Nintendo announces Wii successor for 2012

@Mazrael The whole point of Wii was simplicity. You can't have "Wii HD" or "Wii 2" or "Super Wii" for that very reason.

Wii was just Wii. A pun, a pronoun, a philosophy, an easy-to-remember brand name, a name that can be pronounced easily in every language around the world, a console name that needs no abbreviation, a console name promoting humbleness instead of the overdrawn & technological console names we had been used to.

The whole approach behind this console was what made this system so successful. It made the videogaming industry successful & saved it from another market crash. It took videogaming out of this clubhouse it had been stuck in & opened it up to the wide world outside. Changed how you play, changed how you thought about gaming. Changed the scope of what gaming could be.

You can't duplicate this again. You can't get that audience again. Small, clean, affordable, non-intrusive, low power consumption, lower production budgets, focus on game-craft over graphical flair.
There IS no better Wii. Wii is the best.
John Lucas

@johnlucas

Nintendo set out to attract the non-gamer with the Wii. They succeeded in doing that. Also, the Wii is old technology, it came out in 2006. Nintendo, has always released a new system within 6 years of the last. Your not forced into buying anything that you don't want to. I for one, am excited over this announcement. I don't care who puts what out, if it kicks major ass, I will get it. Nintendo is moving forward - I think you should too.

@johnlucas
"This is NOT a Technology Industry."

I hate to burst your bubble, but it is. You completely fail to realize the fact that the advancements in real-time rendering technology are spearheaded first and foremost by the gaming industry. Have you forgotten the fact that just now, a lot of research industries are playing catch-up because they've realized doing simulations in medicine, chemistry, etc., are far more efficient in parallel, and the reason why parallel computing even got this large in the first place was due to gaming? Or did you flat out just not know that?

You might think the industry isn't "tech driven" just because the Wii isn't, but you're completely wrong if you think that applies to the entire industry.

@johnlucas Kind of an empty prediction. The Wii was a completely unprecedented seller (outselling the PS2 from launch).

If you're "right", So? I can predict Michael Jordan's son won't be as good as his old man (which seems to be the case, but I didn't need to look that up to know that).

And frankly what is Nintendo going to do on the Wii? We got nearly every franchise they own other than obscure stuff and maybe Starfox. What amazing thing are they going to bring out for the Wii?

@johnlucas What do they have to offer. No platitudes or words. What amazing thing is out there that Nintendo has left to try?

Because for an obvious Nintendo fan, that's some bold words that YOU know better than they, what is out there to be done.

Is this really just anger that it's not going to supplant the PS2? You mentioned that elsewhere that it won't. Who cares? The DS will if that helps.

@verymetal Yeah that old tried & true 5-year console cycle tradition.
Guess what? I think that tradition SUCKS. It should have never been normal.

The only reason it existed was because new incoming competitors kept raising the stakes forcing the old incumbents to respond and/or play catchup to reclaim lost ground. There hasn't been a new competitor on the home console front in 10 years. So there's no need to keep cycling up so quickly.

Nintendo had the Famicom/NES run for 7 years before they moved on to the Super Famicom/SNES. That's 1983 to 1990. And NEC's PC Engine followed by Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis was the reason why they moved. Even then they held those guys off with the FC/NES for 3 years between 1987 & 1990. Held 'em off with an 8-bit console. It wasn't until Sonic came along that Genesis REALLY started to take off.

And as soon as they finally entered the 4th gen, the 5th gen was calling. More new incoming competitors. Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Saturn & especially Sony's original PlayStation. They were forced to move again but this time they didn't hold their ground with the Nintendo 64. So now they were forced to move on to the 6th gen to reclaim lost territory resulting in the Gamecube.

The Gamecube lost even more ground so they made that Hail Mary with Wii & finally reclaimed their lost ground. Now that they have it, they should hold onto it like they did with the NES. And since there are no new consoles out here to compete with, they should endure for the duration.

Makes so much sense in economic times like these. You think Japan is gonna be thinking about new consoles after the tragedy they just had? You think Americans will be ready to spend MORE money after gas reaches $5.00 a gallon on average & more jobs fall by the wayside? It makes more sense to stay low on pricing so more people will be willing to purchase this low-cost luxury called videogaming.

