The DS isn't a gimmick, though. The DS is winning because it has more and better games than the PSP. The touch-screen is a gimmick, and its used effectively in only a fraction of the DS's games.
I agree with you that we've pushed onto the government a lot of responsibilities we don't need to. There is no reason the federal government needs to be involved in education standards, for example. Healthcare still perplexes me, though. No matter which side of the debate you're on, it's hard to argue that many of our key health indicators are just not where they should be for a country as rich as ours. For example, our infant mortality rate puts us just slightly ahead of Croatia, and slightly behind Taiwan. It is twice as high as Japan's, our closest counterpart society in terms of GDP and population.
The question of whether government intervention is the solution is still up in the air. One could either argue that healthcare is an example of a case in which the free market fails, and that the system should be nationalized, or that the current system is held back by government regulation, and should be aggressively deregulated. I tend to lean towards the former explanation, if only because there are successful examples of large-scale, nationalized healthcare systems, while there are none of heavily-deregulated, privitized ones.
By your reasoning, those that advocate the use of paper money are placing unfounded trust in their government. After all, even if you're an advocate of the gold standard, you're forced to trust that the government will give you $1 of gold if you trade in a $1 bill. If you don't believe in the gold standard, you're an even bigger government loving hippy, since the entire value of US currency is based on faith in the government.
There are a whole heap of services for which government must exist, and the very function of government cannot be fulfilled without the peoples' faith in it. Those who mistrust government outright are merely failing to logically think through the ramifications of their beliefs.
So then, the question becomes not one of "do you trust your government", but "how much do you trust your government?" Reasonable people can disagree on where that line should be drawn, and oppose faith in the government in one case and favor it in another case without being inconsistent. It is entirely consistent, then, to both oppose things like government sponsored data-mining, which cannot be audited for security purposes, while favoring government healthcare, which can be audited and monitored. One could argue that government programs lend themselves to corruption, but then again, private enterprise is not immune to corruption either. For many of the basic services of an interdependent society to function, you must trust someone else. The question is, who do you trust? Do I trust my HMO more than the DHHS? I don't see why I should. Do I trust my phone company more than the NSA? I surely do, and I think I have rational reasons to. On the other hand, do I trust private defense contractors* more than NASA? Hell no!
The government isn't a big monolithic entity, and entities within the government can rightfully compete with private enterprise for your trust. A well-functioning bureaucracy is vital to any modern state, and the United States' is remarkably free of corruption, with a strong adherence to the rule of law. Placing your trust in that bureaucracy is not necessarily misguided, given adequate transparency.
*) I work for one, so don't take that as a knee-jerk reaction against defense contractors:)
Do they sell wide-screen SDTVs over there? They do have wide-screen broadcasts for SDTV material here in the US, but they don't usually use it for stuff like sports broadcasts because you end up with a letter-boxed picture on 4:3 TVs.
This month's EGM, though you'll see similar figures in many places, like this article on CNET (note that there are about 100m households in the USA).
One thing you have to remember is that HDTV growth has been extremely fast. You can see statistics and projecetions on page 17 of this presentation. Note that the chart on page 17 is from Feb 2005, so the 2006 and on numbers on it are projections. Still, they jive quite nicely with the more recent numbers reported in the CNET article above.
The "nobody has HDTV" meme is out of date. It was true in 2003, when HDTV was at 3%, and maybe in 2004, when it was at 6%, but it's growth since then has been extremely strong. As I said, this year, HDTV's will outsell SDTVs, and multiple sources project 25% percent penetration by the end of this year or early next year.
Yes, because that's such a representative sample. Based on the people I know, I could say 2 out of 3 homes have HDTVs, but again, it's not a representative sample, is it?
Jesus Christ, Slashdotters can be stupid sometimes.
You're obviously not picky. You might have high standards, but you seem to have very *broad* tastes. Because there's no way you are like a normal person, with interests in a few categories of games, and still manage to find 85 GC titles worth owning. The GC simply doesn't have that kind of depth in any specific genre.
I disagree completely. I've spent the last few days watching the world-cup in HD, and it is a completely different experience. The wide-screen aspect ratio gives you a much better feel for where players are on the field, and the picture is sharp enough that you can actually tell which player has the ball, even if he's on the opposite side of the field. I could do without the "closeup of the coach so tight you can see his nose hairs" shots, but damn, those are some well-rendered nose hairs!
Well that's very nice for you, but here in the US, 1 out of 5 people have HDTVs, and sales of HDTVs are projected to overtake sales of SDTVs this year, which means that figure will get bigger in the next couple of years.
Space exploration is such a high-risk, capital-intensive venture that no private firm rich enough would be stupid enough to try. There is actually economic theory on how the free market breaks down in such distant-reward, high-risk situations like these.
