As an aside, according to Nintendo, the first online game will be Pokemon Battle Revoution, which is coming out in December in Japan. There has been no announcement on when the US will get this game, but it is likely that any game that comes after that should have the potential of online capability.
That is a nice argument, but it has one serious flaw. Aside from the 360, the 5th generation is still going.
Microsoft only reports shipped numbers, Nintendo only reports sold numbers. As of the release of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has stopped shipping original Xboxen. That shipped number will never increase. Nintendo, on the other hand, still ships the Gamecube, because the Wii has not shipped yet. They continual to outsell the original Xbox by 1000 to 1 in every region (and until March of this year, were outselling the 360 as well, but that was mainly due to production issues on Microsoft's part). By the time the Wii releases, chances are the number of GC units sold vs the number of Xbox units sold will be almost exactly the same.
Re:still supprised at the $250 price tag.
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That doesn't entirely dispute my point. In that case, she wasn't aware of the 3rd option. If someone believes that the PS3 and 360 are the only options, that is all they are going to consider.
Assuming someone is aware of all 3 options from the get go, and all we priced identically, $300 for the Wii + game, $300 for the 360 Core & $300 for the PS3 Core, which do you think she would have bought, left to her own devices?
With research the PS3 is the obvious choice, but the majority of people will go for the laziest, easiest choice, which would be the Wii w/game.
Re:The Pros and Cons of the Mii Channel
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Actually, I would be all about a Wii vs. Mii FPS. A cartoony, avatar based FPS with ridiculous weapons and gadgets that doesn't bother to take itself seriously. With a near infinite variable of characters, since you can design your own Avatar for the game. Using Wii Sports as the graphical ideal, you could easily have 64 or greater player matches, because it's not like it's taxing the CPU or the GPU with that graphical style. Not to mention with such low poly counts, you could have miles worth of stage, with massive draw distances, especially since the style requires little to no AA, moderate texture work, the most intensive things are the lighting and shading features. I predict we hear about such a game within a year. No blood, of course, because it's a completely cartoony FPS, but no one will care if you can blast a friend's avatar (that can even look vaguely like him) into it's component limbs.
But no, I can't see any way this would work in an RPG. But platformers, board games, sports (obviously), and puzzle games could all use Miis. I don't think 3rd parties will ever make much use of them, but 1st/2nd party Nintendo games, and maybe indie VC games might.
I do agree they need more options for customization. Not just clothing options, but feature options that might not be human. Being able to add Elf Ears, Vampire Fangs, Claws or other unnatural features will encourage people to try to make more and more unique Miis.
Except the pack in is Wii Sports, which actually retails for 4800 Yen in Japan, so it's only about $35 for the game. So the actual price of Wii + WiiMote + Nunchuck = $215.
That makes sense except for one thing, it ignores the psychology of a parent who knows nothing about gaming.
Even being only a little cheaper, the Wii comes with a game. It doesn't matter what the game is, a parent who knows nothing about gaming will choose a system with a game over a system without a game 9/10, even if the system with a game is more expensive. So basically, unless the person they're buying it for requested a specific system, or a specific game, to a parent the Wii is still more attractive.
To a gamer, this means absolutely nothing, and you might as well get a 360, depending on your game preference. This will in no way affect Nintendo's sales this year, though.
No, sorry, wrong, it still only contains one controller and one nunchuk. I would have thought 2 controllers myself, but apparently they couldn't squeeze that into their $250 maximum price.
A suit which, if you'll check, fell through because Nintendo was not, in fact, dumping. They sold the NES, as they have with most of their products, for a profit.
That part is key, it means it is suspected to be true, but there is no actual proof. I have never heard from an authoritative source that Sony actually lost money on the PS2 hardware, and they certainly did not on the PS1 hardware. The only consoles to ever have confirmed to sell under cost were: Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360 and, we assume, PS3. The PSP might also, but, again, no authoritative source available.
My take on the Zelda thing (and I could easily be wrong) is that they're having to switch their game stamping factories from the 3.5cm GC discs to the 12cm Wii discs. In order to produce enough pressed Wii discs at launch for all the various games being released, they've probably started switching factories over already, so they'll probably be producing and stamping the Wii version of Zelda faster than the GC version. That means, to insure they launch with enough copies of Zelda GC, they'll have to actually press discs for a longer period of time.
Re:power consumption? power consumption?
