I meant the 720 and PS4. I was referring to the next gen consoles from Sony and MS. Typo, oops.

And who's the Nintendo fanboy who is rating me down on every post?! At least man up and say who you are.

It wasn't me, but yea that makes more sense.

It really bothers me to hear people rip on how "behind" the Wii is and how this new console will "not be enough to even catch up". Um, last I checked, the Wii was winning... and not by a small margin, either! The industry looks for any and every opportunity to rip on the Wii. When the Wii is winning, "well it serves a different market". When the Wii is losing, "SEE? SEE? PS360 IS BETTAR!" I remember seeing an article a few years ago that was basically titled, "The PS3 is catching up!" Upon closer examination, the author was bragging about the Wii only sold TWICE the number of consoles instead of THRICE. Talk about mathematically challenged... Yeah, if that trend continues, the PS3 will START to catch up SOMEDAY, but in the meantime, the gap still got BIGGER.

Today, PS3 and 360 sales are picking up and often passing the Wii, but you know what? That's because EVERYONE ALREADY OWNS A WII. Nintendo DS continues to dominate as well.

It's also getting old hearing everyone rip on Wii hardware. I certainly hope you've all tossed your XBOX and PS2 consoles into the trash. Don't look at that crap. Oh wait, PS2 continues to sell! I guess graphics don't rule the universe. Besides, when the Wii came out, roughly 10% of households had HDTVs. Nintendo did the smart thing by keeping costs low and targeting the here-and-now rather than some demographic 10 years from now. Today, yeah, Nintendo would be stupid for not putting out an HD machine because that statistic is now well over 50%, but that's obviously not an issue given all the hype surrounding Wii 2's alleged hardware specs.

If you don't like Nintendo consoles, so be it. That's not the point here. The point is that everyone seems to wander in this mystical state of denial about the Wii's success as if it never really happened. Everyone acts like this new console will be the end of Nintendo as we know it.

It really bothers me to hear people rip on how "behind" the Wii is and how this new console will "not be enough to even catch up". Um, last I checked, the Wii was winning...

Yup, the install base numbers published March 2011 bears it out:


[color="#333333"][font="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"]US:

• Nintendo DS - 47.3 million
• Nintendo Wii - 34.2 million
• Xbox 360 - 25.4 million
• PSP - 19 million
• PS3 - 15.4 millionEurope:
  
  • Nintendo DS - 46 million
  • Nintendo Wii - 24.9 million
  • PSP - 14.8 million
  • PS3 - 14.7 million
  • Xbox 360 - 13.7 million[/font]Couple those numbers with how both other console makers were initially selling the hardware at a loss, yet Wii made a slim profit initially. The margins have improved over the years, yet PS3 hardware just barely started breaking even last year. That's over 30 million hardware units and most taking a loss.
    
    Yes, the Wii filled up Nintendo's bank accounts. Considering the business side and market share the Wii has been ahead the whole generation for Nintendo.

It really bothers me to hear people rip on how "behind" the Wii is...

Have you done any wii development?

Clearly it is ahead in terms of sales and profit, but that ain't everything.

[quote name='TheBuzzSaw' timestamp='1303857096' post='4803259']
It really bothers me to hear people rip on how "behind" the Wii is...

Have you done any wii development?

Clearly it is ahead in terms of sales and profit, but that ain't everything.
[/quote]

Quite a bit of it, actually, shipping 4 titles on it including one near launch. Porting the NGC engine was not particularly difficult for the team, basically adding a pointing device to the UI and translating accelerometer input to usable values.

Having worked on a bunch of systems and architectures over the years, I don't believe the Wii itself is too difficult for development. Some of their implementation requirements are quirky (why didn't they make the home menu part of the firmware, making us pay such a huge memory cost to keep it resident at all times?!) but this type of issue comes with the territory.

In terms of hardware sales, yeah the Wii is number one. In terms of software sales, is the Wii still crushing the competition? How about 3rd party support? What's the number of sales between Nintendo first party sales and third party sales?

Having worked on a bunch of systems and architectures over the years, I don't believe the Wii itself is too difficult for development. Some of their implementation requirements are quirky (why didn't they make the home menu part of the firmware, making us pay such a huge memory cost to keep it resident at all times?!) but this type of issue comes with the territory.

Quirky is a good way to put it on thinking about it more.

In terms of hardware sales, yeah the Wii is number one. In terms of software sales, is the Wii still crushing the competition? How about 3rd party support? What's the number of sales between Nintendo first party sales and third party sales?

It really depends on the game. Wii's big games actually sell amazingly well.