This is why the government has to fund things like quantum physics research. The potential pay-off is huge (ie: the semiconductor industry wouldn't exist today without the fundemental physics research done earlier in this century), but at the same time, it is so distant, and the capital rquirements are so high, that private firms will not fund it themselves.
The free market cures many things, but even economists today acknowledge that like all solutions, it can only be applied to appropriate problems.
Thanks for the well-reasoned response to my question. Like I said, I was honestly wondering what factors would make people jump on the Wii bandwagon. If its launch lineup does it for you, then great, you're going to be a happy gamer come November.
However, I think a lot of the pro-Nintendo hype is banking on there being a consistent stream of good games coming out for the Wii, and I think that's far from assured. Moreover, I think some very basic things are still up in the air. For example, everybody talks about the controller, often citing the "swinging the controller to swing a sword" example, but Miyamoto said recently in an interview about Twilight Princess that they took that action out of the game because it was simply too tiring to do. I think a lot of games are going to end up that way. The controller would be great for a fishing game, for example, but fishing sims are slow to play, and I could see your arms getting tired really fast.
To sum it up: I just don't see why everyone isn't like you, instead being convinced that they have the crystal ball and it shows Nintendo "burying everyone". I don't think the position of most of the Wii faithful is really rationally justifiable. I strongly agree with the wait-and-see approach, though. I got my PS2 last year, so I've got a whole bunch of good, cheap games to tide me over. But most people aren't like that. The period right after launch is one of the most important in a console's life, and that means lots of people end up buying the console based on what they think the library will look like. I agree its not the safest idea, but that's what happens. Come Christmas '06, I think a lot of people will look at their GC, then look at their PS2, and pass over the Wii for that reason. It seems weird that so many people fail to acknowledge that very likely possibility.
As for the N64, I think it offers some substantial insight into the next generation. On one hand, it was the most expensive console of the generation (the hardware was cheaper, but the cost of games overshadowed that). So in that regard, it could bode poorly for the PS3. On the other hand, it also ushered in Nintendo's "quality over quantity" era, which Nintendo is still suffering from. The simple fact is that most people have fairly narrow tastes, and Nintendo's ideology really doesn't play well for such people. I don't think Nintendo has done anything to emphatically reject that, and indeed, seems to be wholly embracing it by making the Wii uncompetitive in the performance realm. I don't think a focus on "quality gameplay" is going to make the console a success, any more than quality acting makes Hollywood movies successful.
The only reason anyone cares about marketshare is because it impacts third party development. The only reason anyone cares about third party development is because it provides a huge amount of a machine's library(except in the case of Nintendo, which is an extremely strong first party).
The lack of third-party development really killed the N64's and GC's library for a lot of people. I know several people that own a GC (including myself), and only one actually likes the library. A lot of people just don't like that many of Nintendo's first-party titles. Personally, I got a kick out of Zelda and the two Metroids, but couldn't care less about any of the other ones. In any case, Nintendo doesn't publish all that many first-party games anyway. Even if you like every game Nintendo puts out, that's hardly a decently-sized library.
As to marketshare from another perspective, the Gamecube didn't do badly. It destroyed the XBox in Japan(and was doing better than the 360 there until recently), didn't bomb but didn't do nearly as well in the US, and it'll probably finish up 2nd worldwide when all is said and done, but even if it doesn't the gap between the two isn't huge even atm. This, despite the fact that Microsoft lost billions of dollars and Nintendo turned a profit.
Nintendo is in third, but the gap is fairly small. Of course, I don't really care whether Nintendo turns a profit or not, since it doesn't impact me as a gamer. I care about the games, the GC was lacking seriously in that department. Of course, so did the XBox, so saying that "its not that far behind the XBox" isn't really saying much.
Looking at their launch lineup, we have a Final Fantasy and a Dragon Quest
Both of which are spin-offs from the main sequence of games. The games could end up being decent, but given how hard Crystal Chronicles sucked, and how poorly spin-offs in general do, I don't have much hope. In any case, who would want to play offshoots when the real Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sequels will appear on PS3?
we have a 16:9 version of Zelda, we have a Metroid title
Which will undoubtedly be good. On the other hand, if the Wii follows the GC, they'll be one of the dozen games for the system you'll actually want to own.
Call of Duty 3
Which will be a second-rate port of the "real" 360 and P3 versions.
exclusive FPS/sword hybrid from Ubi(among others).
Are you talking about Red Steel? It looks interesting, but the graphics are kind of lame. The graphics aren't going to be a big deal for a lot of games, but the FPS market is rather sensitive to that sort of thing.
We also have an exclusive Resident Evil(aka Biohazard),
Which will be another one of that dozen, given how RE4 is one of the few games worth owning on the GC...
BA are more than worth the price of admission imo. Most of Nintendo's first party franchises within the launch window, and some decent third party titles at the same time. There is also stuff like Disaster - Day of Defeat, Project HAMMER, the resurrection of Kid Icarus, and the virtual console.