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Less power consumption means a more powerful system in a smaller package. It means they can have a system that is 3 times as powerful as the GC, but uses a smaller, quieter fan, and doesn't heat up as much, meaning that leaving it on 24/7 will not damage the internals. Try never shutting off a PS2 or an Xbox, or a 360 which has overheating problems sometimes after just a few hours. Lower power consumption makes that no longer an issue, and extends the life of the console.
This is especially important if you use the wireless features on the console, as wireless broadcast/receive uses up A LOT of power (DS Wifi very nearly halves the battery life on the DS).
I can forsee getting no use out of the Wii News and Weather, or the Opera Browser even, I'm too much of a computer user.
Mii, on the other hand, is just dripping with Potential. Right now Wii Sports & Wii Play are the only games that actually use the Miis in game. But they could create a whole series of games that effectively let you create an avatar, and then stat track that avatar through various games. You can create your Mii, and keep track of his Golf Handicap, his Homerun %, and other stats. It'll be the rough equivalent of achievements, except you can have multiple avatars per person.
Add to that being able to send email from Wii to Wii, with your little Mii character (and possibly an animation) showing your mood, and the blog crowd will eat this up.
Then all they need is a lobby system for multiplay, where your Mii walks into, say, a Smash Bros. lobby, hanging around with your friends' avatars waiting for a game to start.
Of all the Channels, I predict the Mii channel is going to end up being the star of the show (well, right behind the Shopping Channel, obviously, VC is hard to beat).
Wii Sports is 4800 Yen in Japan, so it's about $42. That still doesn't mean you necessarily want the game, but it does provide a better value proposition.
Re:I want to clarify a couple of things
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You're forgetting the $120 for extra 360 controllers (I think they're only $40, they might be $50 for the wireless ones), plus $40 for the memory card (no built in memory on the Core 360), so that's $460 and no game. Minimum $50 for a first party game makes $510 to get the same thing you just got for $390 on the Wii.
And Wii Sports doesn't require a nunchuck for Bowling, Baseball, Tennis or Golf, but I bet it does for Boxing.
The same applies in the current generation though. Which is more powerful, the 360 that can do amazing graphics, but has a processor design that's particularly bad for handling physics, or the Wii that can't do graphics quite as well, but was designed from the ground up to handle advanced physics, and can handle them as well, if not better, than the 360, even with a lower clock speed and only one core?
Eh, either way, it's a pretty useless argument.
Re:The suprising news though is....
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Oh, that one's easy.
Black Friday is one of the 3 biggest shopping days of the year in the US. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which is the week after the Wii launches). Nintendo would have to be insane to miss that date for such a risky product launch, they need to hit as many big shopping days as they can manage.
In Japan, major shopping for Christmas and New Years doesn't begin until December, so they can afford to wait a little longer, meaning they can launch with a decent number of systems in Japan (more than 100,000 you know) and at least try to meet demand.
I would assume they'll choose a European ship date tailored to what the European shopping habits are. I know Europe isn't as rampantly consumerist as the US and Japan, so chances are you'll probably get a date in mid-December, or maybe late November if you're lucky.
I have no clue about Australia.
Re:still supprised at the $250 price tag.
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Have you ever bought a gaming system as a gift for another person?
When looking at the difference between a 360 core and a Wii, the thing a gift giver is going to look at first is the fact that the Wii comes with a game. For someone who is only buying the system as a gift, that one fact overrides any advantages the 360 might possibly have. When looking at a $250 Wii in one box with a game, or a $300 360 which still needs a game and a memory card (Wii has built in Flash memory, 512MB), most parents and relatives will go with the Wii because it's easier.
No, no, that was back at E3 when they said it might be their first console to ever sell at a loss. They confirmed today that they will make a profit on every Wii sold, so no problem there.
ctually let's assume this logic. Let's assume that for every PS2 sold, a PS3 would be purchased and that for every GBA, DS, and Gamecube sold, a Wii would be purchased. In this case, the PS3 would outsell the Wii.
PS2s sold = 106 million
GBAs sold = 76 milliion
DSs sold = 22 million
GCNs sold = 22 million
By my calculation, and using your premise as the base assumption, Wii wins by 14 million units.
Either way, you can't depend only on the past to predict the future. If that was your only indicator, England should no longer exist and we should have been on our 3rd world war about 10 years ago. History is a guideline, at best.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are dead wrong. Holiday sales this season will probably look a lot like this (for the US market):
DS
PS2
360
Wii
PSP
PS3
GCN
Xbox
The simple reason is availability. DS, PS2 & 360 have been out long enough that they have more stock available. The bottom line is, people will go to the store to buy a Wii or PS3, and there won't be any. Most people, tired of waiting, will spend that money on a 360, or a DS if they don't have one. There simply is no possible way for Nintendo to produce enough stock for this holiday season that they can hope to exceed Microsoft's sales. PS3 or Wii may win out in the long run, and they are both pretty much guaranteed to sell out this holiday, but the 360 will have the highest hardware sales this season.
