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Third Place Is Fine By Nintendo
anaesthetica writes "The New Yorker writes that Nintendo is fine with third place. Between Sony and Microsoft both trying to build the most comprehensively next-generation console, and barely breaking even in their efforts [Zonk: Though that's changing for Microsoft], Nintendo has decided to go a different route. Wii doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it focuses on simple fun playing games — a strategy which turns out to be much better for Nintendo's bottom line and stock prices. From the article: 'A recent survey of the evidence on market share... found that companies that adopt what they call "competitor-oriented objectives" actually end up hurting their own profitability. In other words, the more a company focuses on beating its competitors, rather than on the bottom line, the worse it is likely to do.'"
I find the same to be generally true among humans.
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Essentially, Nintendo makes its consoles and games and that is the company. They really have nothing else to gain from other things like XBox live, hard drives in consoles, and Sonys Blu Ray. Microsoft and Sony are thinking broader, but still focused on the companies bottom line. If you want to do just the game division, that is fine, but when and if that works that company would find it hard to take that success and apply it to other divisions. The PS3 without Blu Ray is cheaper and maybe easier to make, but if Blu Ray is a success because of the PS3 and/or vice versa, well lets just say Sony will get the last laugh as they dominate to huge markets.
Of course there is more to this and the OP's arguement has merits, but in this dogfight, Sony and Microsoft have FAR FAR more at stake than the success of its gaming division.
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That's funny. I opened up the link Zonk posted, and the article said this:
"To be clear, we have said that in fiscal 08, entertainment and devices makes money. That's not exactly Xbox. We don't break profit down by business. And there are parts of entertainment and devices that make money. Xbox doesn't. Xbox has to make significant progress to enable E&D to get there. We feel we are on track"
That doesn't necessarily mean the XBox division will start making money. It could (and probably does) mean that they plan to try and hemorrhage less, so that the overall E&D division can finally get in the black.
I have an Xbox 360, and will probably get a PS3 as well (Final Fantasy is too big of a draw for me to ignore it). I like my PS2, and I like my Xbox 360. They have certain games I want to play, and I enjoy playing them. That was enough to motivate me to buy the console. That's all the money that these companies are going to get from me, because from here on out, all I'm going to be buying is games. If the console is interesting enough to draw me in to buy at least one, then they've accomplished their job as a console manufacturer with regard to me. So the Wii needs to only hook people this once, and in doing so, ensures that it's profitable for developers to produce games for the next five or six years. Then, once the companies are ready to release new systems, if there are things we like and want to experience about these new systems, we'll pay out the money necessary to get them.
IAALS.
Where is this magical wonderland where you live? Where I'm at, the sky is gray, the grass is covered in a blanket of white, and water is frozen.
Had my first experience with the Wii from about 1PM yesterday until 6:30AM this morning. Freakin' sweet. I most assuredly like the Wii more than the 360. Better games, and the Wiimote is way better than I thought it would be when I first saw the design.
Personally, I thought they were going to be the next Sega. When the announced the Wii would not be HD capable I figured they were dead in the water. But after pulling what felt like every muscle in my body playing Wii Sports with friends, I have to admit they will be the true winners of this round of console wars. They went with something different and concentrated on gameplay and really pulled it off. Kudos to them.
They made a console that not only appeals to the all-important 18-35 market, but is also going to be a favorite among parents for young kids becasue the games are mostly PG and they even get some exercise playing it.
However, I wouldn't trade my 360 for it. They pulled off an excellent product through innovative concept and gameplay, but I don't think this will dent the demand for the powerful graphics/complexity that true next gen consoles deliver. In its price range, I think the Wii is a healthy addition to have along with a 360 or PS3, but not so much a direct competitor to them among the 18+ crowd.
I have tried it, so I honestly don't if tilt controllers are something to build a console around.
The question I would have for this is how much time did you try it for, what games did you play and did you keep an open mind?
But is this new game play interaction something that can keep the wii going in the longterm?
The Wiimote (and Nunchuck) are no where near perfect implementations of the technology and yet they're far better than any controller I have used. When you play most conventional games (FPS, Racing Games) the Wiimote (and Nunchuck) is actually almost as good as the best interfaces for these games (Keyboard & Mouse, Steering Wheel) and in many games it is actually superior (Adventure games). The beauty of the Wiimote is that it allows for (nearly) endless usage options and a good designer can make a highly useable and intuitive interface.
Also, with PS/3 being a fully functional computer with a keyboard/mouse/blueray, its more than just a console. And Xbox live with internet access to media is more than a console. The Wii is a console and priced like it.
I have a PC, why do I need another one that doesn't have the functionality and expandability of my existing PC?
They see the XBox starting to MAKE money in the next 2 years,
Actually, this isn't what the article says. It only claims that the E&D division *as a whole* will be in the black. It seems likely that the Xbox divion will continue to lose money, but at a slower rate, offset by improvements in other areas.