The N64's TBA lineup was also quite promising as well. However, once the PSX picked up steam, a lot of those games vaporized.
Lineups change, third parties shift to where the money and install base is. Declaring library victory for the PS3 is just as premature atm as declaring it for the Wii.
It's premature in both cases, but not equally so. On the PS3's side, it's just an assertion that the status quo will be maintained. On the Wii's side, it's an assertion that a dramatic turnaround will happen. Maintainence of the status quo is generally the more likely outcome. That is not to say that the Wii will fail, but rather that the odds are against it succeeding.
In addition, as to appeal, I saw first hand on numerous occassions the draw of Nintendo's games. Many of the people who would stop by and play them weren't gamers, they probably wouldn't buy a cons
By that same logic, the xbox -- and the PS1! -- should have failed miserably. There's certainly an element of "just blindly keep buying the same brand", but there are also clearly turning points from time to time where something new comes along and captures the public's imagination.
It's not just a matter of "blindly" keeping the same brand. It's shaping your expectations based on previous history. I think one of the only reasons the N64 did as well as it did is because people had a lot of expectations from Nintendo. Nobody had such expectations from Sony --- the PSX did well because Sony did a damn good job of cultivating third party support and getting games out that people wanted to play.
Now, it's very hard to predict these turning points, but the Wii's extremely strong showing at E3 (both among players and developers) makes people feel that maybe such shift is coming. Maybe Nintendo's innovations will move the market, or maybe you're right that the public will just opt for the same-old same-old -- but it's hardly a sure thing either way [and of course the huge price differential hardly hurts Nintendo's cause!]. --
That's a perfectly sensible statement. It is entirely possible that the Wii will not just be a first-party Nintendo box, that Nintendo will cultivate a broad library of third-party games that appeals to a wide range of tastes. While history suggests that it won't, at least Nintendo has said that this is a goal for them. However, these are just possibilities, and they make the Wii a dark-horse, not the sure bet that everyone is making it out to be. It is just as possible, and arguably more likely, that the market will maintain the status-quo, because it is a simple fact that for every true innovation that reshapes the market, there are a dozen failed innovations that the market rejects.
There's nothing particularly wrong with the n64/gc libraries -- nowhere near the quantity of ps2 games, but there are some absolutely incredible games, and certainly enough to satisfy. Nintendo's hardware and 1st-party games are of course top-notch.
The N64's and GC's libraries appeal to some people, but obviously not to enough people to help its sales numbers. It lost the sales lead to Microsoft, which had a decidedly mediocre effort. Yeah, there are some great first party titles, but people tend to rack up dozens of games over the life of a console. Of the several people I know that have a GC, none have even close to a dozen games. There's just not enough out there to get that many, unless you have very broad tastes.
I think the feeling is that with every new generation, the counter gets reset, and the only thing required for good 3rd-party support is mind-share.
Which is silly. Mind-share is created by peoples' expectations, and peoples' expectations are decided based on their experience. For every person who knows the ins-and-outs of the game industry, and has some idea of what to expect with the Wii, there are lots of regular gamers who simply remember they bought a PS2 rather than a Gamecube, and will go in preferring the PS3 for that reason.
In the last gen, Sony played their cards perfectly and managed to hold onto the the mind-share they had with the ps1 -- but many people seem to feel they've stumbled badly this time, and that Nintendo stands a good chance to get 3rd party support they didn't in the last gen.
Nintendo's already given up on third-party support, by releasing a console that doesn't compete technically with everyone elses's. Let's be serious here --- we're talking about the entertainment industry. Being different isn't exactly the way to cater to an established userbase. Why do you think movies are by and large similar each year? Because people like reassuring continuity! "The same as last year but better" moves product, and you can look down on it, but you can't deny it.
Given that Nintendo's pretty much guaranteed to offer high quality hardware and 1st-party games, has a vastly lower price point, and is simply doing more interesting things than Sony is, why would you not want to invest in a wii???
Because I'm a rational person who is capable of learning from the past. I've stuck my finger in the electrical socket twice before, and I'll assume I'm going to get shocked again if I do until I have concrete evidence to the contrary.
The N64 and GC were very dissapointing not just from a gaming, but a market-share point of view. One could forgive Nintendo losing to Sony with the N64 --- they were late and the cart versus CD thing really did them in. But losing to Microsoft when both launched at the same time, and the XBox wasn't even that good? That's just sad. What it shows is simply that people didn't want to buy what Nintendo was selling.
In any case, my problem with the Wii hype is that Nintendo hasn't addressed the thing that made the N64 and GC so dissapointing: the library. In other words, they haven't changed what they're selling. The Wii looks like more of the same: a system mainly useful for playing first-party Nintendo stuff. The Wii hopeful are betting that there will be tons of people who want to play these games, but history suggests otherwise. For every 30-year old ex-gamer that might tune in for some cheap fun, there are a dozen current gamers who want Gran Turismo, Madden, Final Fantasy, etc.
