing or be busy with something else?

"Pause button"

But so far most hands-on reporst about the Wii havn't been all that positive

I'm not sure which media you've been reading, but most of the hands-on reports I've seen have been, on the whole, excited about the potential that the Wii control schemes bring. Perhaps there is a selective memory effect at work here?

In the end, though, I agree with you. We will have to wait and see.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Moofie]

"And lets not forget the callibrarition"

How can I forget it, if I don't have the faintest idea what it is?

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[grumbel]

Hello? We're talking about Nintendo here, the gameplay freaks that will fine-tune everything until they're sure the player'll have the best experience available.

And yet people complained how they couldn't aim at the TV screen at E3, but instead head to aim below it to actually hit something. So if Nintendo can't get it right for presentation, I am not sure if JoeSmuck gamer will have a lot more luck with it, especially since calibration in 3d space is simply a lot more complicated then 2d one on analogstick or touchscreen.

It was published that third-parties wouldn't get network access till the beginning of next year. No one knows why, but that's pretty much a fact

The important thing about this is actually not so much the online in itself, but the fact that third party yet again don't seem to have priority, which is one of the main reason why Gamecube tanked. Maybe not critical in the long run, but definitvly not a good start.

The DS didn't have any online game for the whole beginning of it's life, BTW

DS still doesn't have a solid online offering, sure random game matches are better then nothing, but an XBox-live killer that is definitvly not. I hope that Wii will get better, but Nintendo doesn't seem to have that much intend for real online play.

And finally the Xbox only went "Live" a year after the console's release

Which was ok back then, because nobody had solid online back then (well, Dreamcast, but that didn't turn out very successfull). Today Microsoft however has rock solid online, if Sony and Nintendo can hold up to that we have to see, but I have some serious doubt.

Have you seen the leaked Madden demo video? Me sez that the Wii has more than enough power to please the eye.

No, I havn't, but so far everything I have seen on the Wii wasn't exactly impressive. It didn't look bad, but neither did it look that much better then average Gamecube game.

Now don't get me wrong, I like the Wii, maybe it will turn out number one this generation, but so far I simply havn't seen anything that could really impress me on that console, neither in terms of graphics, controls or gamedesign. It has potential, but so far thats all it has for me.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[powerlord]

... (GBA without light) ...

Odd that you mention that. I bought a GBA as my first system since a SNES, and liked it at first, had a couple of games, and then I started noticing the lack of a back-light. Put the thing down, and stopped using it.

Back for my 30th I got a PS2, and have been enjoying it a lot (mostly puzzle and platformer games with a few fighters thrown in, like the Ratchet and Clank series, Kindom Hearts, Lego:Star Wars, Virtua Fighter 4:EVO).

Recently I decided to pick up a hand-held system and piccked the PSP over the DS because of my previous negative experience with Nintendo, and my positive experience with the PS2. I'm glad I did. I've been enjoying it. Being able to transfer video is great and watch it on my commute is great. The games are fun. The screen is wonderful.

I think that neither Sony or Nintendo are "Perfect", but we'll know how their consoles compete with each other, and the X-Box 360 in less than three months, and I for one am looking forward to seeing how all three systems shake out.

One thing I haven't heard many wonder about though is "lifespan for the Wii-mote". How much abuse will it take before it has a problem. This might be an issue Nintendo will still have to address.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[grumbel]

I'm not sure which media you've been reading, but most of the hands-on reports I've seen have been, on the whole, excited about the potential that the Wii control schemes bring.

Bingo! They are excited about the *potential* of the Wii, but thats is a completly different thing then being excited about what the Wii actually delivered. So far most hands on reports havn't sound half as good as those earlier ones that where based on pure tech-demos, Wii simply seems to have a hard time to hold up to the hype. Quotes like "For a system whose agenda is to be more accessible, Wii sure makes Zelda complicated." don't sound all that excited about the Wii.

But you are right, we have to wait and see, potential is there, but it also has to be used and at the moment I simply don't see that beeing the case.

Re:Can we declare Nintendo winners yet?

[Willuknight]

um, you seem to be overlooking that

1) Wii is launching with one of the biggest lineups, ever

2) almost every game that has previously been published for a nintendo game system, will be ableible cheaply, for the wii.

My daily naive question

[UbuntuDupe]

Blu-ray was the main reason gamers weren't able to get the new machine last spring: The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.'"

Blu-ray was the *main* reason? So, otherwise, they were basically ready to launch before May? So, a bunch of launch titles had *already* been completed by developers and should have had full functionality at E3, and it's possible to send reviewers ready-for-gaming (but crippled) PS3s with these games? And the "tilt controller" was ready to go then?

Is it just me, or were several other equally important issues preventing the Spring launch?

Re:My daily naive question

[Yvan256]

Maybe the "tilt controller" was added after they knew the whole thing was going to be delayed anyway and after seeing what Nintendo has in store (Wiimote, unknown until that point).

Re:My daily naive question

[dolson]

The Wii remote had nothing to do with the decision! Stop spreading lies! Clearly it was an innovation thought up by Sony - that's what they said - weren't you listening?

Re:My daily naive question

[Anonymous Coward]

The amazing sales of the PS2 are the real reason Sony pushed back the launch of the PS3.

The PS2 is flying off the shelves in all territories even during these usually slow Summer months. Sony could have launched in Spring without the upgraded HDMI spec and with smaller numbers of PS3s to stores. And obviously with less games, but the insane sales of the PS2 have given them the luxury of being able to chose their launch time. People like to claim the "Nextgen doesn't start until we say so" talk by Sony was just arrogance, it is really just a reflection of the utter dominance of the PS2.

We just learned that the PS2 is outselling the 360 in Germany some 27 to 1 each month, and the PS2 has outsold the 360 for almost every month in 2006 in the US.

Sony is in charge and is the sole driving force in the console industry.

Re:My daily naive question

[Das Modell]

TFA:

Sony's logic seemed ironclad: Not only would the hi-def drive's huge storage capacity allow for far-more-realistic and complex games...

Hah. Realism and complexity isn't restricted by storage capacity. I've yet to see a game that takes up two DVDs (GameCube's discs excluded), and if a game fills up one DVD, they'll just use two.

Re:My daily naive question

[Travoltus]

True, but imagine how much storage space is taken up by those multitude of 15 minute Final Fantasy cinematics (you know, the ones that happen between every five or so battles your character wins). If they cut that out we'd have mo chocobo, mo chocobo, MO CHOCOBO!!!

Re:My daily naive question

[ProppaT]

You can add to the list the fact that Cell processor yeilds are still pretty low, relatively speaking. Back then it would have been futile to even think about producing enough for launch without jacking the price of the system through the roof (as if they haven't already).

Re:My daily naive question

[slofstra]

Your post sounds suspicious so I ran a search on the WSJ. An article posted on 28 July 2006, states:

"The games division, Sony Computer Entertainment, reported a 26.8 billion yen operating loss in the April-June quarter due to research-and-development costs for the PlayStation 3. Division sales fell 29% as fewer consumers bought PlayStation 2 consoles in anticipation of the next model."

Re:My daily naive question

[BAKup]

We just learned that the PS2 is outselling the 360 in Germany some 27 to 1 each month, and the PS2 has outsold the 360 for almost every month in 2006 in the US.

How many of those are replacements for ones that have died, and the people want to keep playing the games they own?

Re:My daily naive question

[oGMo]

Not to mention spring is a terrible time to launch a gaming console. It's a big expense... and most people spend their biggest at Christmas, not during the spring (when wallets are likely still hurting from last Christmas). The other PS consoles have all had end-of-year launch dates.

Re:My daily naive question

[Lonewolf666]

Since I am not hearing complaints about the PS2 dying en masse (yes I live in Germany), I guess most of those are actually new customers.

Re:My daily naive question

[Greg Lindahl]

Hint: customers in Japan do not spend big at Christmas. The Playstation 2 was released in March in Japan, and in October in the US.

Re:My daily naive question

[DDLKermit007]

Actually it's more Sony can't use rumble anymore so they HAD to put something in there. Copying Nintendo badly was the best they could do.

Re:My daily naive question

[Perseid]

Yet. We're still near launch. The more ambitious 360 games are still on paper. Give it a few years and developers will be feeling the pain of 8GB. And splitting a game into multiple disks will sometimes work. "Shiny new RPG X" will be fine. But it won't work for Elder Scrolls games or GTA games unless you want to swap disks everytime you teleport or take an airplane somewhere.

Re:My daily naive question

[blighter]

There you are!

The Great AC Sony Astroturfer!

It feels like so long since I've seen anything from you, I'd feared you'd given up the job!

No one would blame you if you had, it must be hard to come up with arrogant sounding pro-Sony stuff when so much continues to go wrong with Sony. Thankfully, you're skills at putting together authoritatively worded yet completely illogical defenses of Sony's fumblings is completely undiminished.

Let's see here:

You're contending that Sony is intentionally delaying the launch of the PS3 to capitalize on unexpectedly strong sales of the PS2? So they are going to delay the recoupment of their massive investment in the PS3 to try and grab the last few scraps of PS2 revenue? This would make sense if people who are buying a PS2 right now would not if the PS3 were in stores. But c'mon, even you, AC Sony Astroturfer, can't with a straight face claim that people buying the extremely marked down remnants of a soon-to-be-replaced console for, what is it now, $130? would instead be paying $500 or $600 for a brand-spanking new state-of-the-art new console?

The only overlap would be, as others have pointed out, gamers who are replacing broken PS2s. People who are just entering the last generation of gaming would not under any circumstances buy the next generation for 5 or 6 times as much money if it were available. That's like saying that the new Jaguar model is being delayed because Ford is busy cleaning up on sales of the Escort.

Sony most definitely dominated with the PS2, no one can take that away from you, AC Sony Astroturfer, but if you can't come up with better astroturf than "Sony isn't releasing the PS3 because they're too busy selling PS2s" then you really need to admit defeat and move onto the next astroturfing client.

This is lamer than your contention when the 8 month delay was first announced that Sony was, at that time, already constructing millions of PS3s and stockpiling them like some kind of James Bond-style super villain's secret army.

Don't get discouraged by the impossibility of your task in defending Sony. Your efforts might sound ridiculous but they're pretty good considering what you have to work with.

And you're always so darned entertaining!

I think I love you Anonymous Sony Astroturfer!

(Still wish you'd sign up for an account so I could catch all your work, though. I'd even promise to not mod you down if you'd do it...)

Re:My daily naive question

[amuro98]

Actually, releasing in the US in spring could make sense...

The problem in the past with releasing near Christmas is that the companies ran into manufacturing or supply issues, which severely restricted the number of units they could ship to stores. Yeah, so they ship out 2 to 4 million, but if the market wants, say, 8-10 million, that's a lot of waste in potential sales, no?

If they launched in the US in the springtime with their normal restricted numbers, you know they'll still sell out simply due to interest from the fanboys and the other "Just Gotta Have It!" elements. This would also give the company additional time to resolve any early supply or manufacturing issues, while they start stockpiling for the Christmas rush.

It would also give game companies more time to work on their titles so that there's actually something to play when all those units go on sale at Christmas.

Re:My daily naive question

[Moofie]

"predating anything Nintendo produced."

Where can I buy one of these PC controllers that detect absolute position, not relative motion?

Re:My daily naive question

[ravenshrike]

Already a PS3 game that is a 22 gigger. Resistance: Fall of Man. If a company has the space, and the processor power to support that space, which the PS3 certainly does, the programming will scale rapidly with the space available on portable media.

Re:My daily naive question

[amuro98]

Review of one such controller on planet hardware: http://www.planethardware.com/features/misc/logite ch_wingman_extreme/

I still see them, or a similar knock-off, on shelves from time to time.

The Wii's implementation may be better but the idea is way way old.

Re:My daily naive question

[blighter]

Don't worry, I got that you're a different AC than the guy I was responding to. Your reasonable tone and lack of arrogant shmuckiness was a dead giveaway.

Anyways. To respond to your point, I'd say your hypothesis for the delay being an intentional response to the 360's launch on Sony's part is incorrect for one primary reason. And that is that my point about how people currently buying PS2s wouldn't be in the market for a PS3 were it out also applies to the 360, abeit less so. I just don't think there's a large market segment that says, "hmmm. Well, I could buy a 360 for $400 buuuut... maybe I'll go ahead and get that $130 PS2 instead."

People buying PS2s just now are either replacing a broken PS2 in which case they might be the kind of person who buys expensive consoles (since they bought the PS2 when it was expensive) or they're people who like to wait for the very tail end of a console generation to pick up a console and lots of time-tested games for very cheap, in which case they are not in the market for either a 360 or a PS3.

I'm inclined to believe that the market for replacement PS2's is not as massive as the anti-Sony hordes would have us believe. So my guess is that an analysis of those buying PS2s now would have very little overlap with the potential market for either the PS3 or the 360.

Beyond that, I don't understand the logic of Sony "pushing back" their launch to put in "all the stuff they wanted in there to begin with" they're the ones planning their launch and they've been promising the moon since forever. I agree that it's taking them longer than they thought it would to put everything in there, but the launch delay coupled with the slipping specs (not to mention the already astronomical price) suggests that they're having trouble getting everything they want to fit in there and play nicely with each other.

I suppose it's not impossible that Sony feels they can coast on existing PS2 sales for a while while they try to compensate for the various setbacks they're facing with the PS3 launch, but I'd think it unlikely because those PS2 sales would likely be there anyway (due to the very limited overlap in the customer base for a 5-year-old, cheap, fading console and a brand new, expensive state-of-the-art console) and so Sony would only be slowing their recoup of the PS3 costs without gaining anything by it.

No, I rather think that Sony wants the PS3 available as soon as possible but has horribly misplayed this round of the console wars. We'll see if it ultimately sinks them (the extent to which they are faltering as a company and relying on the PS3 should be frightening to them) but the launch most definitely is not proceeding according to some master plan of theirs.

Re:My daily naive question

[StikyPad]

FWIW, I had the predecessor to that model. It was exactly the same, except the remote was an egg shaped joystick, and you pressed the direction button in to make a selection (not unlike the L3/R3 buttons on the Playstation controllers except it was 4-direction rather than analog). It was a horrible, horrible, clunky interface though, and you needed the TV on to do anything.

Fortunately, other Sony remotes (such as the one for my TV) could also control it effectively, at least as far as volume. I think it may have actually been able to switch inputs as well, but I can't recall for sure.

Re:My daily naive question

[dolson]

Whoosh. Right over your head.

Myth

[generic-man]

Right beneath this article on my front page is one called Ten Gaming Myths Debunked. Myth #1: "The PlayStation 3 Will Fail"

The real winners in the Sony-Nintendo-Microsoft battle for console supremacy: on-line advertisers and opinion columnists.

Re:Myth

[Sage Gaspar]

The real winners in the Sony-Nintendo-Microsoft battle for console supremacy: on-line advertisers and opinion columnists.

No shit. And the websites that repost their drivel.

Re:Myth

[necro81]

The real winners in the Sony-Nintendo-Microsoft battle for console supremacy: on-line advertisers and opinion columnists.

Not to mention /. posters.

Re:Myth

[generic-man]

Until my landlord accepts Slashdot karma points in lieu of cash for the rent, I haven't won anything. :(

First to market != invented

[ichigo 2.0]

FTA you linked to:

RCA had demonstrated a prototype transistor radio as early as 1952 and it is likely that they and the other radio makers were planning transistor radios of their own.

Granted, RCA was also an American company, but it did not do it with the help of TI.

Who cares?

[NineNine]

Who cares who is number 1, 2, and 3? Buy whatever you want. I personally don't give a flying shit what game "experts" say (that's an oxymoron, if I've ever heard one). I'm buying a PS3 because I want to.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

PS2 was ace simply because it was number 1. If Gamecube had sold 100 million instead of PS2 then Guitar Hero, Dragon Quest VIII, Soul Calibur 3 and Disgaea would be on Gamecube. It's that simple. Unless you're a particular fan of Sony/Nintendo/MS first-party games then you want the number 1 console, because that's where the breadth and depth of games is.

Of course, if you can buy them all then you should.

Re:Who cares?

[NineNine]

I don't think it's quite that simple. I think that there's also an element of which console is geared towards which demographics, because they're not the same. Nintendo is most definately geared towards kids, fox example. You're gonna see more kid games (Mario everything), and fewer games involving adult story lines (Grand Theft Auto) on Nintendo.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the PS2 has more kids games than the gamecube! That's what being number 1 is about. More of everything.

Check for yourself. Amazon.com PS2 "kids and family games" lists 565 games, same for gamecube is 270.

Re:Who cares?

[CronoCloud]

And more character based run/jump/bop/shoot/whack platformers too! Almost all the good platformers are PS2 games. Which is unreal to someone like me who remembers the NES/SNES days. Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank) AND Naughty Dog (Jak and Daxter) AND Sony (Sly Cooper) puts out three platformers... each in the time it takes Nintendo to do one? And it's not like they're low quality sequels, each game is considered as good as the first, if not better.

The PS2 is #1 with a bullet in almost every genre, more everything Because it's audience is so large it's got games in niches that other machines don't, because on the PS2 even a niche game can sell a lot of copies.

Yeah, it's all BluRay's fault

[Pluvius]

Blu-ray was the main reason gamers weren't able to get the new machine last spring: The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.

Wouldn't that mean that Hollywood is the main reason the PS3 isn't out now?

Rob

Re:Yeah, it's all BluRay's fault

[Nazmun]

-They had no playable games at that time
-The controller wasn't perfected in the E3 show that occurred after any spring launch
-They didn't have the Cell chip manufacturing primed and ready for over one million units per month (they barely have that now).

Blu-ray being the only reason for a delay my shiny metal ass!

Yes, Sony is Satan

[Mdentari]

Yes they were behind it all, all of it I say. WWI and WWII and the cold war! In every basement around the world they have shrines of man hate. The truth is out! Run you perfect, innocent ..dweebish uh I mean noble Nintento boys! RUN!

Re:Yes, Sony is Satan

[oskard]

I don't get it.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[caffeinatedOnline]

Holy astroturfing batman!

Microsofts Lead

[Ironsides]

I hate to say it, but from what I've read about the PS3 and it's cost components, it seems to me that Sony should have followed Microsofts lead and released the 1st gen PS3 without Blue-Ray. As I understand it, that alone would have allowed a several hundred dollar price cut and would make it competitive with the 360. Also, given the lack of blue lasers out there, it would help with manufacturing as well. Then, in a year or two when the Blue Ray drives have come down in price, they could release the 2nd gen PS3s with Blue-Ray. One revolution per generation seems to be enough.

One thing I'm curious about. I wonder if one reason MS delayed shiping the 360 with an HD-DVD drive was to see if Blue-Ray would come out on top over HD-DVD and make sure that they didn't support the losing side prematurely. Basically, even though MS says they are commited to HD-DVD, if it flops they could just put Blue-Ray drives in the 2nd gen 360s instead.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[Babbster]

One thing I'm curious about. I wonder if one reason MS delayed shiping the 360 with an HD-DVD drive was to see if Blue-Ray would come out on top over HD-DVD and make sure that they didn't support the losing side prematurely.

Nope. There were two reasons Microsoft decided to go DVD instead of HD-DVD for the 360: The first is the obvious one, which is cost. They were already looking at an expensive device with the new CPU, graphics and continued inclusion of a hard drive - this had already caused them to create a second SKU without the hard drive. Adding HD-DVD would have driven them into PS3 pricing territory, and that's a bad route for "second place" to take. The second reason is that HD-DVD wasn't any more ready for "primetime" than Blu-Ray at the time MS wanted to produce and ship and the 360.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[illumin8]

I hate to say it, but from what I've read about the PS3 and it's cost components, it seems to me that Sony should have followed Microsofts lead and released the 1st gen PS3 without Blue-Ray. As I understand it, that alone would have allowed a several hundred dollar price cut and would make it competitive with the 360.

