Actually the disk itself was a logical idea, lots of storage space on a cheap medium, but the problems are as you mentioned.
A download device is an idea which would work in about 1-2 years, the needed memory simply so too expensive and would drive up the cost more.
I personally think Nintendo simply made the wisest media choice regarding the portable console, go for an sd card and wait for the storage to become cheap enough to ramp up the possbility to get more storage space.
The DS media is an sd card in a bigger form factor, nintendo does not even try to hide it by pushing a different
form factor, it simply is just bigger.
It seems to pay off, SD cards while still being more expensive than disks, and always will be almost are at a gigabyte level for affordable console carts!
Actually dont underestimate the price the umd has pushed up. You cannot forget the UMD is a custom drive in a miniature formfactor, i assume it is the biggest problem regarding the PSPs pricetag. It was not a bad idea
but it was inherently problematic in a portable console, due to battery drain, and being a rather expensive custom unit.
I do not think the touch screen and processors were the decisive price factor, those can be produced and assembled in out of the mill assembly lines, and are rather cheap to produce.
But the PSP is hardly unsuccessful, this is a myth in itself, I would not call a handheld, which in fact has sold millions, but is not as successful as the Nintendo DS, unsuccessful. It is just not dominating, but has a solid lineup and a solid customer number for a console.
But the main issue is it could have stomped the Nintendo DS if it was at the same price, but it isnt and Sony is stubborn enough to see that.
(I have no PSP but a NDS btw.)
Ahem the 2015 lifespan is rather doubtful, even now, the PS3 cell is at the bottom of performance, the integrated graphical processor is currently mid end.
The lifespan of the PS3 even if it sells well is probably ended by 2011 the rest is Sony marketing mumbo jumbo.
Sorry, but Sony splills out a lot of verbal garbage, I just want to remind you about the things they said about the PS2.
Once Microsoft comes out with their next XBOX which will be around 2010-2011 you will see the PS3s lifespan shrink down to months!
Also Nintendos next gen console is probably dated for 2012.
Dont expect more than a mio in Europe until march...
no buying season there!
Besides at the beginning of january Sony has delivered 1.8 mio consoles into the US,
actual sales probably will be around 50%.
Given the indications in japan, I rather doubt that they sold another million there.
I personally suspect, currently 1-1.5 mio PS3s floating around worldwide, the other ones
being stacked in shops!
But lets see it will be interesting, but given the recent news it looks like Sony is more concerned
with not even being able to hit the 4.5 mio mark.
Well the ideal of a universal multimedia machine per se is not bad, the same argument was discussed 5 years ago with mobile phones and look now.
The main problem is if you go that way, you have to do it right.
A console has to be cheap, a dvd player also, both combined in one machine does not have to be expensive, sorry
people just see one box and it is one box, and no one is going to pay twice as much.
Next problem, if you want to push a new format on the back of a proven gaming machine franchise make sure there is enough customer demand. For UMD there was not enough demand, because there was no market, it simplay was dead from the start, even as its own format with its own players, you cannot sell drmed moves uncopyable three times as expensive as the same dvd, just because it is Sony!
Blue Ray, there at least is a small market there, but face it 90% of all households in the first and second world do not give a shit about HDTV and Blue Ray, only a small demographic does.
The playstation is first of all a gaming machine and as such the average customer sees it as a cheap commodity item to mainlay play games on and have something extra, having a Blue Ray player can be a plus and a welcome one, but
it has to be cheap. Mobile phone cameras also were welcome because the phones did not increase in price, it was an added commodity.
I do not think the market research really is the problem, the main problem in case of the PS3 really is the price and how do you want to get people to buy it. Definitely not by telling them to get a second job, or that it does not matter if games are available, people will buy it anyway.
I rather doubt that even a final fantasy will make a 700 dollars console fly from the shelves.
Sony can have a sure hit, but for that the console has to become way cheaper, no matter which
games come out for it only a small demographic buys a 700 dollars console.