Don't take this wrong, but the Famicom allowed game downloads more than 50 years ago, and there was a 3rd party colecovision add-on that allowed game downloads as well. Services like GameTap & Live Arcade are hardly new, they're just more efficient.
According to the stats on NintendoWiFi.com, most of the players online are Japanese, not American or European, and the Japanese have had the Famicom online, Super Famicom online, n64 DD online, Xbox online and even the GBC online (via cellphone). They've also been online with the PC & PS2, they were playinig FFXI in droves before it was ever released in the US, so it can't just be desperation. They have, and have had, other options. I'd say maybe it's just the choice of games. No where else are you going to get Mario Kart or Star Fox or even Metroid Prime online (although I suspect MP:H isn't that big a deal to the Japanese, it only sold something like 500k units, and I was surprised it sold that many).
Slashdot Mirror
As an aside, according to Nintendo, the first online game will be Pokemon Battle Revoution, which is coming out in December in Japan. There has been no announcement on when the US will get this game, but it is likely that any game that comes after that should have the potential of online capability.
Microsoft only reports shipped numbers, Nintendo only reports sold numbers. As of the release of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has stopped shipping original Xboxen. That shipped number will never increase. Nintendo, on the other hand, still ships the Gamecube, because the Wii has not shipped yet. They continual to outsell the original Xbox by 1000 to 1 in every region (and until March of this year, were outselling the 360 as well, but that was mainly due to production issues on Microsoft's part). By the time the Wii releases, chances are the number of GC units sold vs the number of Xbox units sold will be almost exactly the same.
Assuming someone is aware of all 3 options from the get go, and all we priced identically, $300 for the Wii + game, $300 for the 360 Core & $300 for the PS3 Core, which do you think she would have bought, left to her own devices?
With research the PS3 is the obvious choice, but the majority of people will go for the laziest, easiest choice, which would be the Wii w/game.
But no, I can't see any way this would work in an RPG. But platformers, board games, sports (obviously), and puzzle games could all use Miis. I don't think 3rd parties will ever make much use of them, but 1st/2nd party Nintendo games, and maybe indie VC games might.
I do agree they need more options for customization. Not just clothing options, but feature options that might not be human. Being able to add Elf Ears, Vampire Fangs, Claws or other unnatural features will encourage people to try to make more and more unique Miis.
Except the pack in is Wii Sports, which actually retails for 4800 Yen in Japan, so it's only about $35 for the game. So the actual price of Wii + WiiMote + Nunchuck = $215.
Even being only a little cheaper, the Wii comes with a game. It doesn't matter what the game is, a parent who knows nothing about gaming will choose a system with a game over a system without a game 9/10, even if the system with a game is more expensive. So basically, unless the person they're buying it for requested a specific system, or a specific game, to a parent the Wii is still more attractive.
To a gamer, this means absolutely nothing, and you might as well get a 360, depending on your game preference. This will in no way affect Nintendo's sales this year, though.
No, sorry, wrong, it still only contains one controller and one nunchuk. I would have thought 2 controllers myself, but apparently they couldn't squeeze that into their $250 maximum price.
A suit which, if you'll check, fell through because Nintendo was not, in fact, dumping. They sold the NES, as they have with most of their products, for a profit.
That part is key, it means it is suspected to be true, but there is no actual proof. I have never heard from an authoritative source that Sony actually lost money on the PS2 hardware, and they certainly did not on the PS1 hardware. The only consoles to ever have confirmed to sell under cost were: Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360 and, we assume, PS3. The PSP might also, but, again, no authoritative source available.
My take on the Zelda thing (and I could easily be wrong) is that they're having to switch their game stamping factories from the 3.5cm GC discs to the 12cm Wii discs. In order to produce enough pressed Wii discs at launch for all the various games being released, they've probably started switching factories over already, so they'll probably be producing and stamping the Wii version of Zelda faster than the GC version. That means, to insure they launch with enough copies of Zelda GC, they'll have to actually press discs for a longer period of time.
This is especially important if you use the wireless features on the console, as wireless broadcast/receive uses up A LOT of power (DS Wifi very nearly halves the battery life on the DS).
I can forsee getting no use out of the Wii News and Weather, or the Opera Browser even, I'm too much of a computer user.