What you said is really insightful because it made me think that Microsoft got to market first because they had the flexibility to choose to use an existing, working format like DVD, where the hybrid Sony, part media giant and part electronics/gaming company, thought they could not make their media business unit profitable without including Blu-Ray.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[Keeper]

There is a 3rd reason: performance. A 12x DVD drive has better seek and transfer rates than any currently available blue-whatever-laser based drive.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[mgblst]

Sure, good point, Sony could have done this. But I really believe that Sony are taking a much longer view. They are not worried about the present, because the PS2 is still selling well, better than the new Xbox. So they are still raking in money from that sale, and the PS2 games.

The PS3 is a future product, they could probably hold of selling it for a while - the longer you leave it, the more people will be interested in buying a new console if they just bought an xbox, and the cheaper they should be able to make it. But they have gone for a better strategy, start selling it soon, at a really high price tag, to get those few people who are willing to pay for it. The market for the PS3 will really hit big in a year or two, when the price comes down, and everybody is hungry for a blu-ray machine.

This is the Movie business, where profits have to be recooped in the first few weekends. They are still making moeny from the PS2 year after it was released, they are looking at a similar strategy for the PS3.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[richman555]

I agree, mostly because most people do not care at all about formats. The consoles have become too forward reaching in terms of technology.

Re:Microsofts Lead

[Babbster]

Yeah. I guess I consider that a pretty marginal advantage given the way people have been willing to put up with PS2 load times. Frankly, since modding my Xbox and playing my games from the HD I can't even tolerate Gamecube load times which are generally shorter than those in a stock Xbox (which, of course, is faster than those in a PS2). :)

Re:Microsofts Lead

[Keeper]

It isn't a marginal advantage. These machines have 8-16x more ram than their previous generation cousins, meaning the speed of the drive will have a much larger effect on load times.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[aesiamun]

*Linux*

Yes because little Bobby's mommy is going to shell out $100 more than the most expensive XBox360 or $250 more than the Wii because it has the ability to run Linux.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[The_Pariah]

"Sony has been stockpiling hundreds of thousands of BluRay drives to launch in a couple million PS3s in November. "

Wouldn't Sony need to be stockpiling millions of BluRay drives for millions of PS3s?

Rather biased title here, no?

[jonabbey]

I don't think the original article describes the PS3 effort as 'faltering' so much as 'really risky'.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[leland242]

You should've posted using your login, not AC. You made a valid point and actually said some positive things about the PS3.

However, most folks don't have $1700+ bucks to spend on a console. (you have to figure a game and sales tax in that total).

Sure, they offer a low-rent bluray player and top shelf kit... But is their offering actually a reflection of what people want?

I hope the PS3 is successful

[Joe_someone]

IMHO...... I know it probably goes against the grain here on this discussion, but I personally hope that the PS3 is successful. There are so many great franchises on the PS2 that I don't think would be the same on any another console. Gran Turismo, Devil May cry, Onimusha (even tho there was a Xbox version), Ace Combat, MGS, Socom just to list a couple. I don't care what market analysts and joe blow say, they're all human, and humans make mistakes. What if they're all wrong with their "educated guesses", "predictions", and "assumptions"? Can they take into account how many people will buy the PS3 regardless of it's price just because they are brand loyal? Can they accurately predict the demise of the PS3 based on legalities of the hardware? If sony sorts out all of it's legal problems with Blu Ray, and manages to put a Blu Ray player in the homes across the world, will they really fail? Call me a sony fanboi or what you may (even though I own an XBOX, and have owned a gamecube, dreamcast, PS1, SNES, gameboy, gameboy advance, and atari), but I for one, would love to see the PS3 succeed.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[buffer-overflowed]

Right, because the move to Sony ruined so many old Nintendo franchises. Like Final Fantasy, man 7 really sucked, it just wasn't the same. And Viewtiful Joe, that sucked ass when it went to the Playstation too. Oh and Dragon Warrior, man, those sales were never the same. Resident Evil 4, when Capcom moved the series over to the cube, that game just freakin' blew. Oh, and let's not forget Metal Gear went completely downhill when Kojima took it off the MSX. The list of games ruined by Sony is just like endless man.

Your argument is shit. See the thing about Sony and video games is that they produce so little actual content they could vanish tommorrow and the impact would almost be nil. No more Gran Turismo, no Jak/Daxter game each year, no Sly Cooper game each year, no Socom... and that's it(and yes that's the difference between Sony's franchises and Nintendo's, 1 a year like a freakin' megaman or madden versus one or two per console generation). Their system, style, etc. is pretty much completely forgetable, it's generic consumer goods and it even taints some of the third party stuff a bit. Look at your list, it's two Sony franchises(solid, but utterly generic and niche to boot[Gran Turismo in particular is to racers what Madden is, only it actually has competition, and Socom is destroyed by many other franchises]), two Capcom franchises, a Namco franchise and a Konami franchise(that went seriously downhill with the 2nd installment of the modern reinvisioning, and no, 3 didn't redeem it). Fuck Sony.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[Joe_someone]

^^^ why all the hostility dude? I just said that some of those games won't be the same on other consoles, and I hope that the PS3 does well. Did sony do something really really bad to you or something? You don't have to play all those games or even look at a Sony at all if you want. I said it was just my opinion and wanted sony to do well.....chill dude.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[ArmyOfFun]

There are so many great franchises on the PS2 that I don't think would be the same on any another console.

What would've been lost if any of the games you mentioned were ported to the XBox or GC?

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[Joe_someone]

Of the list of franchise that I posted, I only car for one really, and that's Gran Turismo. dont get me wrong, the other games are awesome, but like Bufferoverflow stated, GT is a niche game for car enthusiast, and I am a car enthusiast. I have not seen another automotive game on any other console that comes close the the level of realism of GT 3 and GT 4. Forza, Sega GT, and others have not impressed me at all (beleive me, i've played a lot of car games). GT's level of realism, the driving physics, the amount of detail put into the cars, tracks, user interface, environment have no equal on any other console. The novelty of being able to put body kits on your car in Forza is appealing, but that alone does not save it from being an inferior game to GT4. Because of that, I don't believe that the Xbox is capable of producing the same results that Polyphony and Sony can produce. Call it good programming/developing on Polyphony's part, but I think the GT series will either live or die on the Playstation and the Playstation alone. The look and feel of the game just wont be the same on an Xbox. I am one of those die-hard sony fans that will go out and buy a PS3 JUST for the next iteration of GT. I however will not discount or put down the other consoles just because they are non-sony. I have nothing to say on the future of the PS3, other than I hope it does well. PS - To bufferoverflow.... I don't know if I read your post correctly, but I beleive you called the GT series a "1 a year franchise" I don't see how it could be a "1 a year" franchise when there are only 4 iterations ( 1 and 2 for PS1 and 3 and 4 for PS2) of the game available in North America (a couple of spin-offs in other parts of the world). If I read your post incorrectly, I'm sorry. Just my two cents.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[ArmyOfFun]

Your original post boiled down to "It would be a shame if the PS3 failed b/c many great games on the PS2 wouldn't be the same on other consoles". Now it seems you're saying "It would be a shame if the PS3 failed b/c many great game series (especially GT) would no longer exist".

I don't believe that the Xbox is capable of producing the same results that Polyphony and Sony can produce.

I can buy that Microsoft is incapable of developing a GT killer, but I don't buy the argument that the Xbox is incapable of running a GT quality game.

In the end, I think all you're saying is that you will buy a PS3 because you know there will be at least one game on it you want to play that will not be available for any other system. To me, that's the only argument that matters, and that factor is what will decide which consoles do well and which fail.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[Pluvius]

If Sony failed hard enough to be forced out of the console hardware market, it probably wouldn't survive.

So I guess the answer to your question is "It would be worse because it wouldn't exist."

Rob

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[Joe_someone]

I do agree....I'm not saying that the XBOX cannot run a GT quality game, cuz we all know that the XBOX has more muscle than the PS2, it's just that there is no racing game of GT quality game out there on the XBOX (PGR, Forza, Sega GT ect). The other franchises that I've also stated are great games, and i do beleive that they will always be better on the playstation. i don't see God of War being ported onto Xbox, I don't see tekken series ported over to Xbox, what about the next killzone? i know there are killer apps for Xbox (Halo, fable etc) and Wii (Mario, Metroid, etc) as well, but it's the sony games that are exclusive to sony that will always make me pick the Playstation over the Xbox. I'm waiting for the PS3, that's why I haven't bought a 360 yet.

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[Joe_someone]

If polyphony digital thought that they could have put out a better game on the Xbox, I'm sure they would have at least ported over a copy of GT3 or something (unless it was due to legal/licensing issues between polyphony and sony). I dont beleive that the Xbox is capable of rendering the photo-realistic environments you see in the GT series. I mean, sure, the xbox has more muscle than the ps2, but have you compared Xbox's "answer" to GT4 (forza) to GT4? have you seen how realistic the cars and tracks/environments in GT4 look compared to forza? can good development/programming really make that much of a difference given how outgunned the PS2 is compared to the Xbox?

Re:I hope the PS3 is successful

[drewmca]

OK, I'll bite, if the xbox admittedly has more muscle than the PS2, how would great games "always be better on the playstation"? I can understand your argument that the games you like are on PS; that makes sense. But games that could run on both: how are they better on PS? There's no argument, especially if you admit that other systems have more horsepower. For example, there's no reason why Tekken couldn't be ported over to xbox. How would it then "always be better" on PS?

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

[Sage Gaspar]

My life for Aiur!

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

Falter? There are only two places Sony and the PS3 is faltering...the daily Zonk tirade here on Slashdot and teamxbox.com.

You conveniently left out "Any place which discusses video games".

Gamespot, GameFAQ, Penny Arcade, PVP, all of them think the PS3 is a white elephant. A bunch of people in the traditional early adopter group say they'll buy it, "eventually, when the price comes down".

All together, it looks like It's going to be Microsoft and/or Nintendo in the lead, with Sony left in the dust.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[eln]

Since that exact same comment has been pasted into every article about the PS3 for weeks, I'd say that's pretty much all the rebuttal it deserves.

Is It Me

[colonslashslash]

Or, is this anti-PS3 shit is getting really old? Every day we get the same thing.

I'm the last person who's going to sit singing Sony's praises, but let's be real here. The damn thing hasn't even been released yet, and we are seeing articles / summaries all over the place telling us how the PS3 has failed, and how they've made huge mistakes with the console.

Perhaps they have, but don't under-estimate the average consumer. The PSX and the PS2 were massive successes, and Playstation has become a brand name in the home. Many, many people may buy them purely based on this brand recognition. Hell, maybe they won't. I don't know, but neither does anyone else. Let's wait and see before we keep jumping in and slating it. The X360 hasn't done amazingly so far considering it's the only next gen console around, and the Wii may not entice people who look at the X360 / PS3 graphical capabilities.

Disclaimer: Like a lot of people here, I am planning to buy the Wii at the moment.

Re:Is It Me

[Joe_someone]

I agree with you. Let's wait and see. I am still hoping that it does well.

Re:Is It Me

[Thanatos69]

It has been said many times that the wii isn't even trying to compete with the 360 and the ps3.

Pretty sure I don't speak for everyone but I'm just waiting for the price of the 360 to come down for xmas. I think the biggest shift I have seen with people is the kids asking for a 360 for xmas... I haven't heard any kids ask for a ps3 yet. Not that I talk to kids a lot (you know, dirty hands and what not), just friends' kids, my brother and his friends... Flash back 5 or 6 years and all you heard kids say was that they wanted a ps2. You could argue that they aren't the ones buying it and it's the adults but kids do still have a lot of say when their parents are looking for something for xmas. Then you look at all the pissed off people from other Sony fiascos it is quite easy for everyone and their dog to predict a ps3 loss.

I'm not predicting a loss, I can't even commit to trying to predict a loss. I personally can't read everyone's mind or look into the future to see how the release goes. Even after this year we can't predict a winner... maybe late 2007 early 2008.

Re:Is It Me

[Jerf]

how they've made huge mistakes with the console.

It's also worth pointing out that no major operation ever proceeds without "mistakes". I scare-quote "mistakes" because a lot of mistakes are often pretty subjective, too; for instance, it's too early to say that "Bluray is a mistake" because given that the console hasn't come on to the market yet, it could yet be every bit the success Sony is hoping for. But no major operation proceeds without more-or-less objective mistakes being made, too.

Merely pointing out "mistakes exist" is basically saying nothing. Some attempt to quantify the extent of the mistakes needs to be made, and a demonstration of some "non-mistake" option needs to be made. For instance, many people insist on perfection in all dimensions, and will simultaneously claim that a screen being too dim is a "mistake" and a too-short battery life is a "mistake", even though the two are in diametric opposition and there is no physical way to avoid making at least one of those "mistakes". Note I am using this as an example, so that means we're assuming other constraints prevent the other solutions like "larger battery".

Sony's problems at the moment are merely suggestive; prognosticating problems is a fun and entertaining pasttime and I've done it myself. But calling the contest over is overstepping the evidence by quite a lot.

People ought to take more responsibility tossing around the "mistake" label. It's easy to call something a mistake, it's a lot harder to demonstrate a better option. (Especially one that could have been chosen with the available info at the time the decision had to be made. This constraint is optional, but I for one have a harder time getting upset at a "mistake" that couldn't have reasonably been avoided without 20/20 hindsight.)

Disclaimer: Yeah, I'm probably gonna buy a Wii and neither of the PS3 or the XBox 360 as well.

Re:Is It Me

[Lisandro]

I'm the last person who's going to sit singing Sony's praises, but let's be real here. The damn thing hasn't even been released yet, and we are seeing articles / summaries all over the place telling us how the PS3 has failed, and how they've made huge mistakes with the console.

    Meh. There's no point in arguing if you're going to show common sense!

    (Great post BTW)

Re:Is It Me

[tompatman]

Everyone is quick to talk about how the PS3 will fail, but I'm not so sure about that anymore. There's a lot to criticize Sony for, but the PS2 was a success to spite it's problems, and all the negative publicity the PS3 is getting now will only compel everyone to go check it out as soon as it hits the shelf. Even if they have to drop the price to sell more of them, how long do you think it's going to take before they can mass manufacture it cheaply? Not long.

Re:Is It Me

[eddy]

>Many, many people may buy them purely based on this brand recognition.

Let's play it out:

"Hi, I want to buy a PS3 based purely on brand recognition."
"OK. That'll be $499, Sir."
"Umm... how much is the Nintendo offering?"

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[MrJynxx]

your points are a little off and it appears your using your magic 8 ball again. Also I swear I've seen an identical post on another sony bashing article a few months back..

"sets are dropping in price like mad right now. Every electronic store is pimping 1080p sets with older sets getting pushed into the back. You will almost certainly be able to get a 1080p set for less than a grand by the start of next year. And here comes Sony with the cheapest 1080p HD BluRay player"

uhh yea ok buddy, dropping like mad. After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store. And they didn't even have anything that could drive 1080p at the time. So I doubt this point has any merit what so ever for driving sales of the PS3.

another bad point

"HD-DVD sales are in the toilet, while Sony has been stockpiling hundreds of thousands of BluRay drives to launch in a couple million PS3s in November"

so they're stockpiling hundreds of thousands of bluray drives to launch a couple million PS3's. Anybody else see what's wrong with this statement? what about the other 1.5million PS3's that will supposedly be ready?

"Pre-orders are stronger than the 105+ million selling PS2 - and the demand is greatest for the 60gig/HDMI PS3"

Ah this must be the mystical 8-ball I was referring to. Where the hell did you get this information? Also NO MAJOR RETAILER HAS YET TO HAVE ANY PRE-ORDERS. Maybe it's different in Japan, but since I don't live there I can't comment on it.

Look, I want PS3 to be kickass, make me grill cheese and do my homework. But if they don't get they're shit together and stop being arrogant assholes they're going to fall like sega (Next gen doesn't start until we say so, ok buddy, piss off).

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[Pluvius]

However, most folks don't have $1700+ bucks to spend on a console. (you have to figure a game and sales tax in that total).

Jesus, I knew California had a high sales tax, but that's ridiculous.

Rob

Nintendo was the bully when it was king

[jchenx]

I totally agree. Nintendo definately did a lot of bullying themselves, when they were the King of Console Gaming. I remember when Sony started this little thing called the PlayStation, nobody believed in it. But developers flocked to it, one reason was due to the licensing and censorship issues they faced in Nintendo at the time. (Anyone else remember the Mortal Kombat fiasco?) That was also the time of $60-80 video games, and this is NOT at today's prices.

That said, I think (maybe more along the lines of "hope") that the Nintendo of today is far different than the bully of years past. But to all the fanboys who think that Nintendo can do no wrong, they need to remember that these are still corporations we're talking about. Not people. They all will do what it takes to make money. Part of it, though, does mean treating customers with respect, and doing the right things for gamers, so that they'll come back to you time and time again. I think that's what Sony has lost (and arguably, that's what toppled Nintendo back then too).

Re:Nintendo was the bully when it was king

[Guspaz]

It should be noted that the PlayStation was originally supposed to be a Nintendo/Sony partnership. The device was to essentially be a hybrid device that supported both SNES and CD-based media. It was only because Nintendo literally backstabbed Sony that Sony started down the path to creating what eventually became the shipping PlayStation.

Just think, if not for Nintendo's arrogance, Sony wouldn't be the market leader that they are now (instead, they'd be part of the partnership that was the market leader), and Nintendo would be the other side of that partnership. Things could so easily have gone so differently.

Re:Nintendo was the bully when it was king

[KDR_11k]

Some say Sony wanted a cut of the game royalties (or even all of them?) which Nintendo found unacceptable.

Sony story

[jbeaupre]

I've heard that the Sony radio was a little too big for pockets. So ... Sony had custom shirts made for the sales staff that had larger pockets. "See how nicely it fits in a pocket?"

Can anyone confirm or refute this story?

Re:Sony story

[kirun]

It sounds as likely as the story that 3" disks were invented because 3.5" disks didn't fit into standard Japanese envelopes.

3" disks were clearly invented because who needs 800k, 178k should be enough for anyone!

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[trdrstv]

Nintendo is a very different company since Yamauchi left. Iwata is a very different person with a different style of management, and different views.

I'm not saying 'they can do no wrong', but Yamauchi retiring was a good thing for their company.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

I've noticed that Iwata is not the senile old man that Yamauchi was, and that Nintendo has made as many good decisions in the past couple of years as they made in the whole decade before that. But they still make bad decisions, such as calling the console "Wii." And they've also been forced to do other questionable things simply because of the position they're in, such as making a gimmicky controller in an attempt to tap the non-gamer market. So pardon me for not being optimistic.

Rob

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[BAKup]

After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store.

One 1080p TV from Outpost.com (Fry's Electronics) for under $1000 right here.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4860630?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Is there any way to blame Microsoft for this?

[LibertineR]

I mean, come on. If only to protect my Slashdot Karma?

Throw me a bone, dammit! I AM trying....someone HELP me!

Re:Is there any way to blame Microsoft for this?

[AlgorithMan]

I'm sure MS were the ones that delayed the blue-laser shipments - because Windows Hastalavista wasn't ready to support it - YEAH, THATS THE SAME THING THEY DID WITH INTEL! ;)

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[kirun]

Slashdot has a high concentration of Linux users. So, where's the counter-fanboying, the cries of OMG PS3 RUNS LINUX IT MUST BE COOL!!!!ONEONEONE? Could it be that just putting Linux in a shiny box isn't enough to impress people these days? Shocking, I know!

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[InsaneGeek]

Too bad it won't take a 1080p signal. You've fallen for one of the great wonders of the video world, advertising scalled inputs resolutions while actual native input resolution being something different hidden amongst the fine print.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Abcd1234]

And they've also been forced to do other questionable things simply because of the position they're in, such as making a gimmicky controller in an attempt to tap the non-gamer market.