Good question if they even reach teh 4.5 million, they definitely will have delivert this number of units, but I think they will be more alike 2-2.5 mio units.
Nobody asked for yet another proprietary Sony movie format in the PSP, nobody asked for yet another disk format which could not be copied with movie prices three times as much as on the copyable DVD.
But those things drove up the price of the PSP significantly and in the end were doomed to fail from day zero.
The only ones asking for those things was the paranoid Sony movie division.
See a scheme here, the same happens now to the PS3, it would have been out a year earlier and probably 200-250 dollars less with equal gaming capabilties if it would not have been misused as vehicle for the Blue Ray drive, and it certainly was not the Sony gaming division trying to shove yet another format onto the customers to raise movie prices.
Nintendo is right with their assumption, HDTV on a console is interesting but only in 2-3 years, for the mass market a lower price is more important. Microsoft also was wiser in this aspect.
Sorry to say that, not market research on the customers was the dooming force, it was simply Sonys internal politics and the ignorance about past mistakes and past successes.
It is not even released in Europe, they started to bitch about the sales before it even hit the USA...
Clover studios were closed two days after the US launch, which is a good indication that there
was some corporate mumbo jumbo going on within Capcom and Clover was the victim.
A good indication also was the missing marketing for Okami on Capcoms part.
And almost none here in Europe shortly before the games release over here!
I did not mean the PS2 was an entirely wrong choice, making it PS2 only on a system in its last stage was idiotic, saying it was unsuccessful two days after it has been out in the biggest gaming market (US) and not even been out in the second biggest one (Europe) is stupid.
It is almist like Capcom saw the japanese numbers and said to itself it is not worth it to push it into the big markets.
If they had brought it out for the wii on launch I am pretty sure they would have become the second must have title after Zelda!
It probably also would have become very successful on the PS2 two years ago. But making a system exclusive at a stage when people probably just go for the cheap deal on the system is the wrong choice, sorry!
In case of okami it was several factors, it has not been released in Europe yet, so the second biggest gaming market
has been blatantly ignored.
It should have gone multiplatform, the gaminc concept screams for a mouse or the wiimote, Playstation only was its death nail,
while the playstation has a sheer number of consoles, its gamers are not too open minded and feel happy to be fed with Tony Hawk #19
also add to that the next gen hype going on which drowned everything.
Probably if Okami would come out on the Wii now, it would get excellent additional sales, but as it seems the game is basically still drowned in brain dead marketing and release dates!
Well Okami has not been released in europe yet, so much for success, besides that it probably would have gotten a few sales more if it was not Playstation only, the Wii basically screams for this game, so does the pc, with the way better input methods suitable for it.
I dont think the original content is the problem, the playstation only, not having it released in the second biggest market worldwide and having it released during a next gen console promotion time, might play into it.
Speaking of original games,
Wii Sports, Rayman Raving Rabbits on the Wii, Nintendogs all big sellers, highly original.
There were many reasons, one being, that the original ngage had a lousy form factor,
the cartridge slot was basically behind the battery, it was not even the 3d games.
It was a lousy phone due to being too bulky, it was a lousy handheld game system
due to the difficulty of being able to get new games into the machine.
The second ngage fixed all of that, but at that time the reputation already was ruined.
The wii has somewhat 25 games of them 3-4 are really good 10 good and the rest is the usual shovelware. Add to that a few hundred games from the cube lineup and around 20 virtual console games, and you can see those, Zelda now what people simple do not look at what is there!
No it is not all over Europe, here in Austria we have both options, most people though prefer the 1 year cheaper/free phone option compared to the phone full price but no contract binding option.
almost every pc sold in the last three years has this chip, it is called TCPA and one of the key areas this chip should be used for was BlueRay and HD-DVD it is just thatthere are lots of PCs nowadays which do not have those chips.
I dont give a shit about scores, if 0addem 2005 2006 and 2007 all get 90s scores does not mean those games interest me. Neither does the 500th autoracing game.