Nintendo is betting it can expand the market of people who will buy its games, and the Wii fans are treating it like it's a sure thing. But its far from a sure thing. If so many people wanted to buy first-party Nintendo titles, a lot more people would own Gamecubes. After all, it was 2/3's the price of the PS2 when it launched. But five times as many people own PS2s as Gamecubes, and there's got to be a reason for that. Maybe Nintendo can create and cultivate this "casual gamer" market that its betting on, but don't think for a moment its not a gamble.
I hear people say stuff like "Nintendo is going to bury Sony", and get irritated not because I give a shit about Sony (like I said, I got my PS2 last year --- I'm hardly a die hard fan), but because it's so irrational. It's completely grounded in hope and ignores both historical precedent and actual evidence about what the market wants to buy.
And what exactly does freedom of speech have to do with scientific progress? It very much enables it in the first place.
What is your evidence for this statement?
You mix up science and engineering. And Nazi Germany's technology was based on the scientific lead Germany had achieved in the early late 19th and early 20th century (and they lagged in things like code breaking, operational research,...).
No, I'm not. Nazi Germany contributed things to science too. In the field of aerospace, for example, a lot of basic ideas, eg: swept forward wings, were pioneered by German scientists.
In any case, Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century had one of the most repressive governments in Western Europe. Nazi Germany wasn't an interruption in that series of regimes, but merely a continuation of it. Bismarck was just better about maintaining pretenses than Hitler was.
The Soviet Union had good competence in a few key areas that were funded well, but lagged in overall development.
Sure, it lagged the US in overall development, but there is no arguing that it still made large contributions to science. That suggests that your thesis that a free state is a prerequisite for scientific advancement is quite false. All that is really necessary for scientific advancement is sufficient funding and strong government support. Freedom of speech is really a non-issue.
The difference is that after 10 years (N64 was released 1996 AFAIK) of Playstation-fanboy wank-fests, Nintendo-fanboys now take the bridge and wank back.
At least Playstation fanboy wank-fests were driven by success. The Playstations sold lots of consoles, and had a ton of good games. Nintendo last two console efforts paled in comparison.
I can understand Nintendo fanboy's wanking over the DS. They're justified in doing so based on the system's record. But the Wii has no such record. It's an unproven gamble, from a company that managed to lose marketshare even to a mediocre first-try offering from Microsoft. The Wii could very well work out, despite Nintendo's track record, but everyone here seems to be treating it like a sure thing. Meanwhile, they're ridiculing Sony, which has for the last decade been delivering what Nintendo has not!
Why the hell do you use faith for making purchasing decisions? That's terrible logic.
I'm using the weak-form of faith here. Not as in religious belief, but as in confidence in capability. Everyone here is talking about how they'll get a Wii this November, and that's based on faith --- confidence in the idea that Nintendo will deliver the gaming experience they are promising.
I have no such confidence, because Nintendo's track record with its last two consoles just isn't good. What I was wondering was why (honestly), everyone else seems to have confidence in them, despite emperical evidence to the contrary?
People accuse Sony of relying on hype, but it's not Sony relying on hype this time around. Even with all the negative publicity they've received, there are a lot of people looking forward to the PS3. They're certainly not looking forward to it based on the previews, but because of Sony's track record with the PS1 and PS2. Meanwhile, everyone is fawning over Nintendo for a good showing at E3, despite the knowledge that the previews suggested that the N64 and GC were going to be awesome too, but those systems never built up a substantial library.
What's with this blind faith in Nintendo? Their last two consoles have been decidedly mediocre. Decent hardware, patchy library. Why's is everyone convinced this run-through is going to be different? Personally, I have no faith in Nintendo anymore. I loved my NES and SNES. I bought an N64 the day it came out, even though it came out late. Sold it a year later, got a PSX so I could actually play some games. Bought a Gamecube a year after it came out, hoping it'd have some games out by then. It got me out of gaming entirely for a couple of years, until I bought a PS2 mini last summer.
So what's different this time? Why should I get a Wii this November, and not expect to have to sell it a year later and buy a PS3 to actually do some gaming?
I'm thinking the same thing. Between my brother and I, there's maybe $2000 of PS2 games at our house, and I've still got a half a dozen I keep meaning to get to buying. $400 versus $600 for a console is really the least of my concerns. If the PS3's lineup is good, they're getting my money.
Slashdot Mirror
The DS isn't a gimmick, though. The DS is winning because it has more and better games than the PSP. The touch-screen is a gimmick, and its used effectively in only a fraction of the DS's games.
I agree with you that we've pushed onto the government a lot of responsibilities we don't need to. There is no reason the federal government needs to be involved in education standards, for example. Healthcare still perplexes me, though. No matter which side of the debate you're on, it's hard to argue that many of our key health indicators are just not where they should be for a country as rich as ours. For example, our infant mortality rate puts us just slightly ahead of Croatia, and slightly behind Taiwan. It is twice as high as Japan's, our closest counterpart society in terms of GDP and population.
