Second, there is more to profitability than selling goods for greater than the manufacturing cost. MS hasn't confirmed that the 360 is selling for a profit; that's been due to various self-proclaimed "experts" like iSuppli pulling numbers out of their asses. Even if the console were selling at profit, they would still have to recoup their R&D, implementation, and marketing costs, and even then, there are other long-term expenses that eat up any margin made on hardware sales. One of the larger expenses for the Entertainment division this year was warrantee service for the 360. There's been some improvement in the quality assurance, but that cost isn't likely to go down significantly any time soon.
Third, MS has gone on record as saying they believe that the Xbox360 will achieve profitability NEXT year.
Nintendo's war chest, as of a year or so ago, was around nine billion dollars. That has most likely been padded by their recent market successes.
I'll grant you that Microsoft's war chest is pretty sizeable -- Last I read, it was around 25 to 30 billion dollars. Sony, however, is a different story. Sony has not been in good shape and is sitting on top of around twelve billion in debt. They don't have a warchest to speak of, since they are taking on more debt as part of their restructuring. They are hemmoraging money to push the PS3 because that's part of their recovery strategy and because that's all they feel that they can do.
That's amusingly ironic, considering that FFVII was originally in development for the N64 (complete with lush, gorgeous promo screens that no one believe were real), when the project was shifted over to the PS1 (complete with three-disc FMV-tastic gameplay) when Squaresoft decided that Sony was going to move more units.
Both versions of the Atari Lynx were truly ambidextrous, which was a nice touch. Not really a "controller" though, unless you consider it a controller with a screen and console built-in.
How is it hard to prove? A man gets a ticket (or, causes an accident) at 5:45. The phone records show he sent a text message at 5:44. Unless he has a passenger that he could have handed the phone off to, it's hard to say that he wasn't texting.
True. You always have the option of not playing at all.
Unless you are trying to say that your not wanting to buy a PS2 is somehow justification for downloading unlicensed song packs for Frets on Fire, which is just pathetic.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that Metroid isn't a very popular series in Japan. It's very much a franchise that Nintendo has kept around for its North American fans and tailored it with a Western audience in mind.
It's true, though. There's only a finite amount of money that can/will be spent on games, and if people are buying DS games, they can't use that money on Wii games. If people aren't buying Wii games, publishers are less likely to invest in producing new Wii games.
Nintendo still gets paid, but it's harder to establish a new line if sales are being lost to another platform (even your own).
Because the reality of the situation doesn't agree with the point he's trying to make?
To the GP: If it were only 259k units total, you might have an argument. That number, though, is only the NPD reported numbers for North America. That ignores the European and Japanese markets, which some of the product might have been diverted. Since there is no real EU equivalent to NPD or Media Create, it will be a while before anyone know the total number sold.
There's strong speculation that Wii production was being shifted over to the Japanese market to prepare for Golden Week, which is kind of like a week's worth of Black Fridays strung together. Nintendo has an obligation to all their customers, not just their American ones.
Out of curiousity, your local Toys'R'Us has a playable Wii kiosk?
I ask because the manager at the one here in town said that none of their stores would have any, and I was curious if things were different on your side of the pond.
The DS sales are almost certainly due to the upcoming release of Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Diamond this weekend. I've heard figures claiming that there have been 500k pre-orders already, between the two games.
There is speculation that Nintendo might be redirecting some of their production toward Japan, seeing as how Golden Week is coming up shortly, and that's their biggest holiday9s) / shopping spree of the year. It's probably wise of them to shift stock to match the different regions.
Also, while Nintendo might shifting more units toward Japan or Europe, that might be to shift back toward equilibrium after prioritizing North America for the Christmas season.
The loss taken on the GameCube was only immediately after the price drop to $99. The system was reengineered shortly afterward(removing the digital video out, etc.) to bring it back to profitability.
The lack of a touchscreen didn't do in the PSP. The GBA was a very capable portable without one, and before the DS (and up to a year afterward), no one would have thought it a viable or vital component. People understand it now, but when the PSP was in development, there was no way they could have foreseen how things would play out (especially at risk-averse Sony).
No, the biggest problem with the PSP is that it is a powerful system and that it was marketed that way.
Sony kept referring to it as portable PS2, with all the power of a home console in your hand, and what happens? A bunch of developers rush to port home console games over to the system without thinking about the particular needs of handheld gaming. Long load times, oversized levels, infrequent save points -- these are all things that longtime GBA devs knew to avoid, but were completely overlooked by the studios that were lured in by the easy power of the PSP.
So, a lot of the poor ports or poorly-thought out originals make their way over to the system, and people get the idea that there aren't any quality games for it. The few that are out there get drowned out by all the garbage, and people are hesitant to spend $40 to take a risk on new games.
Add in the "homebrew" enthusiasts who were also lured in by the promise of raw power, and it's a recipe for trouble, if not outright disaster.