In terms of hardware sales, yeah the Wii is number one. In terms of software sales, is the Wii still crushing the competition? How about 3rd party support? What's the number of sales between Nintendo first party sales and third party sales? [/quote]

First off, im not a dev or a programmer at all. But before the current gen began I had a thought on how things would turn out. And as I see, it became fact. Most people have either a 360 or a PS3 and a Wii.
The Wii brought a new way to play games, it would sell just because of that. But last gen 'hardcore' gamers and after the failure of the GC(in my eyes) they would move more towards MS and Sony.
So most people bought a Wii just for the experience, but also bought a 360 or a PS3 for their main gaming.

What destroys Nintendo is third party support. Like that gun and sword game for the Wii that came out a week or so before the WiiMotionPlus thing, it was perfect for it. Why wasnt it supported on the game?
Thats an example from my 'gamer' point of view. Nintendo does not care. They should have cared ALOT after what happened with the GameCube. Buy Nintendo console's if you STILL want to play Nintendo games.
Honestly I havent played Zelda or Mario on the Wii, but im tired of seeing them. They might be great games, I might like em, heck...I might even love them as I did when I first had them in 3D on the N64, but After Sunshine? And the art of Wind Waker? Sorry, cant anymore. Handhelds tho...the DS was awesome. Not sure about the 3DS. Looks good but it just came out, no games.

If Nintendo supports Indie's better...or at all AND releases a powerful console this or next year. And by powerful I mean much higher than the 360. They might have a good chance. If not, I see a ''Sega'' happening soon. And by the looks of it, Indie support is out of the question. I honestly think the Wii was their last breath or a way to get money.

Microsoft has a better hand of things, Hope the 720 has C# support too. If not, they will be comiting suicide. Sony should stick with Cell CPU's, would be stupid not to. I think they ''messed up'' their handheld strategy tho. NGP should have been what its Acronym standed for, Next Gen Handheld. A PSP/IPhone killer, atleast thats what I was hoping for...Not two seperate products.

I think smartphones will clear out Sony and Nintendo. I also think NVIDIA should make a game studio >.> Kal-el, anyone? *Drools*

I question your business acumen, Reaper.

People said that the Wii wouldn't do well before it came out, too. But Nintendo generated a large base of customers who weren't gamers before-- they really grew the market, and held that segment for a long time because they offered something different from the other consoles.[/quote]

True, JUST that!

The Wii 2 could be exactly the same[/quote]

Same idea wont work twice. Sony and MS did add to the way you play also. And the demographic Nintendo generated wont probably buy something similar. Or anything at all. Most Wii gamers dont even game much on the Wii... actually who really does? Kinda funny really.

launching before those two companies pulls them out of direct competition with them.[/quote]

This is why they need to go big! And cater for the hardcore. They already made the money, spend some on better hardware bring back the old gamers, open up to third parties more.

Not to mention that I think we're nearing a limit of what we can do with a 2D display and controller-based input.[/quote]

We are...? Right...

Graphics can get better, sure, but are we going to get Mario 64 moment, where everything about gaming is different from that point on?[/quote]

Don't you notice the difference from ps2 to ps3 or xbox to 360? And the other one is coming, with next gen console hardware, since they, the dev's, actually push the hardware.

how much better resolution can we get[/quote]

That's not a real question, right? Right?

and what's the marginal return on gameplay/quality/immersion?[/quote]

Three completely different things... Gameplay? Well thats a design thing. Quality? You need to be more specific. Immersion? Isn't that more of a psychological topic?

Can the use of a 10 button, 2 stick, single D-pad controller give us more and better ways to interact with our games?[/quote]

Its practical, it works as it should, it fits practically most genres except maybe an RTS. Why ruin something that is pretty much, perfect? Id add 2 more buttons, just in case!

If not, the increased power of consoles will offer a limited return to gamers versus what we've already got. Game worlds might get bigger, or deeper, but the majority of play styles and options will be very similar to what we've had for the last 2 1/2 console generations anyways. The next watershed of gaming could very well come from Nintendo, the less-horsepower but more-experimentation company.[/quote]

In those 2 1/2 generations alot has happened...we went from a 33Mhz Playstation to a 295Mhz Playstation 2 to a 3.2Ghz multi core Playstation 3. Go play some games, see the changes, everywhere.

But the question is, what is wrong with the play style? What is so bad about using a control/gamepad to play games? Are you really happy, good and ''immersed'' with Wii, Kinect or Move?

I question your business acumen, Reaper. [/quote]

Not very direct, are we?