The question of whether government intervention is the solution is still up in the air. One could either argue that healthcare is an example of a case in which the free market fails, and that the system should be nationalized, or that the current system is held back by government regulation, and should be aggressively deregulated. I tend to lean towards the former explanation, if only because there are successful examples of large-scale, nationalized healthcare systems, while there are none of heavily-deregulated, privitized ones.
By your reasoning, those that advocate the use of paper money are placing unfounded trust in their government. After all, even if you're an advocate of the gold standard, you're forced to trust that the government will give you $1 of gold if you trade in a $1 bill. If you don't believe in the gold standard, you're an even bigger government loving hippy, since the entire value of US currency is based on faith in the government.
:)
There are a whole heap of services for which government must exist, and the very function of government cannot be fulfilled without the peoples' faith in it. Those who mistrust government outright are merely failing to logically think through the ramifications of their beliefs.
So then, the question becomes not one of "do you trust your government", but "how much do you trust your government?" Reasonable people can disagree on where that line should be drawn, and oppose faith in the government in one case and favor it in another case without being inconsistent. It is entirely consistent, then, to both oppose things like government sponsored data-mining, which cannot be audited for security purposes, while favoring government healthcare, which can be audited and monitored. One could argue that government programs lend themselves to corruption, but then again, private enterprise is not immune to corruption either. For many of the basic services of an interdependent society to function, you must trust someone else. The question is, who do you trust? Do I trust my HMO more than the DHHS? I don't see why I should. Do I trust my phone company more than the NSA? I surely do, and I think I have rational reasons to. On the other hand, do I trust private defense contractors* more than NASA? Hell no!
The government isn't a big monolithic entity, and entities within the government can rightfully compete with private enterprise for your trust. A well-functioning bureaucracy is vital to any modern state, and the United States' is remarkably free of corruption, with a strong adherence to the rule of law. Placing your trust in that bureaucracy is not necessarily misguided, given adequate transparency.
*) I work for one, so don't take that as a knee-jerk reaction against defense contractors
They seem to have realized that, which is why they are rapidly deregulating their markets.
Nothing happens overnight, of course.
Do they sell wide-screen SDTVs over there? They do have wide-screen broadcasts for SDTV material here in the US, but they don't usually use it for stuff like sports broadcasts because you end up with a letter-boxed picture on 4:3 TVs.
This month's EGM, though you'll see similar figures in many places, like this article on CNET (note that there are about 100m households in the USA).
One thing you have to remember is that HDTV growth has been extremely fast. You can see statistics and projecetions on page 17 of this presentation. Note that the chart on page 17 is from Feb 2005, so the 2006 and on numbers on it are projections. Still, they jive quite nicely with the more recent numbers reported in the CNET article above.
The "nobody has HDTV" meme is out of date. It was true in 2003, when HDTV was at 3%, and maybe in 2004, when it was at 6%, but it's growth since then has been extremely strong. As I said, this year, HDTV's will outsell SDTVs, and multiple sources project 25% percent penetration by the end of this year or early next year.
Yes, because that's such a representative sample. Based on the people I know, I could say 2 out of 3 homes have HDTVs, but again, it's not a representative sample, is it?
Jesus Christ, Slashdotters can be stupid sometimes.
You're obviously not picky. You might have high standards, but you seem to have very *broad* tastes. Because there's no way you are like a normal person, with interests in a few categories of games, and still manage to find 85 GC titles worth owning. The GC simply doesn't have that kind of depth in any specific genre.
I disagree completely. I've spent the last few days watching the world-cup in HD, and it is a completely different experience. The wide-screen aspect ratio gives you a much better feel for where players are on the field, and the picture is sharp enough that you can actually tell which player has the ball, even if he's on the opposite side of the field. I could do without the "closeup of the coach so tight you can see his nose hairs" shots, but damn, those are some well-rendered nose hairs!
Well that's very nice for you, but here in the US, 1 out of 5 people have HDTVs, and sales of HDTVs are projected to overtake sales of SDTVs this year, which means that figure will get bigger in the next couple of years.
For Apple, that obviously wouldn't fly.
Are we talking about the same Apple that makes you make a fucking appointment just to see one of their "geniuses" to return a DOA product?
Except it doesn't work that way.
Space exploration is such a high-risk, capital-intensive venture that no private firm rich enough would be stupid enough to try. There is actually economic theory on how the free market breaks down in such distant-reward, high-risk situations like these.
This is why the government has to fund things like quantum physics research. The potential pay-off is huge (ie: the semiconductor industry wouldn't exist today without the fundemental physics research done earlier in this century), but at the same time, it is so distant, and the capital rquirements are so high, that private firms will not fund it themselves.