My understanding is that they priced the new hard drive based on the cost difference between the Elite and the Core package. $300 Core 360 + $179 120GB HD = $479 Elite 360. Ignoring the fact that they're not truly equal, it at least makes some sense.
It's not entirely fair, though, to claim that people who bought the Premium 360 are getting totally screwed, since after they've shelled out their $579 (not $600!), they've got two hard drives. ($400 Premium 360 + $179 120GB HD = $479 Elite 360 + $100 20GB HD).
I know one thing, if I were a JRPG developer right now like Namco-Banai, I'd shitting myself waiting for the shoe to drop (Namco would most likely go Nintendo, as they've done in the past, especially isn't most of their series aren't based around eye-candy).
Namco generally goes with whomever is the market leader, but since Sony is willing to shell out the big bucks to keep Tekken and Soul Calibur away from the other platforms, it's hard to tell. Nintendo owns something like a 3-4% share of Bandai, so I'd imagine that might help sway the decision.
I'd like to see the Tales series shift primarily over to the Wii, but given how long Namco has been delaying their DS offering, I'm not investing too much hope in it.
You might want to re-check your facts, as the document you linked to shows the opposite of what you are claiming. Sony's gaming divisions were the least profitable (of the sectors where they were profitable). The general electronics divisions obviously took a huge hit, but even if you take their banking and insurance products out of the equation, Sony Pictures and Sony Music have a higher income and higher margin. The gaming divisions had higher sales, true, but revenue is not the same as profit.
The DS has to have per-game Friends Codes because they didn't have any of the network backend in place when the system came out. The Wii should only need the system Friend Code to sign up for the service, which is not a thing of evil. (You'd have to enter in your credit card number to sign up for Xbox Live, so it's not like the alternate involves no punching-in of numbers)
Hopefully, since there's an actual UI in place on the Wii, they'll make adding people to your addressbook more streamlined, without requiring you to manually enter in codes. Since they're adding rosters and leaderboards, I'd be surprised if they don't.
Ideally, you'd also be able to link your Wii Wi-Fi Connection account to your Mii, so you can load it onto your Wiimote and connect to WFC from a friend's house.
Slashdot Mirror
First, learn to love the line break.
Second, there is more to profitability than selling goods for greater than the manufacturing cost. MS hasn't confirmed that the 360 is selling for a profit; that's been due to various self-proclaimed "experts" like iSuppli pulling numbers out of their asses. Even if the console were selling at profit, they would still have to recoup their R&D, implementation, and marketing costs, and even then, there are other long-term expenses that eat up any margin made on hardware sales. One of the larger expenses for the Entertainment division this year was warrantee service for the 360. There's been some improvement in the quality assurance, but that cost isn't likely to go down significantly any time soon.
Third, MS has gone on record as saying they believe that the Xbox360 will achieve profitability NEXT year.
Nintendo's war chest, as of a year or so ago, was around nine billion dollars. That has most likely been padded by their recent market successes.
I'll grant you that Microsoft's war chest is pretty sizeable -- Last I read, it was around 25 to 30 billion dollars. Sony, however, is a different story. Sony has not been in good shape and is sitting on top of around twelve billion in debt. They don't have a warchest to speak of, since they are taking on more debt as part of their restructuring. They are hemmoraging money to push the PS3 because that's part of their recovery strategy and because that's all they feel that they can do.
That's amusingly ironic, considering that FFVII was originally in development for the N64 (complete with lush, gorgeous promo screens that no one believe were real), when the project was shifted over to the PS1 (complete with three-disc FMV-tastic gameplay) when Squaresoft decided that Sony was going to move more units.
Both versions of the Atari Lynx were truly ambidextrous, which was a nice touch. Not really a "controller" though, unless you consider it a controller with a screen and console built-in.
How is it hard to prove? A man gets a ticket (or, causes an accident) at 5:45. The phone records show he sent a text message at 5:44. Unless he has a passenger that he could have handed the phone off to, it's hard to say that he wasn't texting.
True. You always have the option of not playing at all.
Unless you are trying to say that your not wanting to buy a PS2 is somehow justification for downloading unlicensed song packs for Frets on Fire, which is just pathetic.
The thing to keep in mind, though, is that Metroid isn't a very popular series in Japan. It's very much a franchise that Nintendo has kept around for its North American fans and tailored it with a Western audience in mind.
It's true, though. There's only a finite amount of money that can/will be spent on games, and if people are buying DS games, they can't use that money on Wii games. If people aren't buying Wii games, publishers are less likely to invest in producing new Wii games.
Nintendo still gets paid, but it's harder to establish a new line if sales are being lost to another platform (even your own).
Because the reality of the situation doesn't agree with the point he's trying to make?