Yeah, no kidding! It's like that other gimmicky thing they came up with that was supposed to appeal to non-gamers... the, whatsitcalled, the... DS! Yeah, that's it! Man, where's that ridiculous thing, now, I wonder...

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

There's one little difference between the DS and the Wii. Let's see if you can figure out what it is. I'll give you a hint: Before the DS was released, the GBA had a marketshare in the portable gaming market of close to 100%.

Rob

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[powerlord]

First off, I'm not sure why the comment above is marked as a Troll, except perhaps the last bit knocking Zonk and Slashdot, and that is really more of Flamebait.

As far as specs go, the parent is pretty much on the money, although I'm not sure if Sony has announced about things like 1080p over component, we haven't seen what their on-line system is, and "we" (as a community) feel a bit burned after the PS2's "Linux Support".

On the other hand ...

- backward compatibility is something that Sony HAS shown it "gets" (as opposed to MicroSoft's XBox), and that opens up a huge library of playable games from day 1 (similar to the advantage the DS has over the PSP, yet people seem to remember it on the handheld but discount it on the console).
- I'm not sure if we've see a web browser announced for the PS3, but considering they got one in the PSP I wouldn't be surprised ... does it matter though?
- The prices on 1080p TVs are dropping like stones. The set that used to cost upwards of 10,000$ is now in the 2,000$ range. Is this higher than most people will spend? Sure. On the other hand, as the price drops it enters more people's buying range. As that happens, things like HDMI output, 1080p resolution and Blu-Ray DO become significant. The mandatory hard-drive is also a neat feature to have for hooking in extra content (or caching parts of a game that you might be working on).
- Yes, its a computer, but one available in only one configuration (the size of the hard-drive, and how it connects to the net should be transparent from the perspective of any program running on the OS). Isn't that all ANY console is?

I expect Sony to do a lot better than Slashdot expects (which seems to be as well as the Dreamcast).

From the launch of the iPod:
CmdrTaco's editorial on the launch under the News Blurb, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
Comments went on to include:
"Unfortunately $400 is about twice as much as I'd want to pay for something the size of a pack of cards." , "iPod is a good product, but nothing to get excited over."

Not all the comments were negative, but if I went by those comments alone, I doubt I would predict that people are starting to consider the iPod as a monopoly product.

Why don't we wait until the PS3 launches, and then we can see how it does? (oh ... right ... the "pundits" need to pontificate)

failures of the 1990's?

[Eil]

Wired has an excellent analysis of Sony as it struggles to overcome the failures of the 1990s

Sorry, what? I admit I only skimmed the article, but I don't recall Sony's video game business in the 90's being any kind of failure. I can clearly remember the whole video game community having itself a good hearty laugh when it was first announced that Sony wanted to sell its own video game console. Many tried to challenge the market domination of Nintendo and Sega before, and all had failed. Then the Playstation comes out and Nintendo and Sega are forced to take a few steps back, asses in hand.

The Playstation was a smashing success. It was only after Sony proved that an "outsider company," with no previous experience in video games, could dominate the scene that Microsoft decided to give it a go. (The MS definition of "innovation.")

I really hope the Wii does well. Nintendo has a long history of revolutionizing the gaming industry and it will be good to see something original again. I skipped the whole Dreamcast/PSX2/XBox generation of consoles partly because I grew up and partly because it was just a wholesale rehash of the 32-bit generation with a few more polygons.

Re:failures of the 1990's?

[Babbster]

Um, yeah, the Playstation was a huge success and everyone (even this writer for Wired) knows that. Unfortunately, at the same time the PS was rocking, nearly everything else Sony touched turned to shit.

Next time, I recommend you read the article instead of skimming it.

Re:failures of the 1990's?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

That article's talking about Sony's electronics division as a whole. Unfortunately the article on Wired's website doesn't include the charts from the print article as they more aptly depict the massive decline in sales (revenue?) that they've experienced.

One key point from the article is about Sony's cash reserves of just over $6 billion. Goldman-Sachs has predicted that the PS3 will cost Sony just over $2 billion through Q1 of 2007.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Abcd1234]

I fail to see how that addresses the point that their "gimmicky" device, as it was originally declared, has ended up a smashing success, that has won over their naysayers while actively *expanding* their market to non-gamers, just as they had hoped.

Put another way, the success of the GBA doesn't explain why the DS has gone from "gimmicky" to cool, and has gone from a device that a GBA owner might buy to something a DS owners' mom wants.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Abcd1234]

The pedigree for the Wiimote consists of the Power Glove and the Philips CDi remote, neither of which were ever considered laudatory efforts.

Both of which were primitive technology compared to what we have today being used with platforms that really didn't benefit from the device. In this world of 3D gaming and high quality motion sensors, something like the Wiimote makes a *lot* more sense.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

It does explain why nearly every portable-games developer signed onto the DS even before it came out, though.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

See, that's why I said "questionable" instead of "completely retarded." Unlike most of the fanboys around here, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm not a psychic.

Rob

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I agree with you that what you see online doesn't greatly reflect reality, and that people online have unrealistic sense of self-worth.

If you talk to people who do market research more and more of their work is going online and gauging public preceptions of a product because of how accurate it is; I met a guy who's entire job was going online and reading web-forum posts, assigning various (weight) values to them, and comming up with a popularity index for a particular product. If done well you can anticipate what product is going to become the next DS Light/iPod Nano and what is going to be the next nGage.

What the internet really represents is a collection of loosely defined sub-cultures that may overlap; the opinions you find online are very representative of these groups in real life but are not representative of the general public. For example, if you go to a rock-snob website they'll bash Brittany Spears but the general public still likes her "music". What is very clear with the PS3 is Sony has upset (through various actions) the hard-core gamer and geek population; being that these groups are heavily represented in the early-adopter crowd one would expect that the PS3 will have great difficulties selling their system at launch.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Abcd1234]

So, presumably you bring this up because you feel this isn't true for the Wii, despite big players like EA being interested?

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[Perseid]

So...if I don't support Sony and Blu-Ray I'm a communist now?

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[iammichael]

After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store.

One 1080p TV from Outpost.com (Fry's Electronics) for under $1000 right here.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4860630?site=sr:S EARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Too bad it won't take a 1080p signal. You've fallen for one of the great wonders of the video world, advertising scalled inputs resolutions while actual native input resolution being something different hidden amongst the fine print.

True 1080p does exist without needing to go to a super high end store. Westinghouse has a 37" 1080p LCD panel that takes 1080p input -- the LVM-37w3. It's not under $1k, but it's pretty close: $1299 from Crutchfield. I bought mine from BestBuy after having them match the price at my local store.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[masklinn]

So what? The DS' stylus was still called a useless gimmick, the PSP was coming with a better screen, a higher resolution and much better 3D processing (no batteries though).

As soon as the PSP was released people started shouting that Nintendo was deadn that the DS was ugly, bulky, and had awful graphics.

Want to see the result? Here are the top 10 japanese game sales for Aug 21 - Aug 27:

1. NDS FF3 - 503.051
2. NDS NEW SMB - 65.556
3. NDS Rune Factory - 42.210
4. NDS Brain Age 2 - 41.784
5. NDS Cooking Navi - 37.326
6. NDS Tamagotch 2 - 30.504
7. NDS Mario Basketball 3on3 - 30.355
8. NDS Animal Crossing WW - 30.023
9. NDS Brain Age - 22.866
10. NDS English Training - 17.465

My my my, 10 out of 10 for the DS, for a total of 318089 games if you leave out the Final Fantasy III sales (would be cheating to include them, after all Square Enix managed to sell 330000 games in the first 24h, and the whole japan was out of stock on the initial 500k units batch after 4 days)

The DS and it's touchpad were "gimmicky controllers" in "an attempt to tap the non-gamer market"... and they filled their role perfectly, the japanese release of the DS Lites in January was the first time I saw sizeable numbers of women and "elderly" (50+ people) queuing for the release of a gaming system.

I don't think the Wii is a bad product name, it's less frightening and much funnier than "Revolution" and appeals to a much wider audience, plus the minimalistic logo is downright beautiful in an Apple way.

I don't think the controller is gimmicky either, nor do I think that they were somehow "forced" to do it, Iwata and Miyamoto just don't work that way. They wanted to create something different, to go back to the core of their business (having fun playing your games) and if my DS Lite (and the endless praises of UbiSoft in general and Michel Ancel in particular) are any hint, they'll win their bet beautifully.

Sony's fortunes

[Doctor Memory]

From the summary:

Sony is counting on the PS3 turning around the company's fortunes

So Sony, who owns motion-picture studios, music labels, and manufactures sh!tloads of consumer electronics gear besides the PlayStation line, is depending on the PS3 to reverse its downward slide? Anybody know what percentage of Sony's profits come from PS sales? Can it even be broken down that far, or is it just lumped in with the other consumer electronics gear?

Sorry, I have a hard time believing that just one product can make or break a company Sony's size.

Re:Sony's fortunes

[xwin]

Sony Computer Entertainment accounts for over half of Sony Corporation revenues. So yes playstation can make or break the company.

Re:Sony's fortunes

[HappyEngineer]

The article says that Sony has 6 billion in cash reserves and that "Sony will lose nearly $2 billion on the PS3 by the end of this fiscal year in March".

Furthermore, the article says that Sony doesn't make a profit (overall across the entire company) in most years.

It's pretty amazing. They manufacture gobs and gobs of products and still do not make a profit in most years.

I don't know about make or break, but those numbers make it sound pretty significant.

Re:Sony's fortunes

[feyhunde]

PS3 is suppose to make blue ray the it thing. If they sell 10's of millions of PS3s, as well as games, and get us to buy all our dvds again as blue ray, then they will make a hell of a profit.

If the PS3 tanks, that means the major force keeping their consumer electronics division going will tank (which has been taking a bath as cheaper and/or better products are killing their sales). The company expanded and expanded and bought and is now bloated enough that the management can't keep up. They have too many lagging divisions with their gaming division being the one source of major profit for the last few years. If it dies, they are going in deep.

It's similar to VU's woes, a massive conglomerate that owns everything from Warcraft to movies, to NBC and the french phone system. While World of Warcraft might pull in hundreds of millions in profits, that money off sets the losses of every Spyro game they make driving that franchise into the ground. Not to mention the games division propping up failing music stores.

Re:Sony's fortunes

[ravenshrike]

What are you supposed to do with cash reserves? The hottest companies are the ones willing to risk cash reserves. The companies that hoard cash reserves tend to be the ones that go into slow decline unless they have a steady product without much competition. True, a third of cash reserves is pretty steep, but if it pans out it will be a major long-term victory.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[AKAImBatman]

But they still make bad decisions, such as calling the console "Wii."

Are you kidding me? That's the most incredible viral marketing campaign ever to hit the console industry! I swear, my dog knows what the Wii is, thanks to all the juvenile jokes that are spread about it.

The name is accomplishing its intended purpose. To advertise to folks who are traditionally "non-gamers". And it's managing to harness viral marketing without directly making Nintendo look juvenile. (A big problem with a lot of the viral marketing campaigns.) In short, it's not stupidity, it's genius.

Texas hold'em analogy

[strider2k]

Think of Sony playing a game of Texas hold'em. They're betting all of their chips and going all-in. We don't know if they are packing pocket rockets or unsuited 2 and 7.

I don't remember the exact quote on the movies Rounders but it goes something similar to this: "You can't earn what you can't put out on the table."

For Sony's case, they're risking everything to double, triple, 8x their income or bust.

Conflicted.

[Kadin2048]

As an admitted geek and Linux fan, I'm torn about what to think of the PS3. On one hand, I hope that it succeeds, because that means later I'll be able to buy one to play around with; the whole Cell architecture seems cool, and it's seemingly the most powerful of the next-gen consoles. However, I'm definitely not a fan in any way of BluRay, so that's poisoned a lot of the goodwill I might have had for the platform. It seems like a cheap bundling trick to try and push their DRM-laden, BetaMax-on-a-disc format. I just can't trust anything from that company any more, and I've been burned by their proprietary formats in the past, and the BluRay/PS3 combo stinks of "we want to own you." (And if there's one company I don't want to own me, it's Sony; inventor $60 proprietary HandyCam power plug.) I think that company has vastly outlived its usefulness, and it would be better for everyone involved if it split up into several different independent organizations. If bankruptcy, driven by the cratering failure of the PS3, is what it takes to achieve that, so be it.

I've never been much of a console gamer (or any gamer at all, really), but the Nintendo system seems most intriguing from a bang-for-the-buck perspective; plus I suspect they might have some fun games. I'm wary of this new controller, though. And it seems like it would make a much less capable Linux box and home server, which is something I always keep in mind when I'm looking at gaming devices: when I'm done gaming, I want it to do something else. Obviously I'm in a very small minority in caring about this, though.

The best possible outcome from all this would be that somehow, due to some gigantic economic miscalculation, Microsoft and Sony just annihilate each other and the world becomes a better place. Wouldn't that be nice?

Perhaps a new name will help

[Hamoohead]

I propose that Sony dump the name PS3 and adopt a new name. How about Elcastation?

Stringer is the wrong man for the job

[gamer4Life]

He is a media guy in charge of an electronics company. The media division is why Sony is in this mess in the first place. DRM and anti-copying technology for the sake of protecting it's media business is what's killing Sony.

"I bought shares in mighty Sony," cried a woman whose holdings had lost nearly two-thirds of their value. "What are you going to do about this?" It was hardly an unexpected question, and Stringer answered as best he could. Citing runaway ticket sales for Sony Pictures' The Da Vinci Code and the remarkable success of the Bravia digital TV line, he argued that Sony has entered a period of reemergence.

His answer shows his thinking. All he knows is media. He has no idea that the media division is crippling the hardware. If it weren't for Sony's disdain for mp3s, they could have easily came out with an MP3 player and beaten the iPod. That's worth more than a whole year's worth of blockbuster movies.

Blame Howard Stringer and his media cronies for infecting Sony. They've helped their positions by helping the media division at the expense of Sony's core strength - electronics.

Re:Stringer is the wrong man for the job

[Willuknight]

please mod parent up, i used all my points on another artical :(

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[FatherOfONe]

"hh yea ok buddy, dropping like mad. After checking bestbuy.ca and futureshop.ca I found 1 1080P HDTV and it was not 1000 bucks, it wasn't even close.. I've only seen a 1080p TV in a super high end audio/video store. And they didn't even have anything that could drive 1080p at the time. So I doubt this point has any merit what so ever for driving sales of the PS3."

1080P sets at 37" are now going for around $1300. Go to FRY's and look at their 1080P sets, and the blu ray disc. The Westinghouse is around $1,300 online now. Granted some of the freaking demo isn't in 1080P, but the parts that are look great. Suffice to say 1080i and 720p sets are falling drastically in price because most HD buyers will opt for the 1080P. When you see a 1080P signal compared to a 1080i or 720p, you can definately tell a difference, even on a 37" set. At 50+ inches it is far more noticeable.

"so they're stockpiling hundreds of thousands of bluray drives to launch a couple million PS3's. Anybody else see what's wrong with this statement? what about the other 1.5million PS3's that will supposedly be ready?"

You miss his point. They will CONTINUE to produce the drives, but they have been working very hard to make sure they can meet their goal of 6 million PS3's by March of next year.

"Ah this must be the mystical 8-ball I was referring to. Where the hell did you get this information? Also NO MAJOR RETAILER HAS YET TO HAVE ANY PRE-ORDERS. Maybe it's different in Japan, but since I don't live there I can't comment on it."

Some places are taking pre-orders, but OBVIOUSLY Sony can't control that. What the grandparent is refferring to is the fact that places like Best Buy, EB et all, have requested as many as they can get and Sony is VERY VERY VERY comfortable that 4 Million units by Christmas will not be enough, but it is all they can produce. Let me turn the question around. Do you honestly believe Sony won't sell every unit they make this year? Nobody in their right mind thinks they won't. Well except for some Nintendo and 360 fanboys.

"ook, I want PS3 to be kickass, make me grill cheese and do my homework. But if they don't get they're shit together and stop being arrogant assholes they're going to fall like sega (Next gen doesn't start until we say so, ok buddy, piss off)."

Ok, they produce the best machine they can. Most argue that it is the only true "next gen" system. As the grandparent poster mentioned all the things you get with it, and he left out that they will be supporting OpenGL. What more do you want? They are selling the units at around a $200 to $300 loss per unit (estimated on various sites). They are going to loose over 1 BILLION dollars this year because of the PS3. They "hope" that they will make it up, and they will market the hell out of the box. Would you do any different? Do you honestly expect Sony to not market the machine to death?

The exact same people that are bitching about the PS3 are the same ones who tend to rush out and drop $500 on a new video card for their PC. OR they wouldn't buy the PS3 even if it was $200. The fact remains that Sony will sell all 6 million units by March of next year. That will be 6 Million Blu Ray players out, most of which are hooked up to HDTV's. Those people will then want to watch movies on their new device, and they will go to Netflix or BlockBuster and get their movies.

So Sony cements Blu Ray as the dominate platform, and gives gamers a great system for 2006 and early 2007. They can then decide "if" they need to lower the price...

Lastly, the PS3 won't do your homework, make food or have sex with you. No console will, but fully expect good marketing people to try and get you to believe that it will "virtually" do all those things. But remember this, without Sony, there would only by Microsoft and a little Nintendo. Sorry Nintendo fans, but in the world of HD, the 480P signal won't cut it.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

What do you mean by "interested"? Do you mean in the same way that Square was "interested" in the Gamecube, so they decided to release a throwaway game that most people didn't like for it, while continuing to release their major games only on the PS2?

The marketshare of the previous system has a massive impact on developers' perceptions of the new system. Only three companies have had huge losses of marketshare between generations:

1. Atari (Atari 2600->Atari 7800): The Video-Game Crash of 1984 happened, caused by some spectacular mistakes by Atari such as lack of control over third-parties, poor quality assurance, and spending tons of money on movie licenses.

2. Sega (Genesis->Saturn): A bunch of boneheaded decisions, such as developing overpriced and underpowered addons then cutting off their support early, and allowing the base that they'd built with the Genesis to slip away in the process.

3. Nintendo (Super Nintendo->Nintendo 64): Developers got fed up with Nintendo's hostile policies towards them. This coupled with Sony's new console, which was actually given to them by Nintendo, turned the company from 800-pound gorilla to has-been in just a few years.

There are no indications that Sony has yet made any mistakes regarding the PS3 that are quite of the magnitude of any of these. The worst thing anyone can say about it is the price, which is really not a huge deal considering what eBay looked like when the PS2 came out. And as someone said before, Salon made the same arguments against the PS2, and look how it turned out. Of course, it should also be noted that even if the PS3 were to fail, it's far more likely that most of its marketshare would go to the XBox 360.

As for Nintendo, certainly no one can say that the DS was hindered by mistakes. The dual-screen setup was questioned (and indeed has turned out to be mostly a non-factor) and the launch was shaky, but these are not problems that developers will be turned off by, especially when the only competition was the PSP, which was also beset by a number of problems.

But the Wii is different; it's in the opposite position of being third in the American marketplace. Just as a top company has to make horrific mistakes to fail in this market, so does an underdog have to win some stunning victories to make a giant leap to the top. Again, the best thing that people can say about the Wii for certain is that it has a low price, at least compared to the alternatives. The controller is all potential with very little substance as of yet. And getting ports from ubiquitous companies like EA is not exactly the same as stealing Square from Sony as they did to them ten years ago.

Rob

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[masklinn]

Have you ever stopped to think that just maybe some gamers might want a game machine that will take full advantage of their expensive HD systems?

Not for a second.

What was Sony going to do, put a regular DVD player in their system?

If it drops the prices of the console by a third? How about yes?

Is that called innovation?

Uh... you lost me there. You're not trying to imply that higher resolution + more storage = innovation are you? Cause if you were I've got bad news for you: my computer has 4 500Gb hard drives, and I can play in 2560*1600... I guess my currently available computer is somehow more innovative than your currently-non-existant PS3 isn't it?