It is pretty obvious the PS2 is probably the best platform for you, but as I said, nothing than 10-20 titles do really interest me on that platform, and most of them are cross platform so you can get them on others as well.
As for the DS I have one, but I currently have around 6-7 titles, and only two come out next year which are interesting to me (hotel dusk, zelda)
In the end I will end up with 3-4 new DS games. As I said my priorities are a little bit different since I am more along the lines of thinking games and original games not the 500th rehash of a concept.
This is a rather stupid argument, really pointless nowadays in the days of hdtv when it is rather easy to connect a pc to a tv and to do the whole remoting
via bluetooth keyboards.
I could reverse that argument, thanks to modern scaler software in many emulators and thanks to the PCs capabilities, the PC probably has the most extensiv lib of HD Ready games available, basically every emulated game, every 3d game produced in the last 5-7 years ad a lot of old dos games running in dosbox already are hd ready as we speak;-)
Actually I think the Wii has a way better headstart than the DS, the lineup is also stronger.
Btw. it is funny that Mario 64 seems to become a launch title on every new Nintendo console.
It was on the DS and even now is on the Wii, it was at least in Europe among the first virtual console games released.
Ok lets see:
Wii Sports, Wii Games, Rayman, Wario 4 titles with mini games
Zelda, Red Steel, Trauma Center, Elebits, CoD, Rampage, Pinpall Classics,
excite truck, gt,...
no mini games at all
and also in the future lineup not too many mini game titles are visible:
Lets see:
Project Hammer
Mario Galaxy
Paper Mario
Sonic and the Secret Rings
Prince of Persia
Metroid Prime 3
and a lot of other titles, which I am not too aware of
I think the impact of minigames on the Wii is totally exaggerated,
it is just that a mini game title (wii sports) is the most visible
one except for zelda
Slashdot Mirror
The average consumer seems to be happy being fed year after year with the same EA game ...
Actually the disk itself was a logical idea, lots of storage space on a cheap medium, but the problems are as you mentioned. A download device is an idea which would work in about 1-2 years, the needed memory simply so too expensive and would drive up the cost more. I personally think Nintendo simply made the wisest media choice regarding the portable console, go for an sd card and wait for the storage to become cheap enough to ramp up the possbility to get more storage space. The DS media is an sd card in a bigger form factor, nintendo does not even try to hide it by pushing a different form factor, it simply is just bigger. It seems to pay off, SD cards while still being more expensive than disks, and always will be almost are at a gigabyte level for affordable console carts!
Actually dont underestimate the price the umd has pushed up. You cannot forget the UMD is a custom drive in a miniature formfactor, i assume it is the biggest problem regarding the PSPs pricetag. It was not a bad idea but it was inherently problematic in a portable console, due to battery drain, and being a rather expensive custom unit. I do not think the touch screen and processors were the decisive price factor, those can be produced and assembled in out of the mill assembly lines, and are rather cheap to produce. But the PSP is hardly unsuccessful, this is a myth in itself, I would not call a handheld, which in fact has sold millions, but is not as successful as the Nintendo DS, unsuccessful. It is just not dominating, but has a solid lineup and a solid customer number for a console. But the main issue is it could have stomped the Nintendo DS if it was at the same price, but it isnt and Sony is stubborn enough to see that. (I have no PSP but a NDS btw.)
Ahem the 2015 lifespan is rather doubtful, even now, the PS3 cell is at the bottom of performance, the integrated graphical processor is currently mid end. The lifespan of the PS3 even if it sells well is probably ended by 2011 the rest is Sony marketing mumbo jumbo. Sorry, but Sony splills out a lot of verbal garbage, I just want to remind you about the things they said about the PS2. Once Microsoft comes out with their next XBOX which will be around 2010-2011 you will see the PS3s lifespan shrink down to months! Also Nintendos next gen console is probably dated for 2012.
Dont expect more than a mio in Europe until march... no buying season there!