To the GP: If it were only 259k units total, you might have an argument. That number, though, is only the NPD reported numbers for North America. That ignores the European and Japanese markets, which some of the product might have been diverted. Since there is no real EU equivalent to NPD or Media Create, it will be a while before anyone know the total number sold.
There's strong speculation that Wii production was being shifted over to the Japanese market to prepare for Golden Week, which is kind of like a week's worth of Black Fridays strung together. Nintendo has an obligation to all their customers, not just their American ones.
The Walmart bundles are especially popular, since you can just return any games you don't want from the package at your local Walmart.
Out of curiousity, your local Toys'R'Us has a playable Wii kiosk?
I ask because the manager at the one here in town said that none of their stores would have any, and I was curious if things were different on your side of the pond.
The DS sales are almost certainly due to the upcoming release of Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Diamond this weekend. I've heard figures claiming that there have been 500k pre-orders already, between the two games.
There is speculation that Nintendo might be redirecting some of their production toward Japan, seeing as how Golden Week is coming up shortly, and that's their biggest holiday9s) / shopping spree of the year. It's probably wise of them to shift stock to match the different regions.
Also, while Nintendo might shifting more units toward Japan or Europe, that might be to shift back toward equilibrium after prioritizing North America for the Christmas season.
Unfortunately, the PS3 does not also insert paragraph breaks for you.
Why wouldn't you just use the Wii to view your pictures? (Assuming that you don't have a Sony/Toshiba/Olympus camera that uses a funky memory card)
The loss taken on the GameCube was only immediately after the price drop to $99. The system was reengineered shortly afterward(removing the digital video out, etc.) to bring it back to profitability.
More satisfied for less, is perhaps more accurate.
The lack of a touchscreen didn't do in the PSP. The GBA was a very capable portable without one, and before the DS (and up to a year afterward), no one would have thought it a viable or vital component. People understand it now, but when the PSP was in development, there was no way they could have foreseen how things would play out (especially at risk-averse Sony).
No, the biggest problem with the PSP is that it is a powerful system and that it was marketed that way.
Sony kept referring to it as portable PS2, with all the power of a home console in your hand, and what happens? A bunch of developers rush to port home console games over to the system without thinking about the particular needs of handheld gaming. Long load times, oversized levels, infrequent save points -- these are all things that longtime GBA devs knew to avoid, but were completely overlooked by the studios that were lured in by the easy power of the PSP.
So, a lot of the poor ports or poorly-thought out originals make their way over to the system, and people get the idea that there aren't any quality games for it. The few that are out there get drowned out by all the garbage, and people are hesitant to spend $40 to take a risk on new games.
Add in the "homebrew" enthusiasts who were also lured in by the promise of raw power, and it's a recipe for trouble, if not outright disaster.
Seaman 2 is on its way to PS2 (in Japan) later this year. No idea whether they'll have a NA/EU release.
My understanding is that they priced the new hard drive based on the cost difference between the Elite and the Core package. $300 Core 360 + $179 120GB HD = $479 Elite 360. Ignoring the fact that they're not truly equal, it at least makes some sense.
It's not entirely fair, though, to claim that people who bought the Premium 360 are getting totally screwed, since after they've shelled out their $579 (not $600!), they've got two hard drives. ($400 Premium 360 + $179 120GB HD = $479 Elite 360 + $100 20GB HD).
The pricing is, at least, consistant.
Patience, Grasshopper. You must hold out until September.
(There's no official date yet, but Konami generally ships the major DDR releases in September.)
Don't you mean "WiiLiite"?
Namco generally goes with whomever is the market leader, but since Sony is willing to shell out the big bucks to keep Tekken and Soul Calibur away from the other platforms, it's hard to tell. Nintendo owns something like a 3-4% share of Bandai, so I'd imagine that might help sway the decision.
I'd like to see the Tales series shift primarily over to the Wii, but given how long Namco has been delaying their DS offering, I'm not investing too much hope in it.
You might want to re-check your facts, as the document you linked to shows the opposite of what you are claiming. Sony's gaming divisions were the least profitable (of the sectors where they were profitable). The general electronics divisions obviously took a huge hit, but even if you take their banking and insurance products out of the equation, Sony Pictures and Sony Music have a higher income and higher margin. The gaming divisions had higher sales, true, but revenue is not the same as profit.
The DS has to have per-game Friends Codes because they didn't have any of the network backend in place when the system came out. The Wii should only need the system Friend Code to sign up for the service, which is not a thing of evil. (You'd have to enter in your credit card number to sign up for Xbox Live, so it's not like the alternate involves no punching-in of numbers)
Hopefully, since there's an actual UI in place on the Wii, they'll make adding people to your addressbook more streamlined, without requiring you to manually enter in codes. Since they're adding rosters and leaderboards, I'd be surprised if they don't.
Ideally, you'd also be able to link your Wii Wi-Fi Connection account to your Mii, so you can load it onto your Wiimote and connect to WFC from a friend's house.