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Third place by what metric? Units sold? If they're netting the most, doesn't that make them #1?
rooooar
I think Nintendo will probably leave teledildonics to other corporations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Excellent point. I often have seen the same said of open source. It's not about beating Microsoft. As long as the software we make is useful to us, we can't lose.
Just because the PS2 was successful does not guarentee success for PS3.
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Sony will get 1st place because they can lose half their market from the PS2 and still move 50+ million units and well they won't lose half their followers.
No, they cannot do that and keep #1. They would if the other two kept selling the same number of consoles they did last gen but those 50 million people they'd no longer have probably want a new console, too. If half of them picked the 360 and half picked the Wii Sony's lead would be insignificant, if the distribution was less even Sony would be #2.
Losing half their market is being generous, from the looks of it they're heading for a self-reinforcing cycle that hurts the PS3 and helps the competition (games and developers leave the platform -> fewer buyers -> games and developers leave the platform). If they lose the lead at the start more and more games are going to migrate (and many are already doing that) to the competition and by the time the PS3 reaches an acceptable price the competition will have control of many major game series that were exclusive to Sony on the PS2. Square Enix said they want to go multiplatform, GTA4 will be multiplatform! They've only got MGS4 and FF13 remaining as their big draws and both are too far off while the competition is hitting with Gears of War and Zelda right now.
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Your conclusion that water isn't wet is correct. However, you are wrong about it making other things wet. What actually happens is that water absorbs other objects dryness, thus giving the appearance of making them wet.
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It's not about wasting so much time than it is wasting money. Games for the wii will require significantly lower budgets or the budget may be dispensed differently. what i think will happeb is that there will be less crunch time graphics-wise and it may allow the artists to come up with more unique designs. hopefully, this will get rid of the "hollywood glitz" some videogames suffer from and it will provide for some creative, more interesting titles.
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Its that simple. Nintendo cant compete on the hardware level. Nintendo barely even makes their own games these days.
:)
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That's why the Gamecube (which was considered to be roughly as powerful as the XBox) was able to be released at the same time as the XBox, cost $100 less than the XBox and (unlike the XBox) was sold at a profit. Nintendo could have produced a system that was more powerful than the competition and charged less than the competition but would likely have lost market share; they needed something drastically different in order to attract gamers, and they needed something drastically less expensive to develop for to attract developers.
All they did was buy motion sensing technology and designed a controller. They should just release it for PS3 and 360, and sell it for $200
With the exception of Guitar Hero and DDR I can't think of a single add on that was actually purchased by anyone
It's funny to see some people calling the XBox360 and the PS3 "just the same old warmed-over stuff with high-resolution graphics", talking up the Wii's "innovativeness", while others refer to the Wii as yesterday's technology with an extra gimmick or two, instead of what PS3/XBox360 are doing...
In the past, "innovative" controllers have been released for Nintendo consoles (Power Glove, U-Force, Power Pad, ROB the robot), but none of those ever had more than a couple of games at most that were really designed for the controller, because releasing it as a new controller for an existing system made it a gimmick. The Wiimote possibly could have been a GameCube add-on. It's probably not the technological focus of the console. But it is the philosophical focus of the Wii. Almost all Wii games are designed specifically for the Wii controller. At this point the controller can no longer be considered a gimmick, since it's really an integral part of the whole console. The console would have to be the gimmick, and time will tell. There seems to be an awful lot of reviewers out there that write about how playing games on the Wii is "just plain fun", and they can't stop smiling while they play. At this point it's still hard to buy a Wii at any retail store because they're selling out, just like the PS3. I'd say the Wii is not going to be just a gimmick.
From what I understand it's about twice as capable as a GameCube. Obviously it doesn't have the graphical power of the PS3 or the XBox360, but as it has been said many many times, that's not what they're going for. I'm guessing that a lot of the focus on the earliest game development has been on making the controller work well with games. I'm sure that once developers get more familiar with the Wii, they'll be more prepared to make use of the added power the Wii has over the GameCube, just like developers will do over time for the new generations of the other consoles.
Wii Sports is included with the console (for now), and games in general seem to peak out at around $50, with some going as low as $30.
So, what you're saying is that their business plan is something like:
1) First Place?
2) Second Place?
3) PROFIT!
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
What's funny is that if you take into account Nintendo's portables, they are already the #1 console manufacturer. This is something game journalists ignore. The DS is outselling the PS3 in Japan, and DS games dominate the top-sellers list.
Nintendo is attempting another DS with the Wii, and it looks like they're on their way. At least 4 million are expected to be sold by the end of the year alone. Imagine how many will be sold next year when availability is even higher and more games are out (both for the Wii and on the Virtual Console). It's amazing, but Nintendo really might top Microsoft and Sony in non-portable consoles.
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I'm not sure that's entirely correct. I bought a Wii and suddenly I'm missing some underpants - I suspect this must be part of Nintendo's market strategy somehow.
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