The free market cures many things, but even economists today acknowledge that like all solutions, it can only be applied to appropriate problems.
Thanks for the well-reasoned response to my question. Like I said, I was honestly wondering what factors would make people jump on the Wii bandwagon. If its launch lineup does it for you, then great, you're going to be a happy gamer come November.
However, I think a lot of the pro-Nintendo hype is banking on there being a consistent stream of good games coming out for the Wii, and I think that's far from assured. Moreover, I think some very basic things are still up in the air. For example, everybody talks about the controller, often citing the "swinging the controller to swing a sword" example, but Miyamoto said recently in an interview about Twilight Princess that they took that action out of the game because it was simply too tiring to do. I think a lot of games are going to end up that way. The controller would be great for a fishing game, for example, but fishing sims are slow to play, and I could see your arms getting tired really fast.
To sum it up: I just don't see why everyone isn't like you, instead being convinced that they have the crystal ball and it shows Nintendo "burying everyone". I don't think the position of most of the Wii faithful is really rationally justifiable. I strongly agree with the wait-and-see approach, though. I got my PS2 last year, so I've got a whole bunch of good, cheap games to tide me over. But most people aren't like that. The period right after launch is one of the most important in a console's life, and that means lots of people end up buying the console based on what they think the library will look like. I agree its not the safest idea, but that's what happens. Come Christmas '06, I think a lot of people will look at their GC, then look at their PS2, and pass over the Wii for that reason. It seems weird that so many people fail to acknowledge that very likely possibility.
As for the N64, I think it offers some substantial insight into the next generation. On one hand, it was the most expensive console of the generation (the hardware was cheaper, but the cost of games overshadowed that). So in that regard, it could bode poorly for the PS3. On the other hand, it also ushered in Nintendo's "quality over quantity" era, which Nintendo is still suffering from. The simple fact is that most people have fairly narrow tastes, and Nintendo's ideology really doesn't play well for such people. I don't think Nintendo has done anything to emphatically reject that, and indeed, seems to be wholly embracing it by making the Wii uncompetitive in the performance realm. I don't think a focus on "quality gameplay" is going to make the console a success, any more than quality acting makes Hollywood movies successful.
The only reason anyone cares about marketshare is because it impacts third party development. The only reason anyone cares about third party development is because it provides a huge amount of a machine's library(except in the case of Nintendo, which is an extremely strong first party).
The lack of third-party development really killed the N64's and GC's library for a lot of people. I know several people that own a GC (including myself), and only one actually likes the library. A lot of people just don't like that many of Nintendo's first-party titles. Personally, I got a kick out of Zelda and the two Metroids, but couldn't care less about any of the other ones. In any case, Nintendo doesn't publish all that many first-party games anyway. Even if you like every game Nintendo puts out, that's hardly a decently-sized library.
As to marketshare from another perspective, the Gamecube didn't do badly. It destroyed the XBox in Japan(and was doing better than the 360 there until recently), didn't bomb but didn't do nearly as well in the US, and it'll probably finish up 2nd worldwide when all is said and done, but even if it doesn't the gap between the two isn't huge even atm. This, despite the fact that Microsoft lost billions of dollars and Nintendo turned a profit.
Nintendo is in third, but the gap is fairly small. Of course, I don't really care whether Nintendo turns a profit or not, since it doesn't impact me as a gamer. I care about the games, the GC was lacking seriously in that department. Of course, so did the XBox, so saying that "its not that far behind the XBox" isn't really saying much.
Looking at their launch lineup, we have a Final Fantasy and a Dragon Quest
Both of which are spin-offs from the main sequence of games. The games could end up being decent, but given how hard Crystal Chronicles sucked, and how poorly spin-offs in general do, I don't have much hope. In any case, who would want to play offshoots when the real Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest sequels will appear on PS3?
we have a 16:9 version of Zelda, we have a Metroid title
Which will undoubtedly be good. On the other hand, if the Wii follows the GC, they'll be one of the dozen games for the system you'll actually want to own.
Call of Duty 3
Which will be a second-rate port of the "real" 360 and P3 versions.
exclusive FPS/sword hybrid from Ubi(among others).
Are you talking about Red Steel? It looks interesting, but the graphics are kind of lame. The graphics aren't going to be a big deal for a lot of games, but the FPS market is rather sensitive to that sort of thing.
We also have an exclusive Resident Evil(aka Biohazard),
Which will be another one of that dozen, given how RE4 is one of the few games worth owning on the GC...
BA are more than worth the price of admission imo. Most of Nintendo's first party franchises within the launch window, and some decent third party titles at the same time. There is also stuff like Disaster - Day of Defeat, Project HAMMER, the resurrection of Kid Icarus, and the virtual console.
The N64's TBA lineup was also quite promising as well. However, once the PSX picked up steam, a lot of those games vaporized.