Everybody's lost in these tech dreams but I'm looking at the real picture. Old technology is in ALL of the consoles. None of them are cutting edge. They were old when they launched yet people are buying the 5-year old 360 like never before. It's not about tech. It's not about tech. It's not about tech. How many times do I have to say it? It's about the experience, verymetal. It's about the ideas. It's about the games. Tech is a servant to these things, not the master.

I'm telling ya, it's a mistake. Too early. Too soon. But the world & Nintendo will find this out very shortly.
John Lucas

@PointlessPuppies The history of videogaming shows me that it's NOT tech driven. Each time a competitor tries to grab the Tech Holy Grail they fail.

Atari 2600 ate the technologically superior Mattel Intellivision's butt in the early 1980s.

NES absolutely dominated the technologically superior Sega Master System AND the superior home computers in the mid-to-late 1980s (why do you think all those PC devs fled to the consoles).

Sega Genesis beat & held down the technologically superior SNES many times in the early 1990s. (Sega did themselves in which is why Nintendo won in the end)

Sony PlayStation ruled the technologically superior Nintendo 64 throughout the mid-late 1990s. By FAR. (ruled it so bad that Nintendo made their next system run on discs!)

Sony PlayStation 2 was overlord & emperor to the technologically superior Gamecube & XBox through the early-to-mid 2000s. And BEYOND. It's still selling even now! STILL getting a few new games even today (WWE All-Stars).

Game Boy destroyed every technologically superior competitor they faced—Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, NEC TurboExpress, Sega Nomad—throughout the 1990s. Destroyed them so bad that they could hold off on adding color to the handheld for 9 years! And they did that just because! There was no competition forcing their hand.

DS stomped the technologically superior PSP all over the mid-to-late 2000s (stomped it so bad that Sony is now adding touchscreens & game cards to their next handheld, the NGP).

It's simply not true. It's the Gunpei Yokoi principle. Using old tech in new ways. THAT'S how a console should be produced. Motion control is old tech but it was Nintendo who found a new use out of it. It's in the application of the tech not the tech itself. Those who try to follow the Cutting Edge find themselves facing the precipice as they monetarily subsidize their consoles to stay in business.

If Sony & Microsoft weren't such behemoths, they would be out of business long ago with how they operate their console production. The original XBox's financial failure would destroy any normal company. Nintendo's the last of the real gamemakers & that's why they USUALLY recognize the folly in playing this cutting edge game.

It's not just the Wii, it's the entire history of videogaming that shows this fact.
John Lucas

@houser I'm not even talking about franchises even though it annoys me that we may not see half of them even come to Wii. Which is a doggone shame. I'm talking the control & game possibilities STILL to be explored with Wii's controls.

Follow me on this:
Videogame controls in the beginning of the industry were on radio knobs like an Etch-A-Sketch. You turn 'em just like you do a radio dial. That's how PONG was played in the 1970s.

Then first through the Fairchild Channel F & popularized by Atari 2600 came the joystick/action button combo. You root the controller in your lap or on the floor & move the stick with one hand while tapping the button with the other. It fit in with the joysticks of the arcade since so many of those arcade hits were translated into console versions.

NES brought in a new standard in 1983 taking cues from their Game & Watch handhelds to give us the Control Pad (D-Pad) & two action buttons in a hand-fitting rectangular layout. NOW we play with controller rooted & resting in palms of the hand with left thumb on pad & right thumb above action buttons. This standard is still with us today throughout its evolutions.

Evolutions like the SNES triggers & color-coded diamond-shaped action button layout. The N64's analog stick & rumble feedback made more equilateral & combined by Sony's DualShock. Gamecube's wireless Wavebird which in theme was followed by the XBox 360 & DualShock 3 controllers. But pretty much we've been playing the same way for nearly 30 years. Controller resting in hands with left thumb over directional pad & right thumb over action buttons.

But with the Wii we got a whole new method of controller input & design. One that retains the old method in many ways (turn to side, you got the old NES; use the Nunchuk & you have a "Broken Plank" style of the old design). But one that allows for so many more theoretical possibilities in game development.