I'm sure Sony has learned their lesson from the MiniDisc fiasco.

Yep, just as well as they learned their lesson from the Betamax fiasco before launching the minidisc and the memory stick.

Besides, Nintendo has always had their own disc or cartridge format, so what's the difference?

Mmmm let me guess... The N64 got beaten by the PS1, the GC got annihilated by the PS2 and the Wii uses perfectly standard DVDs?

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[Mr EdgEy]

similar to the advantage the DS has over the PSP PSP has a GBA emulator

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

So what? The DS' stylus was still called a useless gimmick, the PSP was coming with a better screen, a higher resolution and much better 3D processing (no batteries though).

Yes, sort of like how the PS3 is being called a giant waste of money while the Wii is coming out cheaper and with a unique controller.

Do you see my point now?

I [don't] think that they were somehow "forced" to do it

They definitely were. Perhaps they think that it's a good idea, but they were still taking market considerations into account when they came up with it. Nintendo simply can't compete directly with either Sony or Microsoft as is, so the only way out of the hole is to do something different to grab people who don't play consoles or games in general. If Nintendo thought that it would make them money, they wouldn't bother with radically changing the hardware and instead focus on making the creative games that they've always made. Better to be creative in that way than to take a big chance on a controller that makes porting to or from your system prohibitively hard and doesn't necessarily add much to your games. (Instead they would've released the Wiimote as an accessory with some game, say Twilight Princess.)

The funny thing about all of this is that Nintendo is basically saying "screw you" to its current fanboy base, and said base still doesn't realize it.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

Four words: Snakes on a Plane. And it's still a stupid, juvenile name, no matter what you may believe.

Rob

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[InsaneGeek]

That one has quite a lot of buzz around it, I'm still waiting to do the upgrade until HDMI 1.3 gets into sets. The Westy's have had some interesting "lockup" issues and when the HDMI guys have said the new spec "caused a few bugs" with HDCP, I'm not ready to jump on the bandwagon yet. I would be seriously pissed if my 1.2 HDMI TV wouldn't be able to talk to my new 1.3 HDMI device because HDCP wasn't talking just right with 1.3 (I'm especially more wait-and-see after reading about all the current HDCP issues let alone adding a new HDMI spec).

Re:Yeah...

[powerlord]

What is very clear with the PS3 is Sony has upset (through various actions) the hard-core gamer and geek population; being that these groups are heavily represented in the early-adopter crowd one would expect that the PS3 will have great difficulties selling their system at launch.

Nah. All it means is that the people who are "upset" are more vocal.

Scan through this thread, there are lots of responses from people who are sick and tired of the "Hey, its Sony, they tried to put DRM on my computer! Like I'll ever buy a PS3!" From the same crowd that would continue with "Now let me go play GTA:SA on my PS2."

I think a lot of the "Hard-Core gamer and geek population" might be ticked at Sony, but are also waiting to see what they come out with. Also remember that because the PS2 did so well, and moved beyond those 'traditional' groups, there might be more early-adopters who got hooked on the PS2, and are itching for the PS3 and what they see it can bring them.

If only a fraction of the PS2 owners buy a PS3, then the launch will succeed. The hard-core gamer and geek crowd doesn't have to be that fraction, if a game has some good buzz, some people want a next-gen player for their new HDTV, and some people want to get "the latest and greatest" then even without those traditional crowds, the launch works.

We keep talking about Nintendo moving beyond the traditional gamer market, and how gamers are aging so that more of the population can be considered "gamers", but I don't know if anyone has really though about the impact that these things have on the traditional launch demographics.

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[amuro98]

The XBox 360 supports HDTV and uses DVD.

Explain how Blu-Ray - by itself - will result in better HD gaming? Sure, Blu-Ray discs have added space vs. DVD, but we're seeing HD capable games on the 360 fitting on a single DVD with no problems. In fact, most PS2 and XBox games barely filled half filled a single layer DVD.

RPGs, which could run into problems with storage capacity, have been released across multiple discs since the days of the PS1, so this would hardly be something new to the market.

As for Nintendo's discs vs. Blu-Ray/HD-DVD, Nintendo's format is ONLY used to play games. Not videos. Sony expects to use the PS3 to help launch Blu-Ray into millions of homes, but this then means if the PS3 flounders, Blu-Ray is basically dead in the water.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Abcd1234]

What do you mean by "interested"? Do you mean in the same way that Square was "interested" in the Gamecube, so they decided to release a throwaway game that most people didn't like for it, while continuing to release their major games only on the PS2?

No, I don't mean that at all, but that's a really nice straw man you set up, there! Well done!

The marketshare of the previous system has a massive impact on developers' perceptions of the new system. Only three companies have had huge losses of marketshare between generations:

Yes, you're right... only three of the *biggest companies in videogaming history*. Gee, that's not significant at all...

There are no indications that Sony has yet made any mistakes regarding the PS3 that are quite of the magnitude of any of these.

Other than coming out a nearly a year late with a product that's at least a hundred dollars more expensive than it's nearest competitor while tying it down to a media format that has the potential to completely flop in the marketplace while adding frankly unneeded expense. Did I mention that the product is also tied to hardware with very low yields, and exceedingly high development complexity? Heck, I haven't even touched on their apparent disdain for their customers (rootkit, anyone?)...

But, you're right, that doesn't necessarily spell immediate disaster for Sony, and I'm sure the PS3 will see some success in the market place (probably on par with or moderately better than the 360). But I really think Nintendo has a chance to significantly increase their market share this time around, both by cutting into the Sony/Microsoft customer base, *and* by expanding the market itself.

Virtual Boy? Power Glove?

[jchenx]

Yeah, no kidding! It's like that other gimmicky thing they came up with that was supposed to appeal to non-gamers... the, whatsitcalled, the... DS! Yeah, that's it! Man, where's that ridiculous thing, now, I wonder...

There are plenty of other "gimmicky" things that Nintendo has released that quickly went no where. Anyone else remember the Virtual Boy? Or the Power Glove? You could also mention the Power Pad, which got popular for a while, but unfortunately nothing ever came of it. (You could say that it eventually morphed into dance pads, but Nintendo's not the one responsible for the popularity of games like Dance Dance Revolution)

It's still way too early for either critics or fanboys of the Wii to declare any sort of victory. It is a bit tiring to hear fanboy after fanboy laud over how Nintendo can do no wrong, and how the Wii will conquer all. As interesting as I think the Wii is (and I will probably buy one at launch), I think it's silly for anyone to be convinced of its success, especially with all the risk involved. Some of the naysayers aren't really even critics, they're just being skeptical (which I think is quite acceptable), yet the Nintendo fanboy reaction and response is often quite overwhelming.

A year from now, one of two groups (the naysayers or the fanboys) is going to look like geniuses. The other ... not so much.

Re:Virtual Boy? Power Glove?

[Abcd1234]

There are plenty of other "gimmicky" things that Nintendo has released that quickly went no where. Anyone else remember the Virtual Boy? Or the Power Glove?

As I've mentioned elsewhere, these devices were poor because the technology sucked and they brought nothing to the games. The wiimote, OTOH, looks to be a genuinely interesting innovation in 3D control (in the console arena, anyway), facilitated by significantly improved motion sensing technology.

It's still way too early for either critics or fanboys of the Wii to declare any sort of victory. It is a bit tiring to hear fanboy after fanboy laud over how Nintendo can do no wrong, and how the Wii will conquer all. As interesting as I think the Wii is (and I will probably buy one at launch), I think it's silly for anyone to be convinced of its success, especially with all the risk involved. Some of the naysayers aren't really even critics, they're just being skeptical (which I think is quite acceptable), yet the Nintendo fanboy reaction and response is often quite overwhelming.

I completely agree. But I really don't think the wiimote, or Nintendo's 'non-gamer' strategy are reasons to be skeptical. It all comes down to one thing: the software. The real question is, will fun, quality games come out for the Wii that will be able to leverage it's capabilities, while appealing to Nintendo's target market. If, like the DS, the answer ends up being 'yes', I think Nintendo has a real shot and revitalizing a (IMHO) stagnating market. Otherwise, it's unclear to me what could happen to this next generation, as, even in the absence of a successful Nintendo, I think we'll see a decline in Sony's market share, while MS's 360 is languishing in mediocrity.

Re:Virtual Boy? Power Glove?

[Pluvius]

But I really don't think the wiimote, or Nintendo's 'non-gamer' strategy are reasons to be skeptical. It all comes down to one thing: the software.

Absolutely. And the Wiimote and Nintendo's non-gamer strategy are reasons to be skeptical about the software.

Otherwise, it's unclear to me what could happen to this next generation, as, even in the absence of a successful Nintendo, I think we'll see a decline in Sony's market share, while MS's 360 is languishing in mediocrity.

Indeed. This generation blows.

Rob

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[MrJynxx]

Good points and thank you for viewing my post and commenting insightfully.

Since I live in Canada our market for 1080p is quite small. Futureshop which is one, if not the largest electronics retailer in canada (aka. bestbuy) is only offering two 1080p sets which are VirtualHD 1080p(i suspect they're not true 1080p)
http://www.futureshop.ca/marketing/ps3/04.asp?logo n=&langid=EN , sorry I was off on my estimate of 1. Personally Im' not going to refresh my HD set for quite sometime, and if your willing to shell out 600USD for a gaming console I'm quite sure you already have an HD set and will be in a similar situation.

I agree 100% PS3 will be sold out for quite sometime and we'll be in the 360 shortage that was experienced last year. But everyone is commenting that PS3 is really the only next gen system. But what REALLY makes it any different than the 360? Ok, it may have some unproven and really interesting components(cell, blu-ray) but that doesn't mean it's next gen. I actually believe next gen really is HD and of course Wii controller which has changed the way you interact with the console. I do have a 360 and viewing all games on a large high def HDTV is really pleasant and actually breathed new life into my projection HDTV.

Honestly I will own all consoles just because I can afford it, but that's me and not your average person who looks at this stuff and thinks "what is all this techno crap, i just want to play!".

Now what will be REALLY interesting is how these systems will be 4 years out once the devs fully understand the ps3. I suspect that is what Sony is banking on, but getting to that point is going to be really painful for them.

here is a fairly decent spec sheet from futureshop as well. http://www.futureshop.ca/marketing/ps3/04.asp?logo n=&langid=EN

MrJynx

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[nexarias]

Thank god all these online communities predicted success for Snakes on a Plane.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[masklinn]

Yes, sort of like how the PS3 is being called a giant waste of money while the Wii is coming out cheaper and with a unique controller. Do you see my point now?

Unless you're point is that the PS3 will get it's ass severely kicked, i fear not.

Nintendo simply can't compete directly with either Sony or Microsoft as is,

More like they opted out, they didn't consider it viable. Nintendo sits of a huge pile of cash and could have tried to compete on the pixels and so on offering. Iwata and Miyamoto just decided it wasn't worth it. And it's not in Nintendo's philosophy to lose money on hardware sales either, which both Microsoft and Sony are doing for the next generation.

The funny thing about all of this is that Nintendo is basically saying "screw you" to its current fanboy base, and said base still doesn't realize it.

Are they? Dammit, I didn't realize that full GC compatibility + virtual console + GC pad slots + "classic" controller + Good ol' mario and link meant that they were saying "screw you" to their current fanboy base.

You know what? I don't think they're saying that, just as they didn't say "screw you" to their GBA user base when they launched the DS. They're just trying to expand their audience above and beyond their usual reach.

Not that speculation's that useful anyway, let's agree to disagree and meet again in March to see who'll have won the first round.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[AKAImBatman]

Four words: Snakes on a Plane.

Seven words: Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid

Anacondas Opening Weekend
    - $12,812,287 (USA) (29 August 2004) (2,905 Screens)
    - £194,597 (UK) (14 November 2004) (157 Screens)

Motherfn' Snakes on the Motherfn' Plane Opening Weekend
    - $15,206,301 (USA) (20 August 2006) (3,555 Screens)
    - £1,069,608 (UK) (20 August 2006) (354 Screens)

Obviously the hype has had some effect. When the movie is out of the theaters we'll have to see how much it fully trounces Anacondas' numbers.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[trdrstv]

But they still make bad decisions, such as calling the console "Wii."

I'd Just like to point out that 'GameBoy' and 'PlayStation' are both terrible names, and they seemed to do alright despite of it.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

No, I don't mean that at all, but that's a really nice straw man you set up, there!

Perhaps you can explain what you do mean by it, then.

Yes, you're right... only three of the *biggest companies in videogaming history*.

And I presume that companies with large amounts of marketshare are supposed to be small?

Other than coming out a nearly a year late with a product that's at least a hundred dollars more expensive than it's nearest competitor while tying it down to a media format that has the potential to completely flop in the marketplace while adding frankly unneeded expense. Did I mention that the product is also tied to hardware with very low yields, and exceedingly high development complexity? Heck, I haven't even touched on their apparent disdain for their customers (rootkit, anyone?)...

You mean like the PS2? The only thing that you said that doesn't also apply to that system is the media concern. And even that partially applies because a big part of the PS2's market value (and its price) at the time was its DVD capabilities. Since BluRay is supposed to be the next generation of optical disc (unlike the N64's cartridges and the Gamecube's mini-discs), the analogy is not far off. Sure it has competition with HD-DVD, but the fact that that can't be played on the XBox 360 without an addon and the fact that there will be no HD-DVD games make that competition look much weaker than it did a year back.

And shut up about the goddamn rootkit already. Like Nintendo wouldn't do something similar if it had any interests in the music industry.

But I really think Nintendo has a chance to significantly increase their market share this time around, both by cutting into the Sony/Microsoft customer base, *and* by expanding the market itself.

Well, you have a lot more faith in Nintendo than I do.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

Unless you're point is that the PS3 will get it's ass severely kicked, i fear not.

Of course you don't. You're automatically assuming that Nintendo will win and Sony will lose simply because of how you feel about both companies. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty strongly anti-post-16-bit-Nintendo, but I'm still trying to keep my bias apart from my reasoning.

Anyway, the point that you missed is that the PS3 is in the same position that the DS was, and that the Wii is in the same position that the PSP was. Both the PS3 and the DS are the big consoles while the Wii and the PSP are the interlopers, and both the PS3 and the DS were widely criticized before (and even during in the case of the DS) their launches while the Wii and the PSP were hyped up as giant-killers. But the DS still has a firm grasp on the portable market with the PSP grabbing what little it can from the few portable gamers who are outside of Nintendo's marketbase.

More like they opted out, they didn't consider it viable.

And they didn't consider it viable because they couldn't do it. They even proved that they couldn't do it with the Gamecube.

Are they? Dammit, I didn't realize that full GC compatibility

Why not just keep your Gamecube?

virtual console

Those are old games. What about the new games? Oh, BTW, that's meant to cater to the old Nintendo fanbase, the guys who haven't played games in years, not the current one.

GC pad slots

As above.

"classic" controller

Which Nintendo will certainly discourage the use of for new games, since the whole system is based around the Wiimote.

Good ol' mario and link

And what else? If all Nintendo can provide to the fanboys are a few first-party franchises, with the rest of the system being designed for non-gamers, how is that not dismissive of the fanboys? "They'll buy it anyway, who cares!"

meant that they were saying "screw you" to their current fanboy base.

Well, it does. Sorry to break it to you.

Rob

I disagree - 8 GB is more than enough for now

[Chordonblue]

I think games are going in an entirely new direction - one where algorithmic interpretations overtake straight data like bitmaps and pre-rendered video.

Want to see the future? Take a look at 'Spore' from EA/Maxis. I think it's The Next Big Thing. The sheer amount of gameplay is amazing - and I'll bet it's not over 4 GB.

Re:I disagree - 8 GB is more than enough for now

[Chandon Seldon]

People have been wanting that to happen for 20 years now. It'd be great - you could store a super complex game in almost no space. The concept-demos for it have been amazing (fractally generating the entire surface of a planet down to the pebbles on the beaches in under a meg, an entire high-res FPS in under 200k).

The problem is that the people needed to build these games basically don't exist. The programmer and the artist need to be the same person - and there's no one like that for game companies to hire. And they don't just need one of these people, they need whole teams.

Until someone manages to develop one of these procedurally generated games in like three months with five people and it looks better than a modern game with $10,000,000 hand-tweaked 3d-models and textures, I think the game industry is going to just keep ignoring the whole concept and stick with the proven game development techniques they already have.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[trdrstv]

And getting ports from ubiquitous companies like EA is not exactly the same as stealing Square from Sony as they did to them ten years ago.

Although that may be true. Next gen costs go up, which by defaults means there will be fewer exclusives as companies try to hedge their bets, and recoup costs. Sony will feel the bite as they lose their exclusives. Their strongest selling titles come from EA, Square-Enix, and Rockstar, and just as People buy Nintendo for Zelda, there are people who buy Sony strictly for Final Fantasy (the core series). But if FF is on the 360 and/or the Wii ...

Sonys biggest problem

[Tharald]

Interesting article, but I think it missed a bit on the cause. It starts out good with the line "PR fiascoes tend to be a sign that nobody's thinking about the customer". That is the main problem with Sony.

Sony seems to have an extremely entrenched philosophy that says that the only way they can do well is to lock in the customer. Like the article touched on, the beta wars, the memory card wars, the mp3 wars... This attitude is amplified by their music division, and they do their utmost to lock the customers into proprietary formats. Putting this in front of giving their customers what they want is what is really killing Sony.

It is a long time since I stopped buying Sony products, even though they do have really great stuff. I also actively discourage other people from buying Sony. They promote mp3 players that dont play mp3? What the f#%k!

It is sad, but I think the unhealthy business attitude runs so deep in the company that there is no turning back. Personally I agree with the conclusion. For me its going to be the Wii.

-TN

Re:Sonys biggest problem

[lasmith05]

I was thinking about Sony's consumer electronics strategy. A pair of their most successfully products, the walkman and later the discman were amazingly successful. 1) Because they looked and worked awesome. 2) Used the industry standard media that everyone had. I remember loving my sony cybershot camera, except to get the photos off I had to use the ghetto sony picture software and a serial connection. (They didn't like usb for a long time for some reason) It seems that everytime they try and shoehorn us into their (usually inferior) proprietary formats they screw themselves. Sony makes great looking products, they just need to stop forcing consumers into proprietary shite.

LOL

[Hercules Peanut]

"The launch had to be postponed because the new format's digital rights management system did not yet satisfy every Hollywood studio.'"

Hahahhahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahhahahahaha

Whew! Wait a moment. No, oh no.......
Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha

For all of the sewing Sony has done, it's good to see a little reaping.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

Whether it makes $15M on opening weekend or $5, either way it's a piece of crap. And also not a very impressive performance, especially since it was a weak weekend. Put Snakes on a Plane up against the opening weekend of Pirates of the Caribbean and you'd have a pretty good analogy (well, as far as an analogy like this goes, anyway) for the PS3/Wii launch period.

Rob

Re: Nintendo makes tough products.

[trdrstv]

One thing I haven't heard many wonder about though is "lifespan for the Wii-mote". How much abuse will it take before it has a problem. This might be an issue Nintendo will still have to address.

Nintendo products have a good history of not only lasting long, but taking lots of abuse. Look up on you tube or something where a gamecube gets pulled down a dirt road for a while. The case is smashed to hell, but they brought it back, and it played. Also if you noticed in the E3 video where they Demo Wii-Tennis, they added a lanyard to it to prevent you from accidentially throwing the wiimote at the TV.

What I'm surprised about is nobody is questioning the PS3's Blu-Ray read spead. I don't care if it's in 1080p, the second I see a load screen, next gen fails.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[powerlord]

If you go with Homebrew, yes, it does.
If you use the native features, then no, it doesn't.

As much as the average Slashdotter might use homebrew features, I think the average PSP owner is more reluctant to flash his own BIOS.