Mii, on the other hand, is just dripping with Potential. Right now Wii Sports & Wii Play are the only games that actually use the Miis in game. But they could create a whole series of games that effectively let you create an avatar, and then stat track that avatar through various games. You can create your Mii, and keep track of his Golf Handicap, his Homerun %, and other stats. It'll be the rough equivalent of achievements, except you can have multiple avatars per person.
Add to that being able to send email from Wii to Wii, with your little Mii character (and possibly an animation) showing your mood, and the blog crowd will eat this up.
Then all they need is a lobby system for multiplay, where your Mii walks into, say, a Smash Bros. lobby, hanging around with your friends' avatars waiting for a game to start.
Of all the Channels, I predict the Mii channel is going to end up being the star of the show (well, right behind the Shopping Channel, obviously, VC is hard to beat).
Wii Sports is 4800 Yen in Japan, so it's about $42. That still doesn't mean you necessarily want the game, but it does provide a better value proposition.
And Wii Sports doesn't require a nunchuck for Bowling, Baseball, Tennis or Golf, but I bet it does for Boxing.
Eh, either way, it's a pretty useless argument.
Black Friday is one of the 3 biggest shopping days of the year in the US. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which is the week after the Wii launches). Nintendo would have to be insane to miss that date for such a risky product launch, they need to hit as many big shopping days as they can manage.
In Japan, major shopping for Christmas and New Years doesn't begin until December, so they can afford to wait a little longer, meaning they can launch with a decent number of systems in Japan (more than 100,000 you know) and at least try to meet demand.
I would assume they'll choose a European ship date tailored to what the European shopping habits are. I know Europe isn't as rampantly consumerist as the US and Japan, so chances are you'll probably get a date in mid-December, or maybe late November if you're lucky.
I have no clue about Australia.
When looking at the difference between a 360 core and a Wii, the thing a gift giver is going to look at first is the fact that the Wii comes with a game. For someone who is only buying the system as a gift, that one fact overrides any advantages the 360 might possibly have. When looking at a $250 Wii in one box with a game, or a $300 360 which still needs a game and a memory card (Wii has built in Flash memory, 512MB), most parents and relatives will go with the Wii because it's easier.
Laziness FTW.
No, no, that was back at E3 when they said it might be their first console to ever sell at a loss. They confirmed today that they will make a profit on every Wii sold, so no problem there.
Perhaps Sudoku Gridmaster (which may or may not be out in the US yet, I don't remember).
Yes. A Wiiner is you.
ctually let's assume this logic. Let's assume that for every PS2 sold, a PS3 would be purchased and that for every GBA, DS, and Gamecube sold, a Wii would be purchased. In this case, the PS3 would outsell the Wii.
PS2s sold = 106 million GBAs sold = 76 milliion DSs sold = 22 million GCNs sold = 22 million
By my calculation, and using your premise as the base assumption, Wii wins by 14 million units.
Either way, you can't depend only on the past to predict the future. If that was your only indicator, England should no longer exist and we should have been on our 3rd world war about 10 years ago. History is a guideline, at best.
Wait until those games are ported to the Wii, Xbox 360 or PC? Cause they will be, you know.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are dead wrong. Holiday sales this season will probably look a lot like this (for the US market): DS PS2 360 Wii PSP PS3 GCN Xbox The simple reason is availability. DS, PS2 & 360 have been out long enough that they have more stock available. The bottom line is, people will go to the store to buy a Wii or PS3, and there won't be any. Most people, tired of waiting, will spend that money on a 360, or a DS if they don't have one. There simply is no possible way for Nintendo to produce enough stock for this holiday season that they can hope to exceed Microsoft's sales. PS3 or Wii may win out in the long run, and they are both pretty much guaranteed to sell out this holiday, but the 360 will have the highest hardware sales this season.
Don't take this wrong, but the Famicom allowed game downloads more than 50 years ago, and there was a 3rd party colecovision add-on that allowed game downloads as well. Services like GameTap & Live Arcade are hardly new, they're just more efficient.
According to the stats on NintendoWiFi.com, most of the players online are Japanese, not American or European, and the Japanese have had the Famicom online, Super Famicom online, n64 DD online, Xbox online and even the GBC online (via cellphone). They've also been online with the PC & PS2, they were playinig FFXI in droves before it was ever released in the US, so it can't just be desperation. They have, and have had, other options. I'd say maybe it's just the choice of games. No where else are you going to get Mario Kart or Star Fox or even Metroid Prime online (although I suspect MP:H isn't that big a deal to the Japanese, it only sold something like 500k units, and I was surprised it sold that many).