Lineups change, third parties shift to where the money and install base is. Declaring library victory for the PS3 is just as premature atm as declaring it for the Wii.
It's premature in both cases, but not equally so. On the PS3's side, it's just an assertion that the status quo will be maintained. On the Wii's side, it's an assertion that a dramatic turnaround will happen. Maintainence of the status quo is generally the more likely outcome. That is not to say that the Wii will fail, but rather that the odds are against it succeeding.
In addition, as to appeal, I saw first hand on numerous occassions the draw of Nintendo's games. Many of the people who would stop by and play them weren't gamers, they probably wouldn't buy a cons
By that same logic, the xbox -- and the PS1! -- should have failed miserably. There's certainly an element of "just blindly keep buying the same brand", but there are also clearly turning points from time to time where something new comes along and captures the public's imagination.
It's not just a matter of "blindly" keeping the same brand. It's shaping your expectations based on previous history. I think one of the only reasons the N64 did as well as it did is because people had a lot of expectations from Nintendo. Nobody had such expectations from Sony --- the PSX did well because Sony did a damn good job of cultivating third party support and getting games out that people wanted to play.
Now, it's very hard to predict these turning points, but the Wii's extremely strong showing at E3 (both among players and developers) makes people feel that maybe such shift is coming. Maybe Nintendo's innovations will move the market, or maybe you're right that the public will just opt for the same-old same-old -- but it's hardly a sure thing either way [and of course the huge price differential hardly hurts Nintendo's cause!].
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That's a perfectly sensible statement. It is entirely possible that the Wii will not just be a first-party Nintendo box, that Nintendo will cultivate a broad library of third-party games that appeals to a wide range of tastes. While history suggests that it won't, at least Nintendo has said that this is a goal for them. However, these are just possibilities, and they make the Wii a dark-horse, not the sure bet that everyone is making it out to be. It is just as possible, and arguably more likely, that the market will maintain the status-quo, because it is a simple fact that for every true innovation that reshapes the market, there are a dozen failed innovations that the market rejects.
There's nothing particularly wrong with the n64/gc libraries -- nowhere near the quantity of ps2 games, but there are some absolutely incredible games, and certainly enough to satisfy. Nintendo's hardware and 1st-party games are of course top-notch.
The N64's and GC's libraries appeal to some people, but obviously not to enough people to help its sales numbers. It lost the sales lead to Microsoft, which had a decidedly mediocre effort. Yeah, there are some great first party titles, but people tend to rack up dozens of games over the life of a console. Of the several people I know that have a GC, none have even close to a dozen games. There's just not enough out there to get that many, unless you have very broad tastes.
I think the feeling is that with every new generation, the counter gets reset, and the only thing required for good 3rd-party support is mind-share.
Which is silly. Mind-share is created by peoples' expectations, and peoples' expectations are decided based on their experience. For every person who knows the ins-and-outs of the game industry, and has some idea of what to expect with the Wii, there are lots of regular gamers who simply remember they bought a PS2 rather than a Gamecube, and will go in preferring the PS3 for that reason.
In the last gen, Sony played their cards perfectly and managed to hold onto the the mind-share they had with the ps1 -- but many people seem to feel they've stumbled badly this time, and that Nintendo stands a good chance to get 3rd party support they didn't in the last gen.
Nintendo's already given up on third-party support, by releasing a console that doesn't compete technically with everyone elses's. Let's be serious here --- we're talking about the entertainment industry. Being different isn't exactly the way to cater to an established userbase. Why do you think movies are by and large similar each year? Because people like reassuring continuity! "The same as last year but better" moves product, and you can look down on it, but you can't deny it.
Given that Nintendo's pretty much guaranteed to offer high quality hardware and 1st-party games, has a vastly lower price point, and is simply doing more interesting things than Sony is, why would you not want to invest in a wii???
Because I'm a rational person who is capable of learning from the past. I've stuck my finger in the electrical socket twice before, and I'll assume I'm going to get shocked again if I do until I have concrete evidence to the contrary.
The N64 and GC were very dissapointing not just from a gaming, but a market-share point of view. One could forgive Nintendo losing to Sony with the N64 --- they were late and the cart versus CD thing really did them in. But losing to Microsoft when both launched at the same time, and the XBox wasn't even that good? That's just sad. What it shows is simply that people didn't want to buy what Nintendo was selling.
In any case, my problem with the Wii hype is that Nintendo hasn't addressed the thing that made the N64 and GC so dissapointing: the library. In other words, they haven't changed what they're selling. The Wii looks like more of the same: a system mainly useful for playing first-party Nintendo stuff. The Wii hopeful are betting that there will be tons of people who want to play these games, but history suggests otherwise. For every 30-year old ex-gamer that might tune in for some cheap fun, there are a dozen current gamers who want Gran Turismo, Madden, Final Fantasy, etc.