And even though I say we've been interacting with controllers pretty much the same way since the mid-80s, Controller Mapping has been pretty much the same way since the 1970s! Whether pad or joystick, controls were still mapped Up, Down, Left, Right, Action Button, Action Button, Action Button. With Wii there are a whole new range of control possibilities & therefore a whole new range of new game ideas.

It's to me like un-pioneered territory. People are used to what they know & are scared to experiment. With Move & Kinect, there will be more exploration of this uncharted territory. That's why it's foolish for Nintendo to step away from Wii now. It's sort of like what DS opened up in the world of handhelds.

Inputs deliver a particular interaction & experience with the game on screen. Controllers are the player's portal into the virtual world of lighted images on the TV screen. That's why they are so important. There's Wii infrared pointer, its gyroscopes & accelerometers, it's bluetooth link, its freeform Wiimote/Nunchuk layout, even its speaker.
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves gave me a taste of what's possible. Wii Sports Resort showed me more.

A simple observation is why isn't Billards a new genre on Wii? Not just straight-up billiards but billiards mechanics in seemingly unrelated gameplay. A village of little rotund creatures & the object is to poolshot them around to tear up a neighboring village & protect your own. In-room multiplayer along with online multiplayer. Like hundreds of these rotund creatures on screen & you manage to shoot them into different building for powerups & health. It won't even look like pool but you play it like pool to play this strategy/adventure.

Yuji Naka from Prope (formerly from Sega) showed me what could be possible with his game Let's Tap. You don't even hold the controller. You tap the surface around it to make things happen. That's forward thinking & is just a taste of the possibilities Wii's controls can deliver.

Plus they have the perfect audience captive to make these ideas a success. Without DS & Wii, the Trauma Center series would have never existed. Performing like a doctor. The doctor genre. That should be an entire genre on Wii. How about a game on sewing, knitting, quilting?

The Wii should have never been pigeonholed as the "casual" party game console. It was way more than that & if Nintendo was willing they could make it more than that again. But they just gave up & that bothers me when there's so much new ground to uncover with this control mechanism. People dismiss it as waggle. No, it's the Future of Gaming just like I said on these comment boards 5 to 6 years ago.
John Lucas

@johnlucas
@johnlucas
Unfortunately for your argument, your examples actually work against you.

Take a real close look at all the consoles you're talking about, and the "winners" of the consoles. Have you noticed anything in particular? You should. You should notice that the "winners" of each console generation, DESPITE being the "most underpowered", still provided a tremendous amount of graphical fidelity on its own. The fact that the console with the least power "won" is almost entirely irrelevant at this point.

The Atari 2600 was still largely competitive in the "console market" (or what little there was back then) despite not being the most decidedly powerful one.

The NES's success was attributed largely to its graphical fidelity when it came out, actually. Super Mario Bros was a largely outstanding technical achievement, actually, and was largely an enormous upgrade over consoles of the previous generation.

Sega Genesis wasn't a technological slouch by itself. Remember the "blast processing" campaign? It was clear it was in the competition of better, newer hardware. Part of the reason they were "beat" in technology was simply because the SNES released later, allowing Nintendo to naturally make their hardware superior, but for a very long time the Genesis rode on the "far stronger than the NES" motto. It's actually what got them noticed in the first place.

Your analysis of the PS1 actually sounds quite questionable. It's, without a doubt, superior to the N64's hardware in many ways, particularly with the storage medium providing such an enormous capacity. Multi-disk JRPGs were completely impossible on the N64, so I have no idea why you think the N64 is overall more powerful. They were more powerful than one another in different ways, and were both very competitive in terms of technological fidelity offered.

@johnlucas
Sony's Playstation 2 wasn't a technological slouch. Again, like the Genesis you seem to be forgetting the fact that the PS2 was THE most powerful system for quite a while before Nintendo and Microsoft released their own systems. Don't forget it was the PS2's graphical superiority that clouded the Dreamcast's early popularity. Even after the GameCube and Xbox 1 were released, the PS2 still received some graphically and technologically impressive titles (Final Fantasy X, Shadow of the Colossus, etc.) for the time. It remained competitive up until the 360 was released.