3rd party support will be crucial

[jchenx]

Are you a Nintendo fanboy? I ask because your reply really makes it like you are. :P

Disclaimer: I am biased (see my profile), but I'm a gamer first and foremost. I love my DS (and for a long time, I was a Nintendo fanboy, during the SNES/N64 era), play a ton of PS2 games (mostly due to my love of RPGs), and there are a number of 360 games that I enjoy (most recent is Dead Rising), so I consider myself pretty platform agnostic. Now that said, here's my response.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, these devices were poor because the technology sucked and they brought nothing to the games. The wiimote, OTOH, looks to be a genuinely interesting innovation in 3D control (in the console arena, anyway), facilitated by significantly improved motion sensing technology.

Have you played with the Wii controller yet? Have you had it at home, and played it for hours on end? Over the course of at least a several weeks? I'm guessing the answer is no. I can give you the "genuinely interesting innovation", but I don't think anyone can say that its motion technology is "significantly improved" yet. Well, okay, the tech behind it might be better, but no one yet can say that it's actually good enough for practical use yet. So can fanboys stop quoting it as if it's true?

I certainly *hope* that it's vastly improved over previous motion sensors, but I'm not going to give Nintendo (or anybody) benefit of the doubt. In fact, I think what the fanboys are doing is awful for Nintendo. They're building all this tremendous hype for a control scheme that is relatively unproven yet. Please don't set Nintendo up for failure. Let the Wii stand out on its own.

I think the fanboy hype is one of the reasons why the PSP isn't doing so well. There was all this coverage on how sexy the screen was, how it could do so much, how Nintendo was finally going to lose the portable business. Yet when it finally shipped, the system itself (and its games) didn't live up to the hype.

I completely agree. But I really don't think the wiimote, or Nintendo's 'non-gamer' strategy are reasons to be skeptical. It all comes down to one thing: the software. The real question is, will fun, quality games come out for the Wii that will be able to leverage it's capabilities, while appealing to Nintendo's target market. If, like the DS, the answer ends up being 'yes', I think Nintendo has a real shot and revitalizing a (IMHO) stagnating market. Otherwise, it's unclear to me what could happen to this next generation, as, even in the absence of a successful Nintendo, I think we'll see a decline in Sony's market share, while MS's 360 is languishing in mediocrity.

BTW, that last line is what really makes me think you're a Nintendo fanboy. :)

Although we both agree that Nintendo/Wii fanboys can be over-zealous at times, I think you've actually got your reasoning backwards as to the reasons to be skeptical. If anything, I'm confident that the software, the games by Nintendo will be good. They're always good. It seems like no matter what year it is, no matter the platform, Nintendo knows how to make fun, quality games. That's almost a given nowadays.

I still think the skeptical part is the platform itself, as it's always been with Nintendo. There are just too many open questions with it. First and foremost in my mind is external developer support. We know Nintendo can make good games, but can the 3rd parties do it? Back when I was a kid, I was always defending the N64 as the superior platform to the PlayStation (boy was I stubborn!). I didn't think much of the difficulties developers were having with the media format (cartridge vs CD), or the licensing battles fought with Nintendo. But it definately did matter, and the battle was probably won the second Square announced they were now exclusive to Sony, and not Nintendo.

This time around, it's Nintendo and Microsoft that the 3rd parties are now eyeing instead, rather than being tie

Re:3rd party support will be crucial

[Abcd1234]

I won't address the other stuff since I think we can agree it's a dead horse that's been thoroughly beaten, so we'll just agree to disagree :), but I can answer this:

Are you a Nintendo fanboy? I ask because your reply really makes it like you are. :P

Disclaimer: I am biased (see my profile), but I'm a gamer first and foremost. I love my DS (and for a long time, I was a Nintendo fanboy, during the SNES/N64 era), play a ton of PS2 games (mostly due to my love of RPGs), and there are a number of 360 games that I enjoy (most recent is Dead Rising), so I consider myself pretty platform agnostic. Now that said, here's my response.

Oddly enough, no, I'm not. When I was a kid, we had a Mastersystem, followed by a Genesis. After that, I went console-less for *years*, until a year or so ago my wife picked up a used PS2 for my b-day, and even that was only purchased so we could play DDR. Since then, the only games I picked up for it are GTA, which I never play, and Spiderman 2, which I must admit is a really fantastic game.

On the PC, the last game I played regularly was probably Quake, primarily online in TF tournaments. But those days are *long* gone.

The point is, the videogame industry left me behind long ago. As the 16-bit era passed, game publishers became increasingly focused on unoriginal FPSs, RPGs, simulations of various types, and various crap with "mature content", leaving people like me out in the cold. That is, until I picked up my DS.

Since then, I've bought a bunch of titles, and have been playing videogames more than I have in *years*. And why? Because they're *fun*, damnit! They're focused on gameplay, rather than flashy visuals and gratuitous violence and low-polygon boobs in skimpy clothing. And they let me play in short bursts, rather than requiring hundreds of hours of steady attention (the 30 or so hours I've put into S2 is an oddity for me).

So, for me, the Wii looks like a dream come true! Finally, here we might have a console focused on enjoyable gameplay targeting individuals like myself, with a nice, simplified control scheme (I hate hate HATE modern console controllers), and to top it off, access to all those old titles I played as a kid (and continue to enjoy on emulators).

So maybe I am a bit of a fanboy... a born-again fanboy, if you will. Will I end up disappointed? Knowing my luck, probably. But I sure hope not. :)

Re:3rd party support will be crucial

[jchenx]

Since then, I've bought a bunch of titles, and have been playing videogames more than I have in *years*. And why? Because they're *fun*, damnit! They're focused on gameplay, rather than flashy visuals and gratuitous violence and low-polygon boobs in skimpy clothing. And they let me play in short bursts, rather than requiring hundreds of hours of steady attention (the 30 or so hours I've put into S2 is an oddity for me).

So, for me, the Wii looks like a dream come true! Finally, here we might have a console focused on enjoyable gameplay targeting individuals like myself, with a nice, simplified control scheme (I hate hate HATE modern console controllers), and to top it off, access to all those old titles I played as a kid (and continue to enjoy on emulators).

I think there's definately a growing trend to address the "casual" gamer. I say that in quotes, because a lot of casual gamers probably play games as much as a typical hardcore gamer, but the types of games being played (and the time span, short bursts vs long hours) is quite different.

Nintendo's done a fabulous job addressing this need with the DS, and hopefully with the upcoming Wii and the Virtual Console. MS is doing very well with the Xbox Live Arcade (although I am biased on this). I have to imagine that Sony is cooking up something similar for the PS3. So it's good to see that all the companies are realizing that they can't just cater soley to the 18-35 male who loves to shoot things and perform carjackings. That said, the reason why there are still a lot of those gratuitous violence and sex games is because they still sell well (take a look at GTA, for example). I'm fine with developers focusing on where the money is, after all they're only around to make money. But there should still be focus on other types of games, and it's good to see that this is starting to happen a lot more now.

Re:3rd party support will be crucial

[Pluvius]

Well, the way you describe the games on the PS2 and XBox versus the games on the DS does make you sound a lot like a Nintendo fanboy. The only thing I can't figure out is why you don't have a Gamecube. They've been $100 for years.

Anyway, since you're firmly in the target audience for the Wii, I wish you luck that it works out for you. It's just that there really aren't that many gamers that are in the target audience for the Wii, and a lot of Nintendo fans have fooled themselves into thinking otherwise.

Rob

Re:3rd party support will be crucial

[Chibi-Hikaru]

think it was you who left the videogame industry behind. Unorginality plagued the 16-bit era, everything was a platformer or sidescroll shooter.
We all grow up, and remember only the fun and originally games, forgetting about the bland uninspired derivatives that occupied most of the store shelves.

I hate this argument. I remember those awful games. Games like Bayou Billy or Splatterhouse. Just because such genres as "platformer" or "sidescroller/shooter" are old or had games in those genres that were poor that as a genre they are no longer valid. If this were the case no one would be buying a new FF game cause there's some damn piss poor RPGs out there.

It has nothing to do with "nostalgia" (we all know that's what you were thinking) but has everything to do with prefering a particular genre. I don't like FPSes, I won't buy them. I do like platformers. They don't even have to be 15 years old, they can be new ones on the DS for instance.

The thing is is that whenever anyone mentions anything that's older than the current generation they're branded as being "blinded" by nostalgia. For people like me who still play 2D platformers, shooters and other such styles of games there's not much to be nostalgic about when nostalgia requires you to have not been involved in something for quite some time.

I'm really starting to think these essential anti-2D posts are made by people who grew up with either a PSX or a PS2 and think the older games are just goofy fuddy-duddy stuff that they've only played on emulators. Yeah, there's alot of crap 8-bit and 16 bit games. Guess what, there's piles of crap PSX games and PS2 games as well. Tends to be like that with everything, be it games, music, movies, books, etc. So please, next time you feel the need to open your mouth and imply the N word, do the world a favor and keep that opinion to yourself.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

"Gameboy" and "Playstation" are generically bad, yes. But "Wii" is offensively bad. So bad that comic supervillains would thumb their noses at it. Moreover, it was a replacement for "Revolution," a better name on pretty much every level.

Rob

Re: Nintendo makes tough products.

[powerlord]

the second I see a load screen, next gen fails.

You might want to skip this generation then, and wait until the next one uses solid state memory again.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

OK, now I know you're just trolling me. What could the sales figures of Anacondas, the sequel to a universally-panned movie, possibly have to do with the sales figures of Snakes on a Plane?

Rob

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[MemoryDragon]

Only until you want to play a current game with the latest firmware....

Interesting "what if" scenarios ...

[jchenx]

Yeah, that's a very interesting "what if" scenario. I wonder, if there was really one console at the time owned by both Sony and Nintendo ("GameStation" perhaps?), would Microsoft decided to jump in? Perhaps not. Also, if Sega flamed out the same way it did, then that'd mean we'd effectively be left with one console to rule them all.

I wonder if that situation, how long Nintendo and Sony would have remained partners, or whether or not it's just inevitable for them to split. Would successive consoles have improved much over the older ones? Would we have gotten more innovation and better games, with developers better able to focus on just one platform, or less (because competition can drive innovation too).

I know it took a helluva long time for Nintendo to upgrade its portable platform. How many iterations of the original GameBoy did we have to go through, before we finally got the GBA SP? When Sony announced they were jumping into the business with the PSP, we started seeing a more cool innovations come out, like the DS. (Although it's hard to tell how early Nintendo had been working on the DS, before news of the PSP hit)

And I'll throw one more zany "what if" scenario. What if instead of Microsoft, it was Apple who decided to jump into the gaming business?

Re:Interesting "what if" scenarios ...

[tcc3]

Apple did actually. It was called the Pippin. The fact that you've never heard of it tells you how it did.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[AKAImBatman]

What could the sales figures of Anacondas, the sequel to a universally-panned movie, possibly have to do with the sales figures of Snakes on a Plane?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe because they're competing in the same market space?

You really have no clue, do you? BTW, I like your attempts to compare Snakes on a Plane's returns (campy B-Movie on a relatively low budget) to Pirates of the Caribbean (a high budget flick). Never mind that Pirates had 6 times the budget as Snakes on a Plane, SoaP must be a failure because it doesn't do better in absolute numbers. Oh, and apples are far superior to oranges. (*rolls eyes*)

OK, now I know you're just trolling me.

Considering that you have been setting up strawmen, aruging with non-points, and generally stiring up trouble in thread, I'd say this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Re:gotta get my fix

[WillAffleckUW]

Ah, finally an article about the PS3 failing. I was getting jitters because I hadn't gotten my fix yet.

Well, you must really hate the Wall Street Journal then. Cause they and Fortune both have been fairly explicit that Sony's betting the PS3 will drive adoption of the blu-Ray, but that all the analysis shows that noone's interested in buying the PS3 and are far more interested in the Wii.

Capitalism sucks that way.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[CronoCloud]

But wait, what if little Bobby (or a Sony ad campaign) tells mommy that with Linux installed on the PS3 he can browse Wikipedia, and write papers/letters with Abiword, send/receive e-mail, and edit his mommy's digital pictures.

Or what if Sony decides to market those features to mommy and daddy themselves.

"hey need a second computer, don't buy some virus prone wintel box, buy our PS3, not only can you visit the web site of your online broker, edit your digital pictures, print them out or e-mail them to family, but you can watch video, listen to music both on disc and downloaded to it and play PS1, PS2 and the new PS3 games.. All without dealing with the hassle of Windows"

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[CronoCloud]

I'll say it, but I'm one of the geeks who runs LInux on a PS2:

"OMG theOMG PS3 RUNS LINUX IT MUST BE COOL"

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[Mr EdgEy]

At which point you use the firmware emulator that lets you do that with an easy to use installer.
You don't have to 'flash your own bios'. A lot of users update firmware to play a new game anyway.

I am aware most people don't know/care about homebrew. Just pointing it out.

What if...

[Jfarro]

When reading months of internet predictions of failure of such a conosle..I wonder...

What if...

What if the PS3 does end up with amazing games which push the HD limits...
What if the controller turns out to have game support and come off as polished...
What if having two HD ready consoles pushes HD into the mainstream, dropping prices, and starts to matter?
What if they find ways to use the extended space on the format, plus the Cell processor, in ways to create games that no one else can touch?

What if the wii fails?
What if the wii controller turns out to not be fun after a short period, or gets old quick?
What if the general, non slashdot reading, mom and pop public thinks the wii is a joke, and doesn't go after it?

What if the 360 allowed open source to run on it? (this ones scary, XNA seems to be close)
What if MS pulls out of the console race? Or if someone like LG enters?

Just things I wonder when reading this. According to the internet, you'd think that the Wii will take over all else based on it's concept, the PS3 will suck balls based on it's price, manufacturing difficulty, and other problems, and the 360 will kill kittens cause it's from MS.

I can't wait till they're all out for a year, and we can revisit to see....

Re:What if...

[Guppy06]

For me (at least), the answer to all your hypothetical questions is "The PS3 still wouldn't be worth $600."

Re:What if...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

What if the PS3 does end up with amazing games which push the HD limits...

What doors would 'pushing HD to the limits' open? I'd give this point more lattitude if people were falling all over themselves for HD DVD like they were for DVD when it was released.

What if the controller turns out to have game support and come off as polished...

Later you ask about the Wii controller getting old. If Sony's 'turn detection' turned out to be a big hit, why wouldn't that be an automatic boost for Nintendo? You can aim with the Nintendo controller, something the Sony controller would be very hungry for.

What if having two HD ready consoles pushes HD into the mainstream, dropping prices, and starts to matter?

What if nobody finds HD to be worth the extra cost when it doesn't make a lick of difference to the fun of the game? Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather they sat out one more generation and stuck with standard definition. There's so much more they can do still in the smaller space. Just watch any FX-heavy movie on DVD then compare it to what modern consoles can do.

What if they find ways to use the extended space on the format, plus the Cell processor, in ways to create games that no one else can touch?

You're thinking of Resident Evil 4, right? Okay. Good example. Capcom really pushed the boundaries of the GameCube. They went all out with the best talent they could find and it turned out to be a superstar. How many of those have we seen? Not a whole lot. What if one game comes out like this on the PS3, but the 360 gets two? You won't find many companies taking that big of risk with their games. Instead, you'll find companies making games that work with both the 360 and the PS3. The magical Cellness of the processor won't matter much there. But let's suppose a game came out that did... so what? What's the Cell going to do that's going to make such a giant leap in gaming? Seriously, I'm curious to hear a technical explanation of how this could come about. We were promised this with the Emotion Engine. What'd it get us?

"What if the wii controller turns out to not be fun after a short period, or gets old quick?"

What if too many shoot-em-ups come out on the PS3 with the awkward analog controls, thus making people wish they were playing with the Wii controller instead? Okay, that's not so much of a rebuttal. It is, however, a situation I have difficulty seeing barring some technical hinderance of the Wii controller we do not know about. The fact is, we like our pointing devices. Ask any PC gamer about that. If game companies get stupid with it, then yes, it could happen. Fortunately, they're motivated NOT to be stupid by it. Look at the DS. Lots of skepticism about the touch screen controls on it, now look where it is.

What if the general, non slashdot reading, mom and pop public thinks the wii is a joke, and doesn't go after it?

Wouldn't this problem be even worse for Sony or Microsoft? When I read this question, I imagined showing my grandmother Wario Ware on the GameCube, then on the Wii. I think she'd actually try the Wii version. Anecdotal, I know, but since these questions are academic anyway... hehe.

What if the 360 allowed open source to run on it? (this ones scary, XNA seems to be close)

Hahaha. Sorry, I don't see this happening, especially while 360s are being sold at a loss. However, if you were to ask "What if XBLA took off...?", I'd have to stop and think about it. One of the things Nintendo is pushing for is development of smaller $5'ish games that you can download to the console. I don't know much about XBLA, but I've heard rumblings that would indicate it's going that way as well. Assuming I'm not full of bullshit info here, I'd see Microsoft's suc

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[r_benchley]

First, let's get one important thing out of the way: not every developer for PS2 is on for PS3 yet. Many are taking a "wait and see" attitude at the moment. Point me to the Atlus and Nippon Ichi titles in development for the PS3. Unless you consider "every single developer...and their games" to be Square/Final Fantasy and Konami/MGS, then you're mistaken.

Glad to see that you're a fan of NIS and Atlus games. However, NIS is developing Makai Wars for the PS3, and Atlus is working on a new Shin Megami Tensei game. This fall, I'm going to buy a Nintendo Wii, but I'll probably pick up a PS3 next year when some of the niftier niche titles start to make it over from Japan.

As it turned out, I used the Zonked tag

[SuperKendall]

As it turned out, however, Blu-ray has done nothing good for the PS3.

"As it turned out"? SHouldn't that phrase be reserved for somthing that has actually HAPPENED? As it turned out the PS3 as hot been released yet, so we have no freaking idea what Blu-Ray is or is not doing for the PS3!

SLashdot overcame looking foolish in the wake of the iPod success though, I guess they'll just shrug off all the doom and gloom predictions of the past even if the PS3 does well.

Re:As it turned out, I used the Zonked tag

[geekoid]

a device goes through a lot of development, testing prototyping, etc . . before release.
Therefore it's not doing it any favors if it cause problems in any of this development stages.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[ravenshrike]

No major US retailer. Several in Japan have. As well as some online retailers in the UK and Germany.

No Ico, No God of War, no Katmari....

[SuperKendall]

Your argument is shit. See the thing about Sony and video games is that they produce so little actual content they could vanish tommorrow and the impact would almost be nil. No more Gran Turismo...

Ico? God of War? Katmari Damacy?

You seem to know little of the true masterpieces that have arrived on the PS2 that leave anything on any other console (except possibly the Gamecube) in the dust. They rival many computer games and I hold them in the same esteem as the original Tomb Raider and Half Life.

That's why I hope Sony suceeds, because they've been able to attract developers that have the spark or originality I am really looking for in a game. I feel sorry for you if you've missed out on some of the more amazing expereinces the PS2 has offered.

Re:No Ico, No God of War, no Katmari....

[Joe_someone]

I concur......well said.

Re:No Ico, No God of War, no Katmari....

[buffer-overflowed]

Actually I own a PS2. I'm on my 3rd PS2(well 4th if you count the stolen one, but that's not fair) in fact(because the optics are shit, hopefully the PStwo acquired after the $600 press conference of doom actually lives to see the PS3 reach a sane price), and I've owned about 60 games for the thing(currently 35, I lost a bunch of titles during the afforementioned theft).

God of War. David Jaffe. Freelance designer. Gratuitous use of nudity Rygar(does anyone even remember this PS2 title, or did just the people with warm fuzzies towards the original NES title nab it?) rip-off. It's good for what it is, but it's nothing really special, except in the Blizzard/Nintendo area of sheer polish. Even Jaffe points this out. Oooh, nipples(in the *first* level no less) and uber-violence grafted onto a hum-drum action platformer and a typical gaming B-movie storyline. The *innovation* drips off of it. I'm sure I'll be going back to play this one in 10 years. It's fun for what it is, but it's no classic.