Nintendo is betting it can expand the market of people who will buy its games, and the Wii fans are treating it like it's a sure thing. But its far from a sure thing. If so many people wanted to buy first-party Nintendo titles, a lot more people would own Gamecubes. After all, it was 2/3's the price of the PS2 when it launched. But five times as many people own PS2s as Gamecubes, and there's got to be a reason for that. Maybe Nintendo can create and cultivate this "casual gamer" market that its betting on, but don't think for a moment its not a gamble.
I hear people say stuff like "Nintendo is going to bury Sony", and get irritated not because I give a shit about Sony (like I said, I got my PS2 last year --- I'm hardly a die hard fan), but because it's so irrational. It's completely grounded in hope and ignores both historical precedent and actual evidence about what the market wants to buy.
And what exactly does freedom of speech have to do with scientific progress?
...).
It very much enables it in the first place.
What is your evidence for this statement?
You mix up science and engineering. And Nazi Germany's technology was based on the scientific lead Germany had achieved in the early late 19th and early 20th century (and they lagged in things like code breaking, operational research,
No, I'm not. Nazi Germany contributed things to science too. In the field of aerospace, for example, a lot of basic ideas, eg: swept forward wings, were pioneered by German scientists.
In any case, Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century had one of the most repressive governments in Western Europe. Nazi Germany wasn't an interruption in that series of regimes, but merely a continuation of it. Bismarck was just better about maintaining pretenses than Hitler was.
The Soviet Union had good competence in a few key areas that were funded well, but lagged in overall development.
Sure, it lagged the US in overall development, but there is no arguing that it still made large contributions to science. That suggests that your thesis that a free state is a prerequisite for scientific advancement is quite false. All that is really necessary for scientific advancement is sufficient funding and strong government support. Freedom of speech is really a non-issue.
Ah, a European gamer. Here in the US, PS2 and PC games are both around $50. XBox 360 games are $60, but Sony hasn't said anything about matching suit.
The difference is that after 10 years (N64 was released 1996 AFAIK) of Playstation-fanboy wank-fests, Nintendo-fanboys now take the bridge and wank back.
At least Playstation fanboy wank-fests were driven by success. The Playstations sold lots of consoles, and had a ton of good games. Nintendo last two console efforts paled in comparison.
I can understand Nintendo fanboy's wanking over the DS. They're justified in doing so based on the system's record. But the Wii has no such record. It's an unproven gamble, from a company that managed to lose marketshare even to a mediocre first-try offering from Microsoft. The Wii could very well work out, despite Nintendo's track record, but everyone here seems to be treating it like a sure thing. Meanwhile, they're ridiculing Sony, which has for the last decade been delivering what Nintendo has not!
Why the hell do you use faith for making purchasing decisions? That's terrible logic.
I'm using the weak-form of faith here. Not as in religious belief, but as in confidence in capability. Everyone here is talking about how they'll get a Wii this November, and that's based on faith --- confidence in the idea that Nintendo will deliver the gaming experience they are promising.
I have no such confidence, because Nintendo's track record with its last two consoles just isn't good. What I was wondering was why (honestly), everyone else seems to have confidence in them, despite emperical evidence to the contrary?
People accuse Sony of relying on hype, but it's not Sony relying on hype this time around. Even with all the negative publicity they've received, there are a lot of people looking forward to the PS3. They're certainly not looking forward to it based on the previews, but because of Sony's track record with the PS1 and PS2. Meanwhile, everyone is fawning over Nintendo for a good showing at E3, despite the knowledge that the previews suggested that the N64 and GC were going to be awesome too, but those systems never built up a substantial library.
And what exactly does freedom of speech have to do with scientific progress?
Two of the most technologically advanced states in the last century (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), were very un-free places.
In any case, do you celebrate mother's day? Because Stalin had a mother. Shame on you mommies!
Can someone just answer one question for me?
What's with this blind faith in Nintendo? Their last two consoles have been decidedly mediocre. Decent hardware, patchy library. Why's is everyone convinced this run-through is going to be different? Personally, I have no faith in Nintendo anymore. I loved my NES and SNES. I bought an N64 the day it came out, even though it came out late. Sold it a year later, got a PSX so I could actually play some games. Bought a Gamecube a year after it came out, hoping it'd have some games out by then. It got me out of gaming entirely for a couple of years, until I bought a PS2 mini last summer.
So what's different this time? Why should I get a Wii this November, and not expect to have to sell it a year later and buy a PS3 to actually do some gaming?
I'm thinking the same thing. Between my brother and I, there's maybe $2000 of PS2 games at our house, and I've still got a half a dozen I keep meaning to get to buying. $400 versus $600 for a console is really the least of my concerns. If the PS3's lineup is good, they're getting my money.
Whaa? $1000 wouldn't buy you a computer as powerful as a PS3, and games would be just as expensive, unless you're planning on pirating them.
What are you talking about"