The Game Boy did largely owe its great success to its affordability, of course, but you're again forgetting the fact that the GameBoy wasn't significantly underpowered. The monochromatic screen, despite lacking color, was still an impressive piece of hardware coupled with a very good battery life.

The DS pioneered technology like no other handheld did. You're conveniently forgetting the fact that it was the first handheld with dual screens and touchscreen support. That alone provided unique technology that couldn't be found at any point in time. Not to mention it was the first Nintendo handheld that was fully 3D capable was well as providing a very large increase in resolution per screen over the GBA's.

@johnlucas

(continued. again. not sure why joystiq is not letting me post the whole thing)
The gaming industry IS driven by technology. Period. You're obscuring the facts that each of the "winners" of the industry were actually very competitive in hardware in their own way. In many instances the consoles you're talking about (Gensis, PS2) WERE largely touted for their graphical fidelity! Don't let hindsight obscure your judgement. Of course, it's easy to say "the PS2 won because it was underpowered and affordable". Wrong. The PS2 carried a lot of its hype early on due to the technology that powered it. It had high-capacity DVD's, was more powerful than the Dreamcast, and was showing off graphics that were jaw-dropping for their time (Final Fantasy X, etc.)

@PointlessPuppies OK. Here's a big counterpoint to your reply. I love these kinds of discussions!

[Part 1]
In the case of the Atari 2600 vs. Mattel Intellivision, Atari 2600 looked primitive compared to the Intellivision. Big fat blocky graphics vs. medium-sized blocky graphics. Hahaha. But even Atari 2600 Pac-Man outdid Intellivision Pac-Man even though Intellivision's version looked much more closer to the original arcade game (by a LONG shot! Hahaha).

Intellivision simply had the superior technology all around up & down but it didn't matter. People liked their Atari 2600s. It was good enough for what the buyers wanted at the time. Every should have flocked to the Intellivision & left the 2600 high & dry but that didn't happen.

George Plimpton pimped the Intellivision to death touting its superiority over the 2600 in those famous commercials. They showed on-screen comparisons right on TV which was telltale of the differences.
And there WAS a GIANT videogame market back then. More competitors then than there ever has been since. It's part of what caused the crash in the first place. Quaker Oats even tried to make some games for God's sake! That sounds crazy just thinking about it!

As for the NES, YES its hardware's ability allowed it to deliver an experience like Super Mario Bros. Upgrades in tech only matter when you can create a game that could not be experienced on the existing platforms. That's why consoles are separated by generation when the difference is notable enough to matter.

However, the home computers of the era could do all of that & more. The home computers were stronger than the NES but the NES won out. Gaming today would be on PC altogether if it WASN'T for the NES. After the crash, that's where gaming was headed in America. In fact, most of the world DOES play on PC. Consoles don't sell in China that much & not in Korea. Not in Russia. Not in large parts of Europe.

The fact of the matter is consoles are a mutant beast that really shouldn't exist right now. Nintendo in the mid-80s made the case for the continuance of this type of platform & its competitors underlined it. The NES was so big & so bad in the market that it wrecked PC game retail forever which is why more & more developers from the PC world develop for consoles today. EA, Trip Hawkins' Electronic Arts, was a home computer developer. Madden came from the PC first. All this from a console that couldn't technologically meet the stronger home computers.

I remember when the Sega Genesis couldn't outperform the NES in the market at first despite its CLEAR technological edge (& cheaper price!). Not until Sonic came out did the Genesis finally take off. Nintendo held down NEC's PC Engine (TurboGrafx-16) AND Sega's Mega Drive (Genesis) for 3 years before making the 4th gen jump. Held 'em off for 3 years with a 3rd gen console despite the others' claims to technological superiority.

As before, it's the games that make the case. There was something a 16-bit console could do that an 8-bit console could not. There were game ideas that could be represented on the new platform that weren't possible on the old one. THAT'S when it's time to make the tech jump. When all possibilities on the old system are exhausted. Sega got the most out of that "blast processing" system & that's why they took it to console ruler Nintendo & their stronger superior SNES. SNES had Sony sound chips in it for goodness sake!