Besides at the beginning of january Sony has delivered 1.8 mio consoles into the US, actual sales probably will be around 50%. Given the indications in japan, I rather doubt that they sold another million there.
I personally suspect, currently 1-1.5 mio PS3s floating around worldwide, the other ones being stacked in shops! But lets see it will be interesting, but given the recent news it looks like Sony is more concerned with not even being able to hit the 4.5 mio mark.
Well the ideal of a universal multimedia machine per se is not bad, the same argument was discussed 5 years ago with mobile phones and look now. The main problem is if you go that way, you have to do it right. A console has to be cheap, a dvd player also, both combined in one machine does not have to be expensive, sorry people just see one box and it is one box, and no one is going to pay twice as much. Next problem, if you want to push a new format on the back of a proven gaming machine franchise make sure there is enough customer demand. For UMD there was not enough demand, because there was no market, it simplay was dead from the start, even as its own format with its own players, you cannot sell drmed moves uncopyable three times as expensive as the same dvd, just because it is Sony! Blue Ray, there at least is a small market there, but face it 90% of all households in the first and second world do not give a shit about HDTV and Blue Ray, only a small demographic does. The playstation is first of all a gaming machine and as such the average customer sees it as a cheap commodity item to mainlay play games on and have something extra, having a Blue Ray player can be a plus and a welcome one, but it has to be cheap. Mobile phone cameras also were welcome because the phones did not increase in price, it was an added commodity. I do not think the market research really is the problem, the main problem in case of the PS3 really is the price and how do you want to get people to buy it. Definitely not by telling them to get a second job, or that it does not matter if games are available, people will buy it anyway.
I rather doubt that even a final fantasy will make a 700 dollars console fly from the shelves. Sony can have a sure hit, but for that the console has to become way cheaper, no matter which games come out for it only a small demographic buys a 700 dollars console.
Actually add Microsoft to the list, and Apple rapidly is approaching this state as is...
Good question if they even reach teh 4.5 million, they definitely will have delivert this number of units, but I think they will be more alike 2-2.5 mio units.
Nobody asked for yet another proprietary Sony movie format in the PSP, nobody asked for yet another disk format which could not be copied with movie prices three times as much as on the copyable DVD. But those things drove up the price of the PSP significantly and in the end were doomed to fail from day zero. The only ones asking for those things was the paranoid Sony movie division. See a scheme here, the same happens now to the PS3, it would have been out a year earlier and probably 200-250 dollars less with equal gaming capabilties if it would not have been misused as vehicle for the Blue Ray drive, and it certainly was not the Sony gaming division trying to shove yet another format onto the customers to raise movie prices. Nintendo is right with their assumption, HDTV on a console is interesting but only in 2-3 years, for the mass market a lower price is more important. Microsoft also was wiser in this aspect. Sorry to say that, not market research on the customers was the dooming force, it was simply Sonys internal politics and the ignorance about past mistakes and past successes.
The father of those games still is little computer people on the C64!
It is not even released in Europe, they started to bitch about the sales before it even hit the USA... Clover studios were closed two days after the US launch, which is a good indication that there was some corporate mumbo jumbo going on within Capcom and Clover was the victim. A good indication also was the missing marketing for Okami on Capcoms part. And almost none here in Europe shortly before the games release over here!
Gaming order in Market size EU (UK is part of the EU and the EU is a single market!) US Japan China Australia...
I did not mean the PS2 was an entirely wrong choice, making it PS2 only on a system in its last stage was idiotic, saying it was unsuccessful two days after it has been out in the biggest gaming market (US) and not even been out in the second biggest one (Europe) is stupid. It is almist like Capcom saw the japanese numbers and said to itself it is not worth it to push it into the big markets. If they had brought it out for the wii on launch I am pretty sure they would have become the second must have title after Zelda! It probably also would have become very successful on the PS2 two years ago. But making a system exclusive at a stage when people probably just go for the cheap deal on the system is the wrong choice, sorry!