Ico. God, now we're going back a ways. Good game. I think I had one of the 100,000 copies they actually sold of it in the states, it's since been completely and totally outdone by Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, but it was great at the time. There's also Okage, but we don't like to talk about that one.

Katamari Damacy. Gee, this is a Namco game. Namco != Sony(are we going to include a bunch of the Tales series, Ace Combat, etc. as well?). It's also basically pac-man with a twist and I evidentally didn't do enough drugs in college to be able to really get into it(I also don't like Halo, I must be curmudgeony). Btw, on this note, Insomniac and Sucker Punch != Sony either(although they may as well be second party, they're still both independant last I checked). So there goes Ratchet and Clank(which has seen how many games in what, 5 years now?), Spyro, and Sly Cooper(same as Ratchet and Clank and Jak&Daxter).

What, no Mark of Kri(a game so badass it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry!) mention, no Shadow of the Collossus, no bringing up the awesomeness that is Harmonix(not a sony 2nd party btw) and Red Octane? We're not going to mention Rez, or Amplitude, or Frequency, or dozens of Atlus titles? No Psychonauts!? No DDR!? Wait, because almost none of them were made by Sony? They were only made for the shittiest platform out there hardware wise(not that I care, except about the atrocious load times and anti-ergonomic we only like it because we've used it for 10 years controller where applicable) because it managed to get #1 marketshare fairly early and hit that self-feeding cycle? If either Microsoft or Nintendo(or even SEGA for that matter, which had a number of awesome titles on the Dreamcast) had managed to get the bandwagon going, most of the games that make the PS2 worth owning(and thus so dominant) would've shown up on either platform. They're interchangeable, and while Microsoft doesn't do any better than Sony does from a 1st/2nd party perspective(actually they do slightly worse imo), Nintendo absolutely destroys them both.

And Sony needs to be humbled. In order to *not* fail compared to the PS2, they need to sell 100 million PS3s and counting within 5 years? At $500-$600 at launch(and really no titles in that window worth that price of entry) does anyone really think it's possible for them to succeed in this? And even if they do, with dev costs doubling or tripling and most franchises in decline(MGS3 sold less than MGS2, DQVIII sold less than DQVII, FFX FFVIII, etc.), does anyone seriously think the third party support the PS2 enjoyed is even probable, at the prices we're used to and with real quality increases in titles? They need to go through the fires Nintendo did with the N64 and cube, really beef up their internal development teams so they can truly stand alone(if necessary), and drop their hardware/marketing guys like Kaz and crew in favor of people like Ueda or Yamauchi. Maybe then they'll have more than 1 great franchise, a good franchise, an ok franchise a

Re:No Ico, No God of War, no Katmari....

[SuperKendall]

A great response, and I have to say I have played a lot of other games you mentioned but did not mention more just because I thought it was pointless after a few... I too loved Shadow of the Collosus, and bought every Rachet & Clank game (Kri for me was not as exciting).

However I have to say that in aggregate I feel sure that if Sony were not around, no other console maker could have achieved the 100 million sales figure that Sony has surpassed, and with those kinds of numbers there is simply more money flowing into the system which means more games period, and as per Sturgeons Law, the more number of total games you have around means a the greater number of the 5% of all games that are any good.

In short we would have seen some of the games on whatever other console was dominant if Sony were not around, but not all of them because the total market would simply not have as much room for so many niche gaming products.

I also disagree that Sony needs to be humbled, they have plenty of competition this round as it is and will have to work hard to achieve success much less maintain the #1 spot. Microsoft has made some good moves with the 360 (though a lot of eggs there are in the online basket) and the Wii totally depends on quality of software to pull off sales - which luckily for the platform (and for gamers) happens to be something Nintendo excells at.

Honestly this time around I would love to own all three, but instead will have a PS3 which I know will maintain some franchises I enjoy alongside new ones that may pull me in (Fall of Man?), and if there's any way to do so I'll get a Wii as well. I'd get a 360 too but I can already play PC games on my mac and the rest of the games overlap too strongly with the likley PS3 content. I am also one of those mythical people that everyone seem to think doesn't and cannot exist, who is drawn to make the PS3 a primary choice partly because of Blu-Ray and knowing how much more visually detailed real HD video is over DVD content. That to me is a pretty big draw even with a slightly sub-720p projector as my main display.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[ravenshrike]

Actually, there are essentially three groups of buyers. Those who buy a single console, those who buy two consoles, and those who buy all three. Here's the thing, of those who buy two consoles, they will generally want two consoles as different as possible. Buying a Wii and a Xbox 360 will give them limited differences, whereas by buying the Wii and the PS3 they get the greatest breadth of gaming, as well as a new format for watching shit. That is what MS is afraid of. And make no mistake about it, MS is worried. If the PS3 becomes even a fourth as successful as the PS2 was, Sony will have done well in the games section alone and will have over 26 million blu-ray drives shipped through their console alone. For HD-DVD to win the format war, the PS3 HAS TO bomb. Period, if the PS3 is even moderately successful, HD-DVD will die.

Not inconsistant or wrong

[SuperKendall]

Division sales fell 29% as fewer consumers bought PlayStation 2 consoles in anticipation of the next model.

Yes, and yet the PS2 STILL managed to outsell the 360 every month except I think for last Christmas, which is what the original poster was saying. Even despite that drop the PS2 is selling in very large numbers.

Re:Not inconsistant or wrong

[AaronPSU777]

The important difference being that the PS2 is towards the end of it's lifecycle while the 360 is at the beginning of its. PS2, figure people will be buying games on a regular basis for it for another 2 years, maybe, after that they will move onto the next generation, and the games they will be buying will probably be cheaper. For the 360 those owners will be buying games for another 5-6 years or more, and the games are selling for 50-60 bucks.

Re:Not inconsistant or wrong

[JFMulder]

So did the PS1 when the PS2 came out. At least, that's what I've been told. I don't remember the sales figures back then, and I can't find any figures to back up this. Anyone knows if this was actually true?

Re:Not inconsistant or wrong

[JFMulder]

Actually, I just thought about looking at Wikipedia, and I've found the information my other reply to my post was lacking. Seriously, Wikipedia is way better at finding information than Google now. Anyway... straight from Sony's website
Playstation 1 shipping figures
Playstation 2 shipping figures

Now, before anybody get's excited, I know that consoles shipped != consoles sold, but they are a pretty good indicator of sales anyway. And if you go to a store right now, you'll see both PS2s and 360s sitting on store shelves.

Sony started shipping PS2 on March 6, 2000. 10 months into the PS2 life span, they had shipped 6.4 million units. Microsft has shipped just north of 5 million consoles 10 months into their console life.

At the same time, Sony kept on shipping Playstation 1s. The number of console shipped from march 31 2000 to december 31rst 2000 went from 71.2 to 79.61. This means they actually shipped (thus more or less sold, face it, no stores like to keep too much unsold consoles in stock), 8.41 million consoles, while the shipped only 6.4 million PS2s.

After a year, Sony has shipped 10 million PS2 (interresting, since this is the figure Microsoft is shooting at for their first year with the 360). And shipped 9.31 million more PS1. So it nearly took a year for the PS2 to outsell the PS1.

Now, fast forward a couple of years to the 360's launch. On June 30th, Sony had shipped roughly 6.22 million consoles since the 360 came out. 21 days later, Microsoft accounced they had shipped 5 millions.

So where does that leave us. Yes, the 360 is selling less. Keep in mind that it's (360's retail at 400CAN$ and 500CAN$) between 3.1 and 3.8 times more costly than a PS2(129CAN$) and 4 to 5 times the price of a GameCube(100CAN$). On the other end, PS2(299US$) was 3 times PS1's price when it launched(99US$).

So all of this considered, I think Microsoft is doing a pretty good job.

Re:Not inconsistant or wrong

[Breakfast Pants]

Especially when you consider that one of the major markets for consoles, Japan, just isn't buying the thing.

Re:Not inconsistant or wrong

[DeeDob]

Japan is only the third market in importance for videogames.

NA is the leader,
Europe comes in second.
"the rest put together" (no offense to them) is the fourth.

I always wonder why people say that a console cannot succeed if Japan is not a success when it's not even the dominating market?

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[ravenshrike]

Actually, I think those were all seperate categories.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[detect]

Guys, the whole 1080p is better than 1080i is mostly marketing crap. I've heard plenty of people waiting for 1080p sets and waiting for the PS3 because of 1080p output. I'll let you in on some facts:

First of all the picture displayed on all new plasmas is a progressive picture, it is not displayed as an interlaced picture. Only if there is something _seriously_ wrong with your 1080i set's de-interlacer will you be able to tell the difference between the two when it comes to watching a 24fps film.

The difference between the 1080i and 1080p is that 1080i displays 30fps and 1080p displayes 60fps.

How many PS3 games do you think will actually offer 60fps at full res? Not many if they are going to be rendering complex scenes. Check out the links for more info:

http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoffreymorrison/
http://ozymandias.com/

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

But they still make bad decisions, such as calling the console "Wii."

Why was that a bad decision? It's a far better name than "Revolution" - which is so dated it sounds like a Pepsi commercial from the 1990s. They may as well have called it "Nintendo X-treme" with several exclamation points. What's wrong with the name "Wii"?

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

Moreover, it was a replacement for "Revolution," a better name on pretty much every level.

Why is "Revolution" a better name? And why is "Wii" offensively bad to you?

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[mgabrys_sf]

Of course Pundits need to put out meaningless garbage like this. August is one of the slowest months for nearly every industry on the planet, and these genetic assfucks need to do something - ANYTHING - to meet deadline and get their yummy yummy paycheck.

You actually thought this was some kind of public service? It's copy-time baby! And if you think all this bird-liner actually means dick on the actual outcome on the industry - then I've got some "Sony blows PS2 intro - Sony is DOOOOMED" articles under the parrot somewhere.

Fuck - I've never seen such a massive pile of rubes.

You'd think that they made "Snakes on a Plane into a fucking smash-hit". Oh nosies - THEY DIDN'T? Holy tapdancing fetal Jesus! And quick - go to best Buy and strike up a conversation with someone in the music section about Sony's malware and see if you get anywhere. OR better yet - get a 20 sidded die and roll your way into being KING OF THE WORLD! All are equally productive and just as relevant to the real-world. Which last I checked - is kind of Sony's target demographic come to think of it. Oh no wait - I forgot - Linux is now on everyone's desktop and you can run Photoshop on it. Silly fucking me.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

Why is "Revolution" a better name?

Because it describes the product. Because it describes the intent of the company making the product. Because even an idiot could've designed successful ad campaigns around it. There are probably other reasons that I'm not thinking of.

And why is "Wii" offensively bad to you?

Besides the penis and urination jokes? Well, it just sounds childish. That's a reputation that Nintendo of all companies definitely should want to get away from.

I wonder how many people would defend this name if Sony or Microsoft came up with it?

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

It should be pretty obvious from all of the penis and urination jokes made about it since it was revealed.

So, what's bad about penis and urination jokes? Sure they are juvenile, but it creates publicity. Aside from that, there are many people who don't immediately think "urination" when they hear the word. To a Scottish person, Wee means "small." In many languages, it might not mean anything at all.

Even with urination overtones, Wii has cuteness in spades. The name is much more inline with current trends and fashion than "Revolution" which is incredibly dated and lame. You may as well call it "World's most awesome product that makes your penis bigger" or "Socialist Revolution that Brings Utopia." People are a little more sophisticated these days than to be impressed by such grandiose names. What if it turns out not to be a revolution that changes gaming forever? Then the name will be a joke that is much more painful and biting than a few urination jokes.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

Because it describes the product.

Does it? How so? Does the machine rotate on some kind of turntable? Will it cause a social uprising to overthrow the current political order?

A good name does not necessarily describe the product. In fact, very few good product names do that. Coca-Cola. What does that mean? McDonalds? Apple? Would you argue that those would be better named "Sugary bubbly water company" or "Greasy overrated burgers" or "Shiny Computers, Inc"?

Because even an idiot could've designed successful ad campaigns around it.

Are you sure of that? I can't think of any reason that name would make a marketing campaign successful. Similar names have been used on many failed products and campaigns. I think you underestimate how difficult it is to create a marketing buzz that translates into sales.

Besides the penis and urination jokes? Well, it just sounds childish. That's a reputation that Nintendo of all companies definitely should want to get away from.

"Revolution" sounds much more infantile to me, like someone who needs to sound tough and big. Most people on this planet would love to get back to their childhood days. Cute, "childish" names are actually very popular. Most people don't take it too seriously. If you are too embarrassed to say "Wii" - then that probably indicates more about you than the product name.

After all, childishness is in the eye of the beholder. Many people will have a different impression than yourself. Many people speak different languages, where "Wii" might mean something entirely different.

I wonder how many people would defend this name if Sony or Microsoft came up with it?

Who really cares? I'm not defending the name. What I don't understand is who would attack the name? After all, it's just a product name - there are many more important things to get upset about. People who are offended by product names make up such an insignificant portion of humanity, that it is not worth a manufacturer's concern.

If the Wii was the greatest product ever, would you refuse to buy it because of urination jokes? If the Revolution was the biggest rip-off ever, would you still buy it because the name makes you feel big?

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[AlexanderDitto]

Oh no no no. Sony plans on chopping the BluRay drives into chunks: they'll downgrade the drive speeds by 10%, and then use all the left over 10%s to make enough extra drives for the rest of the PS3s!

Brilliant, isn't it? Those wacky laws of mathematics mean nothing to the great people at Sony!

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

Does it? How so? Does the machine rotate on some kind of turntable? Will it cause a social uprising to overthrow the current political order?

No, but it might keep people from being deliberately obtuse.

A good name does not necessarily describe the product.

True, but that's one of the reasons why this name, along with those of many other products, is relatively good.

Coca-Cola. What does that mean?

Cola with cocaine in it. So, um, bad example for your point, a great one for mine.

Are you sure of that? I can't think of any reason that name would make a marketing campaign successful.

Seriously? Without trying, I can think of a number of slogans that would work, for example: "Join the Revolution," "Bring on the Revolution," "The Revolution Will Be Televised," and so on. The best thing I can think of for the Wii is "Now It's OK to Play with Your Wii." I can only imagine the ads that would center around that.

"Revolution" sounds much more infantile to me, like someone who needs to sound tough and big.

So does "XBox." Seems to have worked OK for Microsoft.

BTW, I should remind you that Nintendo themselves were the ones making a big deal about how their console was going to be a revolution. "Tough and big" indeed. Moreover, the fanbase seemed to really enjoy the antics of Reggie Fils-Aime and his "Reggielution." The reaction to the name change has been rather defensive at best for most fans, on the other hand, and outright negative for people outside of the fanbase.

What I don't understand is who would attack the name?

As an example of bad decisions from the new Nintendo, I said that "Wii" was a bad name. Someone asked me why I thought it was a bad name, so I attacked it. I'm not sure what you expected other than that. It's not like I go around telling people that the name sucks for no reason, thinking about it 24 hours a day until nothing else exists in my mind and I start chanting KILL KILL KILL

Strange, I blacked out there for a minute, and my hands are bleeding. Anyway.

If the Wii was the greatest product ever, would you refuse to buy it because of urination jokes? If the Revolution was the biggest rip-off ever, would you still buy it because the name makes you feel big?

Of course not, on either score. That doesn't suddenly make the name change a good decision.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[AKAImBatman]

I wasn't aware that Snakes on a Plane was the sequel to a universally-panned movie. You know, because that's the only way your comparison could possibly make any sense.

And yet comparing it to a $225 million dollar movie makes more sense?

Anaconda was intended as a serious thriller with nearly twice the budget of its sequel. ($45 million, in case you're wondering.) The fact that it only grossed $16 million on its first weekend is actually quite pathetic. The second movie was disconnected from the first, merely trying to drum up hype based on the existing brand. It did quite well for itself on its budget.

OK, so you've completely missed the point of the argument, which is that the PS3 is the "high-budget flick" while the Wii is the "campy B-movie" with the stupid name. Fine, then.

Oh yeah. You knocked that strawman down good. I'm betting it's really smarting from that encounter. Don't forget to yell, "you don't come back now, ya' hear?!?"

[...]

Oh, and don't forget to prop it back up when you're done.

Go cry in your Princess Peach body pillow.

Insults? How childish.

Still, I suppose it could be "fun" *cough* to get "caught up" in an insult fling. Here we go...

Rob

Dude, I know you! You are Commander Rob! Wow.

[...]

Um. Are we having "fun" yet?

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[illumin8]

MOD PARENT UP!!! I finally played God of War on the PS2 and it was one of the best 20 hour gaming experiences I've had in a while. This is coming from a die-hard, 8 hour a day, PC gamer...

Re:"Tobaccowala"

[OzPhIsH]

Maybe he's from Hashyyyk?

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

I've already rebutted the first part of your post in another post. Suffice it to say that the PS2 was in a very similar situation with the Dreamcast, and everyone knows how that turned out.

The fact that Nintendo didn't sell as many systems as the PS2 is more a sign that gamers (in general) don't care that much about graphics

Or, in reality, the Gamecube didn't sell as well because it didn't have many games. So you're right, it doesn't have much to do with graphics, but that doesn't mean that the system with the best graphics is going to be the loser all of the time. The system with the highest number of fun games always wins, and there's currently no reason to think that the PS3 will have less fun games than the PS2 did, or that the Wii will have more than the Gamecube did. And if Nintendo had decided to make a system that was more like the other two in this generation, they definitely wouldn't have gotten more fun games, and they would've had to sell at a loss. Thus, it's not viable because they couldn't do it.

Nintendo has arranged a Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy game to be released early in the life of the system (although they are not "core" games in their series), have got Ubisoft to make crazy love to the system, have EA attempting to be inovative (Madden looks cool, and I bet Tiger Woods will rule, but NFS:Carbon looks like an assy control setup), and Sega is making the Sonic game people have waited a decade for.

How many of those are going to be cash-in gimmick games like FF Crystal Chronicles was, or games that are meant to cater to the non-gamer Wii audience as opposed to the traditional gamer audience on the other two systems? I believe that the number is likely to be high.

Also, hardcore fanboys like to play games for long periods of time. As I've said before, I'm certainly not professing to be a psychic, but I find it hard to believe that the Wiimote will be comfortable to use for more than thirty minutes at a time. Since it's based on absolute motion, the Wiimote makes it a lot harder to shift around, move around the room, and do other things that people do to stay comfortable. And it's not as simple as pausing the game because you have to recalibrate the controller as well. What I'm saying is that the controller design itself seems to discourage hardcore play.

Oh, and the best launch ever for a console in terms of quality was the Dreamcast's. Not good company.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

The name was designed with the English language in mind. It sounds like "We" and has two 'I's put together.

How do you know that? If it was tailored specifically for the English language, then why does it have two 'i's in a row? That is extremely rare in the English language.

The problem with that, besides what I've already noted, is that the focus of the Wii thus far hasn't been on social gaming; online is going to be pretty limited at first, for one thing. Instead, the focus has been on the "revolutionary" controller.

So, what does that have to do with the name? Names usually don't reflect function.

Says who? I'll agree that it was more popular to call things "revolutions" in the 90's, but I don't see how it's ever been popular to seriously refer to a game console as "piss." Unless it sucked, anyway.

Say who? Exactly. It's a matter of taste. Who says that the name of the console refers to "piss"? You do. I don't get the same connotation from it. The ide of "seriously" referring to the names of things is totally absurd. Most people don't take names literally. They are just sounds referring to objects. If your name is Robert, does that describe your purpose as Roberting? Or the iPod for example - how does that describe functionality? Does it mean that the iPod is some type of pea?