In the case of PS1 vs. N64...It's true that the cartridge medium held back the N64 but it was still technologically superior overall in the hardware. I know you heard about what was done in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. The N64 vs. PS1 comparison is not the simplest example thanks to the differential in physical media but the 64 could power leaps & bounds beyond the PS1. It didn't matter. Short load times & durable cartridges didn't matter over longer load times that delivered more music & video to mesmerize the players.

As for the PS2, yeah as what had become the rule in the videogaming industry the makers squawk about their power. Dreamcast went down because of Sega's business foolishness more than its actual system. But why didn't people flock to the XBox which was clearly more powerful PLUS had a humongous storage with the hard drive? Why did XBox lose billions when it was so much more technologically superior? It sold around Gamecube's numbers which was also superior in tech to the PS2. Why? Because people liked the backwards compatibility with PS1 & the inclusion of DVD playability. Plus they had all the game support. It wasn't power that ruled the day here.

Game Boy was black & white. More like pea soup green. It had no backlighting. Old dot matrix LCD tech. Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear with their backlit color screens should have eaten it alive. But its low tech approach was good enough.
It was STILL good enough when NEC made a portable TurboGrafx-16 & called it the TurboExpress. It was the actual home console games right in your hand! Uses the same cards & everything! Sega followed them with the Nomad which was a portable Genesis. Both 16-bit monsters still couldn't beat an old black & white, non-backlit, old dot matrix LCD Game Boy with Tetris & Super Mario Land.

DS couldn't hold a candle to PSP's tech. Touchscreen PDAs had been around for a good while by then. Nintendo used a simple microphone, two screens (one being touchable) & innovative game design to squash their much more tech-superior rival. By the way, dual screen handhelds were not new. Who made Game & Watch Donkey Kong which influenced not only the DS's design but the NES controller design as well? That was 1982.

Each example I show details an entity with superior tech not having the default positive outcome many people think it does. It was the games that sold the tech not the tech which sold the games. That's why I say this is an entertainment industry that uses technology not a technology industry that tries to entertain.
(continued in Part 2)
John Lucas

@PointlessPuppies (continued from Part 1)

[Part 2]
There's new tech being produced all the time but it's not always useful in a mass market sense. People are always inventing, refining & adapting technology. It's called the Cutting Edge & the Cutting Edge needs to exist.
But when it comes to selling products to mass market, a manufacturer has to weed out what is most important & least important to create a product that the masses can afford & enjoy.

The Pyramid of Life dictates that most people's incomes are modest at best. In other words, most people in the world are poor. You can divvy this up as "working class" "middle class" & all that. But I define it as one who works for their money is Poor, one whose money works for them is Rich. A rich person simply manages his/her funds. A poor person is absolutely reliant on a steady income to survive. I guess you can make distinctions based on that person's duration of sustaining when income runs out. Some can go a year without income, some can't go a week without it.

Bottom line is that in order to make a product for the widest market, you have to recognize that most people have modest means. But since they are the most people available, you will become rich selling to them. That's why Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. That's why Lamborghinis are customized for a few customers but Toyota & General Motors are the biggest car companies in the world.

All the tech hype in the world doesn't sustain a console. It's the games sold on those consoles—many which don't even use the full technological capabilities of the system—that sustain them. The experiences gained from the created games validate the tech that was hyped. Dreamcast was hyped too. Atari Jaguar was hyped too. Saturn was hyped. 3DO was SERIOUSLY hyped. PS3 was MAJORLY hyped.

All the carrying on about HD & the HD Twins don't hardly go above 720p themselves! Hahahaha. In fact they're many times BELOW 720p & have to upscale! A buncha hype that didn't work which is why they changed their entire strategy & started the "selling to the family" Wii-style campaign with Move & Kinect.

Wii had the answer & there are more things that can be done with this console idea-wise before they call it a wrap. Graphics once mattered because the visuals were abstract by default but that problem was taken care of in the 6th generation. Cartoons look like cartoons, realistic looks like realistic. I can tell one texture from another without confusion. I can tell one object from another without confusion. I can tell objects from the background, color from color, line from line. The 7th gen only refined what was done in the 6th.

Functionally the graphics race is over. Now you have a choice whether to create abstractly or as close to realism as possible. It's now totally about game design & game control. Where Nintendo seems to be going now is backwards. They had paradise & they are willing to walk away from the Garden of Eden. Now is not the time for a new console when we haven't even BEGUN to see what can be done on Wii.