In case of okami it was several factors, it has not been released in Europe yet, so the second biggest gaming market has been blatantly ignored. It should have gone multiplatform, the gaminc concept screams for a mouse or the wiimote, Playstation only was its death nail, while the playstation has a sheer number of consoles, its gamers are not too open minded and feel happy to be fed with Tony Hawk #19 also add to that the next gen hype going on which drowned everything. Probably if Okami would come out on the Wii now, it would get excellent additional sales, but as it seems the game is basically still drowned in brain dead marketing and release dates!
Well Okami has not been released in europe yet, so much for success, besides that it probably would have gotten a few sales more if it was not Playstation only, the Wii basically screams for this game, so does the pc, with the way better input methods suitable for it. I dont think the original content is the problem, the playstation only, not having it released in the second biggest market worldwide and having it released during a next gen console promotion time, might play into it. Speaking of original games, Wii Sports, Rayman Raving Rabbits on the Wii, Nintendogs all big sellers, highly original.
There were many reasons, one being, that the original ngage had a lousy form factor, the cartridge slot was basically behind the battery, it was not even the 3d games. It was a lousy phone due to being too bulky, it was a lousy handheld game system due to the difficulty of being able to get new games into the machine. The second ngage fixed all of that, but at that time the reputation already was ruined.
The wii has somewhat 25 games of them 3-4 are really good 10 good and the rest is the usual shovelware. Add to that a few hundred games from the cube lineup and around 20 virtual console games, and you can see those, Zelda now what people simple do not look at what is there!
No it is not all over Europe, here in Austria we have both options, most people though prefer the 1 year cheaper/free phone option compared to the phone full price but no contract binding option.
Good morning mc fly
almost every pc sold in the last three years has this chip, it is called TCPA and
one of the key areas this chip should be used for was BlueRay and HD-DVD
it is just thatthere are lots of PCs nowadays which do not have those chips.
I dont give a shit about scores, if 0addem 2005 2006 and 2007 all get 90s scores does not mean those games interest me. Neither does the 500th autoracing game. It is pretty obvious the PS2 is probably the best platform for you, but as I said, nothing than 10-20 titles do really interest me on that platform, and most of them are cross platform so you can get them on others as well. As for the DS I have one, but I currently have around 6-7 titles, and only two come out next year which are interesting to me (hotel dusk, zelda) In the end I will end up with 3-4 new DS games. As I said my priorities are a little bit different since I am more along the lines of thinking games and original games not the 500th rehash of a concept.
This is a rather stupid argument, really pointless nowadays in the days of hdtv when it is rather easy to connect a pc to a tv and to do the whole remoting via bluetooth keyboards. I could reverse that argument, thanks to modern scaler software in many emulators and thanks to the PCs capabilities, the PC probably has the most extensiv lib of HD Ready games available, basically every emulated game, every 3d game produced in the last 5-7 years ad a lot of old dos games running in dosbox already are hd ready as we speak ;-)
Actually I think the Wii has a way better headstart than the DS, the lineup is also stronger. Btw. it is funny that Mario 64 seems to become a launch title on every new Nintendo console. It was on the DS and even now is on the Wii, it was at least in Europe among the first virtual console games released.
Ahem 4 mini game titles out of 20-25 titles overall is not a majority ;-)
Ok lets see: Wii Sports, Wii Games, Rayman, Wario 4 titles with mini games Zelda, Red Steel, Trauma Center, Elebits, CoD, Rampage, Pinpall Classics, excite truck, gt, ...
no mini games at all
and also in the future lineup not too many mini game titles are visible:
Lets see:
Project Hammer
Mario Galaxy
Paper Mario
Sonic and the Secret Rings
Prince of Persia
Metroid Prime 3
and a lot of other titles, which I am not too aware of
I think the impact of minigames on the Wii is totally exaggerated,
it is just that a mini game title (wii sports) is the most visible
one except for zelda