Then the Wii will be a footnote in gaming history and no one will care about its name. If the Wii doesn't succeed with its controller, then it will only do as well as the Gamecube did, at best.

Right. So tell me again why the name matters. If it is revolutionary, then people will use it - or not use it if that person is counter-revolutionary.

Of course, it is entirely possible for a product to be successful without being revolutionary, so your idea that if it is not revolutionary, then it will be a failure is also unwarranted. Again, see iPod as an example.

Demo writers exist - start with those...

[Chordonblue]

Read up on what Will Wright did to meet his vision of 'Spore'. He started contacting those Euro demo writers and offered them a chance to be a part of something more than just another 3D FPS in under 64K. He took careful notes on how they were constructing their demos and load screens.

The game industry must evolve to survive - people are tired of Test Drive 27 and Quake 15. The Sims - love it or hate it - has engaged the largest dynamic of users, even women like the game. The simple truth is that the way forward in gaming is the one that emphasizes a combination of exploration and sandboxing with limits that do not feel like limits. That's not something that works well with current design methodology, but it has worked before. It can be done - it will be more difficult to do it, but it can be done.

Earliest cases of in point I can think of:

1) Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer on the Atari 400/800/XL by Lucasfilm Games. With such high tech items as fractally generated terrain in real time and algorithmically generated music that reflected the gameplay, they were truly ahead of their time and I don't think anything compared to it's gameplay until Wing Commander many years later.

2) Elite Frontiers on whatever. Frontiers proved you could fit an entire galaxy on three floppies AND make it an interesting game. What game today can you fly down into a planet's atmosphere, through the clouds, and land on a spaceport? You'd think this would be commonplace by now, but it's not. Apparently, outer space is one 3D engine, the spaceport is another.

Sometimes the way forward is the way back. I personally believe that video innovation was held back by the development of bitblt enlargers because it all but mandated the use of pre-generated bitmaps and fake 3D animation. To me, game development has travelled a path not unlike cartoons from the past. From the earliest times of self-generated animation to massive gaming projects, to cheaply animated features, to movies like 'Cars' and games like 'Spore'.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[AKAImBatman]

So? Anaconda is a dumb snake movie

And that pretty much sums up your knowledge on the subject.

Ah, the usual "You're the one that started the insults, not me" deflection. Took that one right out of the handbook, I suppose.

You're so funny! (In an off-beat, don't-even-realize-it type of way.) :-P

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

How do you know that? If it was tailored specifically for the English language, then why does it have two 'i's in a row?

Because "I" is the first-person singular pronoun in English. Nintendo even put out a press release explaining all of this.

Say who? Exactly. It's a matter of taste.

I never said that it wasn't. The only thing I claim is that most people agree with me that if the Wii turns out to be a good system, it will be despite the name.

So, what does that have to do with the name? Names usually don't reflect function.

But Nintendo obviously wants the name of this console to reflect its function, as both names were references to something that the console is intended to do.

Right. So tell me again why the name matters.

Because it's what people call your product. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Of course, it is entirely possible for a product to be successful without being revolutionary, so your idea that if it is not revolutionary, then it will be a failure is also unwarranted.

Not in this case. The Wii has no legs to stand on if the controller is rejected.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

And that pretty much sums up your knowledge on the subject.

I've seen Anaconda. It's a dumb snake movie.

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

True, but that's one of the reasons why this name, along with those of many other products, is relatively good.

Hmmm. From a product selling point-of-view, having a name that describes the product is usually not a very good name. It usually indicates that you are a generic brand. The pinnacle of branding is to have a popular name that has nothing at all to do with your product, and stands on its own. Like Xerox, or Kleenex, or Apple. Descriptive names are usually poison as far as marketing goes. So much so that I can hardly even remember descriptive product names.

Cola with cocaine in it. So, um, bad example for your point, a great one for mine.

Except that Coca-Cola is carbonated water, not a tropical African evergreen plant with reddish fragrant nutlike seeds, and it doesn't contain cocaine. So, apart from not describing the product at all, it describes it perfectly.

I don't see how this makes a point for your argument. The Nintendo machine is NOT a revolution - it is a game console. If they wanted a descriptive name, they would have used "Game playing thingy" - not "Revolution" which usually refers to either a political uprising, or the physical rotation of an object.

Also, I notice that you dropped the other brand names I cited, and deliberately singled out Coca Cola. Why? Did you have problems trying to refute my other examples?

Seriously? Without trying, I can think of a number of slogans that would work, for example: "Join the Revolution," "Bring on the Revolution," "The Revolution Will Be Televised," and so on.

Precisely. All you can think of are lame cliches. I don't think anyone is going to be influenced by such obvious shite.

The best thing I can think of for the Wii is "Now It's OK to Play with Your Wii."

That just demonstrates that you are very much lacking in creativity, and would never get a job in advertising. Is that really the best you can think of? It just shows that you are so juvenile that as soon as you hear a word that can possibly be construed as relating to genitals, that's all you can think of.

"Revolution" sounds much more infantile to me, like someone who needs to sound tough and big. So does "XBox." Seems to have worked OK for Microsoft.

Funny how that sounds tough to you. Following your previous genital obsession, Xbox sounds like a vagina in a porn movie. In either case, it doesn't really matter. The fact that the Xbox is successful does not mean that the name is not infantile. How many people bought the Xbox because of the name?

You are just proving that infantile names don't doom a product to failure.

BTW, I should remind you that Nintendo themselves were the ones making a big deal about how their console was going to be a revolution. "Tough and big" indeed. Moreover, the fanbase seemed to really enjoy the antics of Reggie Fils-Aime and his "Reggielution." The reaction to the name change has been rather defensive at best for most fans, on the other hand, and outright negative for people outside of the fanbase.

Again, I don't see your point. Fanbases are rather irrelevant. Most customers aren't fans, they are just people. Most people don't have a strong loyalty to products, and don't have juvenile reactions to product names. How the hell do you know what the reaction was outside the fanbase? Somebody outside the fanbase is unlikely to comment on the internet about their impression of the name. They would be at work, or cooking dinner or something.

As an example of bad decisions from the new Nintendo, I said that "Wii" was a bad name. Someone asked me why I thought it was a bad name, so I attacked it.

Ahh, but why do you care so much about the name as to attack it? And you didn't (in your original post) explain in what way it is bad. Even if it is "bad" in your opinion, does not mean it won't be a successful name.

Of course not, on either score. That doesn't suddenly make the

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

Because "I" is the first-person singular pronoun in English. Nintendo even put out a press release explaining all of this.

That doesn't make any sense to me. "I" as pronoun has nothing to do with the use of the vowel "i" within words. And an extreme minority of human beings read company press releases to describe the naming of a product.

But Nintendo obviously wants the name of this console to reflect its function, as both names were references to something that the console is intended to do.

And what does "Wii" refer to in terms of function? I don't know of any English word spelled "Wii" - so how would I know what it is meant to describe?

Because it's what people call your product. Seems pretty obvious to me.

But why would it matter to a company? All that matters is that they make money. If they would make more money calling it "Purple flying monkey butt thesaurus," then why would they not use that name?

Not in this case. The Wii has no legs to stand on if the controller is rejected.

Why not? I'm pretty sure that the Wii has more components than just a controller. Aside from the hardware, software is just as important, if not more important than the console itself.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[ejp1082]

The DS did go head to head with the PSP, which was the first credible competitor in the handheld market for years. And I don't think the GBA has much to account for the DS's success; the DS doesn't carry the "Game Boy" brand and at the time of release, Nintendo was still actively supporting the GBA (presumably, so they could simply wipe their hands of the DS if it flopped).

There's a lot of parallels you can draw between the DS vs. PSP and the Wii vs. PS3.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

The pinnacle of branding is to have a popular name that has nothing at all to do with your product, and stands on its own. Like Xerox, or Kleenex, or Apple.

They call it Kleenex because it's clean, unlike the handkerchiefs that people used to use.

Anyway, just because some wildly successful brand names have nothing to do with their products doesn't mean that they all don't. Along with Coca-Cola and Kleenex, another example of a popular descriptive brand name is Band-Aid. And I'm sure there are others.

Except that Coca-Cola is carbonated water, not a tropical African evergreen plant with reddish fragrant nutlike seeds, and it doesn't contain cocaine. So, apart from not describing the product at all, it describes it perfectly.

"Coca-Cola (often abbreviated to "Coke") is a carbonated cola drink ... The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has been embellished by company lore, once contained trace amounts of cocaine (about 1/400th of a grain, or 0.16 milligrams, per ounce of syrup, in 1902)[2], although this was removed around 1906 as health regulations were tightened. ... Today's Coca-Cola uses "spent" coca leaves, those that have been through a cocaine extraction process, to flavor the beverage. Since this process cannot extract the cocaine alkaloids at a molecular level, the drink still contains trace amounts of the stimulant[25]."
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola

The Nintendo machine is NOT a revolution - it is a game console.

And you accuse me of being too literal?

Did you have problems trying to refute my other examples?

Why do I have to refute your other examples? Where did this turn into an argument that all successful brand names are descriptive? All I'm arguing is that a significant number of them are.

Precisely. All you can think of are lame cliches.

We are talking about corporate marketing, right?

That just demonstrates that you are very much lacking in creativity

Well, actually that I didn't care enough to be creative. It only took me five seconds to think of those Revolution slogans too, you know.

Following your previous genital obsession, Xbox sounds like a vagina in a porn movie.

Uh... You said it, not me...

You are just proving that infantile names don't doom a product to failure.

I was supposed to be proving that they did? Man, and that moron who thinks that Snakes on a Plane was a great success said that I liked to use straw men...

Fanbases are rather irrelevant.

They're extremely relevant. If you do something that turns them off, even if it doesn't do enough to dissuade them from buying your product, chances are you did something wrong.

How the hell do you know what the reaction was outside the fanbase?

Because I've, er, talked to people?

Ahh, but why do you care so much about the name as to attack it?

I don't. Do I really have to explain this to you again?

Almost nobody (even on Slashdot) was talking about the Revolution before the name change.

Bullshit! Every time a bit of news came out of Nintendo all of the blogs grabbed onto it. Everybody went nuts when the Wiimote was revealed, which was, you remember, before the name change.

After the name change, people (even if only on Slashdot) have been talking about the Wii as the console to buy over the Xbox and Playstation.

People talked about how the Wii was going to be better than the XBox 360 and the PS3 before the name change as well. That's been the prevailing opinion on /. since the next-gen hype started a couple of years ago.

Maybe the name had nothing to do with the increased attention, but it's pretty obvious it hasn't hurt it.

Among the hardcore gamers, no. But I'm not just talking about the hardcore gamers. I'm talking about the guys who don't hang around

but it runs Linux...

[m_evanchik]

One thing I haven't quite understood is why the Linux community hasn't gotten excited that the PS3 runs on Linux. The PS3 may eventually be the biggest distibution out there, might not the PS3's success aid in the proliferation and acceptance of Linux as a consumer platform base?

Re:but it runs Linux...

[kellererik]

A good point and also a moot point. It completely depends on how much can I do with the hardware as a programmer? and will I be able to give my creations to other people without jumping through too many hoops?
The former is still to be seen / heard from Sony, so, for the time being a moot point, sorry. The latter has the same status quo, nobody knows for sure.
If both questions will be answered - for developers not working for a big publisher / game studio - in a satisfactory way, then, and only then, the point you made could be a good reason to put time and effort into programming Linux on the PS3.
BTW: I'm still dreaming about a grid of affordable Cells in my apartment, but that's just me, you know. ;-)

my 2 cents

Re:but it runs Linux...

[trdrstv]

why the Linux community hasn't gotten excited that the PS3 runs on Linux.

This may sound like a nit pick, but 'the PS3 runs Linux'. It does not run on Linux. There is actually a pretty big differnce between those two statements.

The reason most people aren't that excited is that they expect it to be as significant as Linux was on the PS2.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

When that goes beyond rampant speculation, and when more developers than EA and SNK are cited, especially developers like Square, Capcom, and Konami, let me know, OK?

(Honestly, do you believe that EA won't make ports of its most popular games for the PS3 at the very least? I mean, it's EA. They port everything.)

Rob

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[dangitman]

They call it Kleenex because it's clean, unlike the handkerchiefs that people used to use.

So, why don't they call it "Cleanex" instead? Your point is extremely hard to understand, because I don't think anybody actually thinks of Kleenex as meaning "clean" - it's just a made-up word, and that's how people see it.

Anyway, just because some wildly successful brand names have nothing to do with their products doesn't mean that they all don't. Along with Coca-Cola and Kleenex, another example of a popular descriptive brand name is Band-Aid. And I'm sure there are others.

OK, this is getting more and more insane. How does "Band-Aid" describe the product. It's a group of musicians that helps people?

It's not just that some brands aren;t descriptive. It's that 99.9% of successful brand names are NOT descriptive. It is an exception to have a descriptive brand-name.

"Coca-Cola (often abbreviated to "Coke") is a carbonated cola drink ... The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has been embellished by company lore, once contained trace amounts of cocaine

So, you're saying that the brand name is no longer descriptive? Thanks for repeating my point! People buy Coke for the caffeine and the sugar, neither of which is alluded to by the product name

Where did this turn into an argument that all successful brand names are descriptive? All I'm arguing is that a significant number of them are.

That would be a losing argument. A very insignificant number of successful brand names are descriptive.

They're extremely relevant. If you do something that turns them off, even if it doesn't do enough to dissuade them from buying your product, chances are you did something wrong.

There is very little evidence of this in the real world. Fans often get pissed about changes, but then the product goes on to even greater success with the changes that pissed off the rabid fans. For example: New Coke, and Apple's switch to Intel processors. Maybe even Google's commercial ventures and advertising.

Fans usually have very little idea about what is good for a company. They often have a marked lack of perspective and ability to see the "big picture" of a company. Seriously, if you let the hardcore fans run companies, they would go bankrupt very quickly. In other words, the customer isn't always right.

How the hell do you know what the reaction was outside the fanbase? Because I've, er, talked to people?

That would be a most interesting conversation. Do you randomly go up to people who have no current awareness of a product and ask what they think about it? That must be popular. I bet it's a hit at parties.

Bullshit! Every time a bit of news came out of Nintendo all of the blogs grabbed onto it. Everybody went nuts when the Wiimote was revealed, which was, you remember, before the name change.

Well, if you're talking about blogs, then you may as well substitute "nobody" for "everybody," because that's about how much relevance that blogs have in the wider world. And I don't remember whether the "Wiimote" came out before the name change or after. But why would they call it "Wiimote" if the name of the console was still "Revolution"?

There's no way that people like that are going to see a system called "Wii" and think anything else but "DUMMEST NAME EVAR!!1

But who gives a shit? There is a much larger market out there, who can't stand those pubescent boys and their toys.

Of course, Nintendo's already got a horrible reputation among these types with its kiddie image.

That didn't stop Nintendo's success, and may have helped it. In this day and age, do you really want to associate your product with such a small and unappealing portion of the market? I don't think that most of the world's population is young males with masculinity/ego problems.

You sound somewhat like Dvorak w

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[niconorsk]

That would actually be a pretty good marketing campaign, and it would make the price point seem a whole lot more reasonable. If they do that, however, they better damn include a keyboard and mouse from the outset. Not that I think Sony are clever enough to employ such a strategy.

Why should anyone buy a PS3?

[master_p]

The diminishing returns law is valid for video games as well: after a certain limit, the machine's capabilities don't play a decisive role any more, and it is only the content that will make or break a console.

Nintendo's GameCube has very decent graphics and sound. The XBOX 2 and PS3 audiovisual experience will not be radically different than GameCube's, especially in the eyes of common folks who are not trained to see differences in pixel renderings. On the other hand, Wii offers a better way to control games, which means much better content.

Someone will say that the price of TV sets with high resolution is quickly dropping. I can not disagree. But how many people will buy new TV sets in order to play the 10 games they will buy in the console's lifetime? it is only the dedicated gamers that will spend such money. Common folks who have a varied spectrum of interests view video games as another past time, so it is highly unlikely that the advanced techology of PS3 will mean anything to them.

The advanced capabilities of PS3 is also a risk for game developers. Only really big game companies are able to exploit all of PS3's capabilities and present a game that is much better than the rest. So there are not going to be lots of PS3 games that are so advanced that will make people buy the PS3.

Sony has fell victim to its success. It is normal: every console company has a big failure after a big success. Sega flopped after the megadrive; Nintendo flopped after the SuperNES; Atari flopped after the VCS; in a similar manner, Sony will flop after the PS2.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[masklinn]

Anyway, the point that you missed is that the PS3 is in the same position that the DS was

Uh. No?

the Wii and the PSP were hyped up as giant-killers

That widely varies with the people you poll, the Wii is either extremely liked or extremely disliked (due to debatable and nearly not shown graphic abilities)

And they didn't consider it viable because they couldn't do it. They even proved that they couldn't do it with the Gamecube.

By your declaration, the GC should've been less powerful that the PS2. And it wasn't. Even though Nintendo sold it with an alledged poly count 10 times lower than the PS2 or the Xbox (difference being that the GC poly count was for fully textured ones).

They failed to attract 3rd party titles the medium was crap and it was hard to juice out the maximum perfs out of the console, but saying that the GC was less powerful than the concurrence is not even misleading, it's downright wrong.

Why not just keep your Gamecube?

Don't have one in the first place?

Which Nintendo will certainly discourage the use of for new games, since the whole system is based around the Wiimote.

True that!... wait... Super Smash Bros Brawl for Wii is a Nintendo game and it will use the classic controller because the dev team considered it was fitter to SSBB's gameplay than the Wiimote... There goes your shiny theory...

If all Nintendo can provide to the fanboys are a few first-party franchises, with the rest of the system being designed for non-gamers, how is that not dismissive of the fanboys?

Let's see. The following have been comfirmed for Wii at or within 6 months of release:

• From Ubi Soft
  • Rayman Raving Rabbids
  • Red Steel
  • Monster 4X4 : World Circuit
  • Open Season
  • Far Cry Instincts
  • Blazing Angels : Squadrons Of WWII
  • GT Pro Series
  • Prince Of Persia
  • Beyond Good & Evil 2
• EA (no I don't like them either, but... oh well...)
  • Madden
  • NFS Carbon
  • Tiger Woods PGA Tour
  • SSX
  • Harry Potter
  • The Godfather
  • And EA has announced that they have a team working exclusively on the Wii, and that more games are in the pipe (and that all of the Wii titles should be sold for $49.99 versus $60 to $70 for other platforms)
• Capcom
  • has announced that the Biohazard serie (Resident Evil) will have a Wii episode. It won't be RE5, but will be a Wii-specific iteration.

Bah, it's just annoying to create that kind of lists, so i'll just write them inline. Not necessarily a good thing but THQ is in (Avatar, Barnyard, Spongebob, Cars) as well as Midway (Blitz: the league, Happy Feet, MK: Armageddon, Rampage: Total Destruction), Kuju will release Batallion Wars II, Sega will have Bleach, Nights, Super Monkey Ball and a Sonic episode, Gnosis' Broken Saints will be on the Wii as well as Activision's CoD3, Square Enix will start with a Dragon Quest and FF: Crystal Chronicles, Bandai/Atari will have a Dragon Ball game, Namco will have Final Furlong, a Gundam game and Digimon and Tamagotchi franchise games, NTREEV's Pangya is in, a One Piece game is in the making, and of course a bunch of Nintendo titles (AC, Excite Trucks, Obstacle Course, Project H.A.M.M.E.R., Super Mario Galaxy, SSBB, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a WarioWare, Wii Music, Wii Sports).

And quite a few other devs/publishers have said that they had Wii games in production or that they were planning Wii games.

But yeah, I guess all of these are for non-gamers exclusively.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[masklinn]

When that goes beyond rampant speculation, and when more developers than EA and SNK are cited, especially developers like Square, Capcom, and Konami, let me know, OK?