I'll say this just as strongly as I said "Wii is the Future of Gaming" 5 years ago: Nintendo is making a big mistake by killing the Wii & launching a new console prematurely.
John Lucas

@johnlucas I know.. I was there
Wii was only really a pun in Britain..

@johnlucas While I agree with pretty much everything you said, you neglected one very important factor: software. Systems with either a high quality, or in some cases (notably the PlayStation family) high quantity of games tend to dominate. The N64 may have fallen behind the PlayStation, but still has die-hard fans because of the scant titles released for it, a proportionately large number of them were considered ground-breaking and revolutionary, and several of them still top "best of" lists. The PS2 remains successful today because so many games were released for the system that, for most gamers, there are still never-heard-of gems buried within the piles of shovelware. Also, that shovelware sells for cheap, which is attractive to frugal gamers and parents.

Ultimately, the point remains that superior technology alone rarely spells success. To succeed in the gaming market, you need games. If the games available are too few, or too crappy, your system will fail.

@Mazrael

You could, you know, buy the good games and enjoy them?

@KungFuChaosNinja
I do buy games, loads of them..

What I need to see is that they have good online functionality and upkeep. Also, they really need to include either DLC or user creation tools for games like Mariokart. That was a fun game, but it got repetitive and the cheaters were unbearable.

@MRL3G3ND You say: "Sony and ms both should know that whoever is first to the market is the one who is most successful."

That's not true at all. Simply not true at all.

•Microsoft was first this generation & Nintendo was last. Who was the most successful?
•Sega (Dreamcast) was first in the 6th generation & Sony (PS2) was second out of four. Who the most successful?
•3DO was first in the 5th generation & Sony (PS1) was fourth out of five. Who was the most successful? (Sega [Saturn] was third by the way)
•PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 was first in the 4th generation & Nintendo (SNES) was last out of four. Who was the most successful? (Sega [Genesis] was second by the way)

The only time you see this happening is in the 3rd generation started by Nintendo & the Famicom/NES. And that's in the aftermath of a market collapse.

Just like in "romantic" situations, it doesn't matter who's first...
...It matters who's best.
John Lucas

@KungFuChaosNinja

For 400 dollars, it better be more than a touchscreen controller better than PS3 and 360.

You are the absolute definition of fanboy. Just remember nintendo isn't gonna stroke you back.

How to spot a fanboy
Fanboy - "I'm glad nintendo is first to the next gen"
Impartial - "I'm glad nintendo is finally entering this gen"

@bleiss

You need to look up the definition of "impartial."

@bleiss "I'm glad nintendo is finally entering this gen" is hardly what I would call impartial. It's more along the lines of just disliking Nintendo because they had tremendous success by catering to more than just the gaming nerds and losers.

@Kyle4 Well they've had 5 years (more or less) to learn what the consoles need to be to not lose so much on them, with enough spec that they aren't bottlenecking or hitting limits in the first.. 512Mb ram.. 10Mb dram.. Did anyone ever use the SMT on 360?

@etirmi

Can't they compete? They're only losing to the PS3 worldwide and that's mostly due to Sony's superior supply chains (availability in more regions). If anything, Nintendo's apathetic strategy this gen has embarrassed Sony and Microsoft who have worked their asses off to get where they are

@etirmi And Nintendo's was to push out 86 million at profit from day one. As a business, couldn't care less if my competition has to sell for a decade to make that same profit. I'll be moving on with all that cash up front into new ventures.

@vision33r
Do tell, how long do you think the non-gamer will sustain Nintendo? Because it's not long. Just look at the telltale signs. Hardware sales have been on the decline for a couple of years now and attach rate has been abysmal (a lot of non-gamers buying into the novelty never bought a single game: they just played Wii sports and that's about it). The hype and craze for the Wii in '08 was definitely a sight to behold, but it's all but gone at this point.

Suffice to say, having Nintendo come at the same audience with "Hey look! Here's another shiny that'll cost several hundred dollars!" won't end well. Their audience will look at their Wii, realize they haven't played it in a year (or more), wonder why they'd ever want an "upgrade" to something they barely use, and scoff at the whole idea.