A Resident Evil has been officially annouced from Capcom, and Square will have a Dragon Quest and an FF:Crystal Chronicles (as crappy as CC may be). No word from Konami

I mean, it's EA. They port everything.

And yet it's the first time they release games on a Nintendo platform since the N64. And they start with 6 games right out of the bat... using Wii controls (not going the easier path of the classic controller)

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[masklinn]

Considering that there aren't any console video game systems with equal power, YES. Some people prefer the simplicity of a console over a computer system.

Damn, at least you don't have too many expectations to label something as "innovative", must be a bliss living at you in a world of permanent and unending innovation. (hey, our processors are now clocked 10% higher, how's that for an innovation!; Innovate in your dining room, overclock your GPU!)

Seems I have something stuck in my throat..

[zyl0x]

*cough-cough* http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/30/ 1627201 *cough*

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[jackbird]

NOBODY would have gone to see "Pacific Air 121." The people saying SoaP "failed" seem to forget that.

You could just as easily argue that Samuel L. Jackson doesn't put asses in seats.

Re: Load Screens.

[trdrstv]

Most first/second party GameCube games don't have any load screens, so it is possible using a fast drive, and pre-load techniques.

Re: Nintendo makes tough products.

[Yvan256]

It's not about "loading", it's about making the player sit there and showing them "Please wait, loading".

You might want to check Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2. You'll know when it's loading but either:
- you keep control of the game and the door just won't open right away (Nintendo should have added some game-themed "opening locks" with lights or something)
- something is happening on the screen (no "loading, now at 10% and please wait another 45 seconds")

Yes, there has to be loading because of the media and the limited capacity of the machines, but it all boils down on how you do things. Ever seen the PSP game were it takes up to about 7 minutes before you actually start playing? On a portable system, no less?

Re:Not inconsistent or wrong

[slofstra]

I don't disagree with what you're saying. The stats I cite don't refute his stats. My objection is to the hyperbole, "Sony is in charge and is the sole driving force in the console industry". The WSJ article suggests that this claim isn't tenable.

When you read this post and a few that follow, it sounds like we're trying to find out who is number 1. Who is winning? Is this an answerable question? Can you even compare the 360 to the PS/2? Do sales matter, or does net income matter more?

For the game companies, it's an interesting dynamic. Coming up with a sales winner doesn't guarantee that you survive. It just lets you roll the dice one more time for the next round; your last success lets you load the dice more. I like the way Nintendo has hung in there. The big problem is getting playable and interesting games, which is a question that almost depends more on corporate culture than how much capital you have to work with.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[apoc06]

They two handhelds did go head to head. Nintendo released first and started with a 4 million unit lead. Why is that? Is it because the DS had an excellent selection of launch games? A port of super mario64 was the best selling DS game for a while, so that's debatable.

People bought the initial DS because it was a Nintendo handheld. They didn't have the library at the time, but the GBA backcatalog certainly filled that role well. Before the PSP launch, the only way to play mainstream handheld games was through a GBA. The DS didn't carry the "gameboy" name, but it certainly benefited from the "gameboy" backcatalog and the strength of the gameboy pedigree.

The PSP entered the market with absolutely no backcatalog, no prior experience, and only the strength of the Playstation name. It obviously garnered the initial "wow" factor, but the press has since turned its parent company Sony into an object of hate. This translates into people beginning to hate the PSP, as it was one of their products. In light of all the naysayers and all the negativity there are simple facts that can't be denied.

1. Since its launch the PSP has teetered between #1 and #2 in sales in every territory; beating out the xbox360 and even the PS2. Dead consoles don't beat out the PS2.

      1a. The PSP is selling better than the PS1 and PS2 did. Look at where those two consoles are now.

2. Sale numbers vs. Shipping numbers. Every PSP that leaves the sony factory for retail /is/ sold. Sony sold it to retail; other than warranty issues, Sony has already made their money by this point and will likely never see that product again.

      2a. How retail works. Retailers monitor sales of the products on their shelves. If a product is running low, you restock and order more from the manufacturer. If a product is not selling well, you simple order less or order none at all from the manufacturer. If Sony has consistent shipping requests, that has to correspond to stores trying to meet public demand.

3. Until the release of the DS lite, from the numbers Sony had ~46-52% of the handheld marketshare. I haven't seen US numbers following the release of the DSlite. So even assuming stellar sales, they are not trailing behind as bad as blogs and forums would have you believe.

Okay, so back on topic: the PS3 vs Wii. The handheld arena is much more different from the console arena. Consoles are generally more expensive and the target demographics are slightly older. Here, Sony has the larger backcatalog in terms of games available on the market. What I mean is that you can walk into thousands of game/ pawn/ stores and find bargain bin PS1 and PS2 titles. The Gamecube is the only generation that has media the Wii can read, and Nintendo Virtual Console games are only available for download online. With only ~60% of U.S. homes with internet service, many Wii users will never see the VC benefit; just as many Xbox1 users never saw the benefit of xboxlive.

The playstation name is now as synonymous with video gaming, as Nintendo's name once was. Never giving their consoles a moniker outside of playstation has been a smart move for Sony. Brand recognition for a Playstation3 is alot higher than Wii. With a two part name most just drop the implied Nintendo from the title, like we have done with the Gamecube. For non-gamers, they wouldn't automatically associate the Wii with Nintendo.

These seems like stupid minor marketing points and details, but they matter alot particularly during the xmas season. I predict that the Wii will sell well mainly due to price contrast. However, like the DS vs PSP don't expect Sony to fall totally out of place. There is alot of collective hate for Sony, but that's only here on the internet. Only ~60% of American households even have internet access to hear these kinds of rumors. Out of that percentage, it's not like 100% of those people actually care, or will let it affect their purchase. Price will be a bigger factor than Sony's corporate reputation.

There is no "second gen" 360

[Rowan_u]

This is an error that I see floating around all over the place. So here is my humble correction. Currently, there are no plans for a "second gen" 360. HD-DVD technology will be added as an external drive. Like the optional hard disk, this drive will not be used for games. Its only functionality is movie playback.

Good points

[SuperKendall]

That's a good point; I myself am not realy that interested in number one. It is an interesting question from a philisophical point of view though which console(s) will take hold in the market as they each offer kind of different approaches this round, so from my end speculation around how well any one companis strategy is working or not is more interesting.

With Sony a sales winner would be a "survival" thing though as they do need (or at least want, but I think there is some need) for strong sales to boost the Blu-Ray format. If that strategy succeeds (and I think it has a strong chance) they will be hailed as geniuses. I admire them for taking the gamble when other large companies would have stood back and not risked so much around one device.

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[bopmachine]

Where are you getting your launch title information. Last I saw in the press said 17 titles for launch... wiki reports the same. Please cite references for your info (would really appreciate it!)

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[ejp1082]

A few points:

1. What are the odds that the 40% of households that *don't* have internet access are likely to be buying any console at all? While I don't have any references to back this up, I'd be willing to bet that the segment of the market that plays games has a high crossover wth the segment of the market that doesn't just have internet, but broadband.

2. You're seriously underestimating the number of people (especially parents) for whom video game consoles are still "Nintendo's". Nintendo is still a lot more synonymous with gaming than "Playstation" will ever be.

3. In either case, you're overestimating the value of a brand; historically, it doesn't mean much from one generation to the next. If it did, we'd all still be playing Atari. Sega wrested control of the Video Game Market from Nintendo with the Genesis, and was king of the hill when it released the Saturn (which quickly crashed and burned). Nintendo's brand was unarguably huge when it released the N64, but that wasn't enough to save the system or stop another newcomer (Sony) from coming in and kicking ass. The once powerful Sega was forced out of the console business entirely, and Microsoft (which is arguably a *terrible* brand) managed to make a decent showing with the X-Box and is picking up steam with the 360. The moral of the story? Brands don't count for much from one generation to the next.

4. Back catalogs are a nice value-added feature, but people don't buy consoles so they can play old games, they buy them for the new ones. No one is going to buy a PS3 because they can play PS2 games on it (especially given that these people would logically already have a PS2 that plays those games just fine). Even in Nintendo's case where the back catalog carries a significant nostalgia factor, it's not going to sell the system in the absence of compelling new content.

5. Sony is duplicating a lot of the mistakes typical of failed systems (3DO, Jaguar, Saturn, N64, to name a few) that have come before; the high price point, the expensive, proprietary format, immature technologies, lots of negative buzz, and most importantly...

6. "It's the games, stupid." Sony is going to take big hits this round because they're loosing developers and exclusives left and right. It's the same thing killed Nintendo with the N64 generation (and arguably why the Sega Saturn failed as well); the system was unappealling to developers who flocked to the PS1, and the gamers followed. Currently, many of the exclusive franchises that drove the success of the first two playstations are either migrating to the XBox or otherwise going cross platform. The success or failure of the PS3 will ultimately depend on Sony's ability to keep developers on board. So far, they're not doing a good job of that, but I'll stop predicting doom and gloom for the PS3 should Sony manage to turn that around.

7. By that token, RE:the PSP vs. DS; the PSP has a total of 3 games that shipped a million units vs whereas the DS has 15, which I think it more indicative of the overall health of the systems than straight hardware units sold.

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[masklinn]

By your logic, Henry Ford was not innovative because the Automobile had already been invented.

Gosh... Henry Ford was innovative in his approach of manufacture, of handling employees (e.g., in paying them enough that they have a chance to buy the cars they're building), in putting a strong focus in efficiency and manufacturing speed. Henry Ford more or less invented the assembly line and mass production.

Ford WAS innovative. Even the Ford-T was innovative (steering wheel on the left, enclosed engine and transmission, semi-elliptic strings suspension, simple to drive and easy to repair)

A console with that much power has not been done before.

That's still not innovation. Innovation is the act of introducing something new, introducing "the same, but more powerful" is _not_ innovation.

The PS3 still isn't innovative.

You Rip what you Sew.

[xC0000005]

I believe you reap what you sow. You sew what you rip. (and if you suck at sewing, you rip what you sew)..

Re:State of Sony's PS3

[CronoCloud]

I hate saying this, but I don't think Sony is clever enough either, though I've posted this idea on Sony owned boards in hopes that they would do it.

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[Pluvius]

A Resident Evil has been officially annouced from Capcom, and Square will have a Dragon Quest and an FF:Crystal Chronicles (as crappy as CC may be).

I meant exclusives of games that are normally on Sony systems, since, after all, the articles cited were suggesting that companies were actually moving away from the PS3. (Of course they're going to move towards the Wii; it's there, after all.) Hell, in the case of Square even just seeing ports of its top games (instead of spinoffs) would be problematic for Sony.

And yet it's the first time they release games on a Nintendo platform since the N64.

Uh, no.

And they start with 6 games right out of the bat... using Wii controls (not going the easier path of the classic controller)


I can imagine how well that's going to turn out, too. Remember how the XBox 360 port of Madden 06 was worse than the old-generation versions?

Rob

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[masklinn]

particularly when consoles have not been this powerful before

Which doesn't matter if you're talking about innovation (especially in a general sense)

You've been using the cell processor and Blu-Ray drives for years now have you?

Sorry, but neither is innovative. Well, the cell may be somewhat innovative, but even then it's doubtful, multiple core and multiple threads per core have been existing for quite some time. Anyway having innovative components in your stuff does not make the stuff itself innovative, because as far as the "public interface" of the machine is concerned, there is no innovation.

the ability to make HD video games from disc to screen

Would you be new to this spankin' new field called computer gaming?

Re: Nintendo is different under Iwata.

[apoc06]

1. The odds are high that there is a great amount of crossover. I agree However even with the crossover, a large amount are still on dialup. The large part of the country lives in areas where they cant even anything more than dialup. Lil Jimmy being able download a 16MB copy of waverace64 on 33.6-56k, just isn't gonna cut it.

2. That was last generation. The Nintendo name going along with gaming is over ten years old. In 1992, parents were calling games 'nintendo', not 'atari' still. Parents listen to the names their kids call things, and to what they see in the media. The actual playstation name carries alot more name recognition now. The name Sony Playstation has been all over the media for the last ten or so years, because each console is called in varying degrees, 'a sony playstation'. Nintendo's media blitz has been greatly overshadowed by Sony and even Microsoft. The 'Nintendo' name has more or less been replaced by the product name; the media refers to things by: 'gameboy advance', 'gamecube', 'wii'. In a parents mind they dont necessarily make the direct connection b/w these products and Nintendo. The 'Nintendo DS' and the 'gameboy' are exclusions.

3. Brands /do/ carry from one generation to the next so long as there is a clear association. going by the market names for consoles:
xbox -> xbox360.
sony playstation -> playstation2 -> playstation portable -> playstation3.
nintendo gameboy -> gameboy advance.
nintendo -> super nintendo -> nintendo64 -/-> gamecube -/-> wii.
However, also note: nintendo -> super nintendo -> nintendo64 -> nintendo DS.

Brand recognition may not seem like a big deal to you, but there is a reason why EVERY manufacturer brings in marketing corporations to assist with new products. No, it's not the only deciding factor, but it does play a significant helping factor in public recognition and acceptance.

4. No, the backcatalog doesn't necessarily sell a system. However it is always a nice incentive. Playstation owners would be up in arms if they decided to drop BC for PS3. No one ever complained about having BC across gameboy and ds platforms. However, all you have to do is peek into any xbox forum and you will find dozens of threads over BC issues and complaints. Each time you irritate a customer, you risk losing him; just ask any ps2/ xbox360 convert.

Most early adopters of new consoles sell their previous generation system in order to make space/ earn credit towards the new expensive system.

5. Each company is making mistakes and missteps, but I will admit that Sony is making mistakes IMHO. That cant be helped, what I think their biggest sin thusfar is that they are not running damage control. Blu-ray is untested and immature, i agree. In as far as blu-ray being an expensive proprietary medium, blu-ray is thusfar a cheaper and more superior medium compared to HD-DVD. Look at the actual prices, they are cheaper or equivalent in price at worst. Blu-ray is not proprietary, second of all. Its actually less proprietary than DVD in /some/ ways.

6. Sony is not losing developers left and right. There have been less than five total cancellations of games out of ~200 announced titles. ~2% does not spell gloom and doom. Games have always been cancelled, it's not new news. The three developers that have decided to not publish for PS3, issued statements that they would not publish/ announce anything during the launch period. They are playing it safe, saying they will reevaluate based on consumerbase in '07.

What series are migrating? GTA? The GTA series has always been multiplatform. The fact that it is being simultaneously released at the same time isn't as major as say, if Sony had to wait out a 6 month exclusivity window. The recent soccer game announcements have been debunked. Pro Evo will be released for PS3 in spring [when it's done], and FIFA is aiming to be released before then. Which formerly exclusive games are migrating to xbox360? Final Fantasy? Devil

Re:Sony was to be Nintendo's hardware manufacterer

[Guspaz]

I don't recall it being a "partnership". As I recall, Nintendo was working on a CD add on to the SNES (I think it was to be called Playstation)-- all the old Nintendo systems have expansion ports on them.

No, Nintendo approached Sony to have Sony work on a CD add-on to the SNES. Sony promoted the add-on as the "Play Station". That's what I'd call a partnership. Nintendo was interested in the work Sony had done with Philips on the CDROM/XA spec.

They struck a deal with Sony to build the hardware, however part-way through the deal it became apparent that Sony wanted to use pieces of the hardware elsewhere (which seems reasonable to me-- they'd be the manufacterer of the parts after all) but Nintendo wanted to assume rights to all the hardware inside.

No, Nintendo got upset when they realized that their earlier contract with Sony gave Sony complete control over all games for the CD-ROM attachment.

Sony would not agree to hand over rights to the hardware so Nintendo broke it off and struck a deal with Panasonic. (Actually, I think Nintendo started discussions with Panasonic before they broke off with Sony.) Anyway, similiar things happened with Panasonic, and shortly after Nintendo seemed to be declaring that cartridges were the obvious way to go and worked on special chipsets such as the FX set they used in Star Fox (which is probably why the N64 was cartridged based to).

No, Panasonic never had anything to do with it. Panasonic made the 3DO, but that had nothing to do with Nintendo. Nintendo's deal was with Philips, and resulted in the CD-i. There is no such thing as the "3D-i".

Sony was left with a prototype Playstation add-on to SNES. They reworked it into a hybrid that played SNES carts and CD's. Then they reworked it again into the CD only version they sold. A producer friend of mine who worked at Sony during that time told me that they (he and the people he worked with) were downright shocked when upper management told them that they were going to turn the hardware into a proper console and enter the market.

Sort of. The concept was reworked, but the eventual hardware bore little resemblance to the original. The original concept was essentially a SNES with more storage space. By the time they got around to developing what would be the eventual PlayStation, the original hardware wasn't powerful enough.

Panasonic fallout with Nintendo led to the Panasonic 3D-i and some horrid Zelda games. (Panasonic had gained rights to use some Nintendo characters for some games, but THEY made those games [no Miyamoto here] and the lack of quality shows.)

No. Again, Panasonic made the 3DO. The horrible Zelda games (and other Nintendo properties) were for the Philips CD-i.

I don't remember the news links off-hand, but if you're interested in the details, do a search. There are many great articles on the subject out there.

And you should read some of them, you've got quite a bit wrong :P

Re:I was not going to buy one, but now I am.

[masklinn]

Sorry, Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line or mass production.

Sorry? Ford's engineers perfected the concept created by Marc Isambard Brunel and he was the first ever to build whole working factories around it (starting 1913). He didn't create the assembly line per se, he did modify it enough to be introduced and efficient in large-scale manufacture.

Sure, Henry paid them a decent wage, [...], but he wasn't the first to do that either.

Yeah that's probably why a combination of "high wages and high efficiency" is called Fordism

probably more than their skills would have dictated

You words, not his, and it looks like he was right and you were wrong.

Also, his employees were able to buy his cars because efficient mass production brought the price down (using market forces) to an affordable level.

Wrong, that would never have been enough. Because if the worker's wages are low (and they were, at the time) the workers don't have enough money left enough for non-essential stuff, especially when it's worth more than a year of pay. In fact, at several points he did make the choice of raising the wages instead of getting more profits or lowering the price of the T. Oh, and he was sued for it by shareholders.

And wages at Ford Motor Companies were so high for the time that he was litteraly branded a "traitor to his class" by other industrialists.

Ford did believe that high wages would help workers deal with the assembly line's dull work, be loyal, and buy his cars.

Just for the record, Ford Motor Company's minimum wages at the time were more than twice above industry standard ($5 versus $2.34).

The point was allowing the workers to have money left for non-essential things once the essentials (food, housing, ...) had been catered for. And therefore buy themselves cars.

Attack of the fanboys! Run!

[jchenx]

Good god people. As much as it's fun to bash Sony or make fun of Nintendo's Wii, can we stop with all these endless predictions? Lists of potential games, rumors of developers coming and going, theories on how the Wii-mote will handle (both positive and negative) ...

Just wait a few months until the consoles actually ship, and people have an actual chance to check out the games. Till then, everyone go back to WoW or their 360 or PS2 or GC and play some games.

Sony's not gonna fly

[Gnostic Ronin]

It's not because of innovation, Blu-Ray or anything else. Most people don't know what DRM is, let alone rootkits, so that's not an issue at all. Blu-ray isn't a factor because frankly, I've only seen 5 or 6 movies even available in Blu-Ray, and that was in the SONY STORE.

What's going to kill ps3 is one single factor. The price. As it stands, and without the probable next-october-price-drop from Xbox, one will be able to buy BOTH a Wii AND a 360 for the price of a ps3. Maybe all the people on budgets will for some mythical, magical reason not notice that little fact. Maybe people on budgets will buy the most expensive thing on the market, even if xbox is pretty well comparable. Or maybe Momma, who knows nothing about consoles will be able to justify spending $200 more on a console because junior wants that one. I mean really, show me a person who doesn't think Sony is DOA, and I'll show you a fanboi. And that's just on price.