You have to realize, the people who follow the industry and take this as their big, primary hobby are the only audience that will sustain you for decades, not grandma Lola who bought a Wii for Christmas and hasn't touched it since last June. They're not going to completely drop the "blue ocean" strategy, but Nintendo's not stupid enough to stubbornly attack said strategy head on like a bull like in '06. Their success was a brilliantly calculated lightning strike, but lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot and they've obviously realized it if these rumors are true.

@Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell I'm glad somebody else on this thread is thinking about the bigger picture. Nintendo will NEVER have the 3rd party establishment's back no matter WHAT they do. And that goes back to their control of the 3rd parties in the 1980s.

That control saved the industry back then but it also created resentment from 3rd party developers who weren't allowed to control their own destiny. When Sony came along with the PS1, the "kids" finally had a way out of "Dad's" house. And they're not going back. They may visit from time to time but they won't live there anymore.

It has nothing to do with tech or Nintendo's direction. It's politics. The only reason the 3rd party even deals with Nintendo today is because there hadn't been a decent handheld competitor to Nintendo (& handhelds are king in Japan over home consoles). Sony coulda been the one but Sony didn't seem to want the PSP to focus on games. As soon as they get an proper out on the handheld front, they'll flee from Nintendo again. They don't want to lose their influence & control in the industry by putting themselves absolutely under Nintendo's thumb.

The 3rd party has options on the home console front & Nintendo showed in the past how making a high tech device didn't pull in the 3rd party support. That's why Nintendo went the direction they did with Wii & succeeded. They have a console with Wii that can sell big without the backing of the 3rd party establishment.

Developers will STILL leave Project Café starved for support just like Wii, Gamecube, Nintendo 64. Wii killed the power argument so more graphics is not the key. And getting a little stronger than the PS3/360 isn't much of an accomplishment when they can easily outdo that. The 3rd party will then follow the platforms where the 3rd party rules the day. Neither Sony nor (especially) Microsoft have 1st party development that can compare to Nintendo's, the best developer in the world. So they rely on the independents to supply & sell their console.

You made an understatement when you said this:
"I'll need to hear thier strategy but cafe could have some serious issues competing with Wii as well as adoption from PS360 owners as a next gen successor when it has the same games."

Yeah they're gonna have a TREMENDOUSLY hard time living up to Wii. They're not gonna have the 3rd party support they think they will & THEN they won't have that audience they picked up with Wii on top of that. Wii was more than a console. It was a cultural phenomenon. And Nintendo's making a giant mistake cutting this phenomenon's life short. A lot of the people they earned with Wii won't see the need to trade up consoles. That's a foreign concept to them. They won't follow Nintendo to Project Café. Just like many didn't follow Nintendo from the NES to the SNES. That's why NES sold 61 million & SNES sold 49 million.

All Wii needed was more & better games. The 3rd parties by & large weren't going to supply it so Nintendo should have stepped in. But they don't believe in the good thing they created & will waste it chasing tech dreams.
John Lucas

@John Lucas

The strategy behind cafe is befuddling. As you so eloquently stated, the wii (like the iPhone) became a cultural phenomenon and it wasn't because of bleeding edge tech or 3rd party support. It was because they made something so approachable that even grandparents could play it with thier grandchildren. It just seems to me they are cracking under the pressure of the vocal hardcore minority. It feels like the class president and valedictorian is putting thier civic responsibilities and academic endeavors aside to try and be one of the cool kids or jocks just to prove he can. In doing so, Nintendo is biting the hand that's fed them this generation just to try and cater to the hardcores.

Cafe seems to have more in common with the PS360 than the Wii. Sony learned the hard way it wasn't about your last console nor is it about tech specs. It's about being approachable and bringing friends & family together. Nothing about cafe feels or seems approachable. It feels like an unnecessary cry for attention from a sub set of individuals that don't want a nintendo console anyway.

What reason do wii gamers have to upgrade? None. What reason do PS360 owners have to adopt a new console? None. It just feels like Nintendo is panicking because sales have started to stagnate a bit. I don't believe cafe was pre-planned so much as it was a reactionary decision to a downward sales trend. They are abandoning a ship that hasn't even taken on water.