John Lucas

@KungFuChaosNinja The mistake so many people make about the videogame business. ESPECIALLY in the results of this current generation.

This is NOT a Technology Industry.
This is an Entertainment Industry that USES Technology to deliver that Entertainment.

If tech was the big deal, then Wii would not have outsold & outpaced the 360 & PS3 for the past 4 years despite being sabotaged in regards to quality 3rd party support.

If tech was the big deal, then consoles wouldn't exist PERIOD. We'd all be gaming on PCs.

People are so caught up with marketer's talk. "HD" is nothing special. When it is standard you won't be calling it "HD" anymore just like you don't specify "Color TVs" anymore. And furthermore today's HD will not be tomorrow's HD. Eventually they'll come up with higher resolutions than the ones available today. And 3DTV is the new catchphrase of the hour anyway.

Consoles are NOT, have NEVER been, and WILL NEVER BE Cutting Edge. They are supposed to reach a certain plane of technological power and then draw the fruits from it over years. They will ALWAYS be outdated in regards to what is Cutting Edge.

Trying to keep up with that Cutting Edge is why Microsoft & Sony has to subsidize their consoles with funds from their other branches. How many realize that if the 360 & PS3 weren't made by the companies they're from, they probably wouldn't exist right now? Without the multiple branches Sony & Microsoft draw funds from, they would be out of business trying to sell these things.
It's what I've always called it: Green Steroids. Artificial power through cash injections.

Nintendo is the ONLY true gamemaking company left making consoles. That's why they don't go overboard & try to deliver the moon & stars. They keep things within budget & try their best to deliver their machines at a fair mass market price. They ALWAYS profit from the start. They don't try to make it up later in game sales.

That's why this little 4,000 employeed playing card company can hang with the Overlord of Computer Operating Systems & the Emperor of Electronics and Media. Not just hang with but get the best of. Not just get the best of but change how they operate in the gaming world.

This move here shows a loss of that kind of leadership & I expect Nintendo to be in for a rude awakening in the next coming years. They have thrown away a golden opportunity with Wii & they will find out just how big a mistake that was very soon.
John Lucas

I can't believe Nintendo has done this. They are not going to have the success they had with Wii with this new system. They prematurely cut the life of this console short. There was so much that could have been done. So many possibilities. And they threw it all away.

With the Wii, I was totally on board with their plans. I understood what the system meant & who it was trying to reach. They had absolute gold with that system. It was more than just a console. I love how it defied the industry at every turn & succeeded when everyone else was against it.

When I heard the rumors I was sure that Nintendo wasn't going to waste this golden opportunity & prematurely launch a new home console. But I guess Nintendo didn't value what they gained through Wii. Maybe they didn't value Wii like I thought they did.

Wii's problem STILL remains a lack of strong game lineup. That is its only problem. Sales dropped off because the game feed wasn't strong enough throughout the year. Profits declined because support declined. Wii was on track to top the PS2's lifetime sales & now it will never happen because Nintendo didn't believe in the possibilities of their system.

Not just mentioning a new system but launching it in the predictable 5-year console cycle? I thought Nintendo knew better than this in this generation. Do they really think people will go for yet another console next year? Early? Before the others made their mark?

What's this? Every time sales are a little flat, you launch a new console? How about some new games? Some new possibilities with the system? Moving from the DS made sense since Apple was a threat on the handheld scene but on the home scene, there's no real threat. Kinect & Move together cannot stop what Wii is & the corresponding game sales prove it.

I'm disappointed in Nintendo's move here. Unlike with Wii, I don't see the success they once had with this Revolution. And they're launching too early so they'll be copied & one-upped. They're putting a 8th gen console against a bunch of 7th gen consoles just to keep up?? Does that make sense? They're gonna be Dreamcasted. And they are looking very much like 1990s Sega with all these consoles released back to back.

Something happened at Nintendo to make them screw up like this. Moving on from the Gamecube & Nintendo 64 made sense. They were down in marketshare. Wii is the 7th gen leader & they're running away from the fight. Good luck to 'em but I think they're in for a rude awakening this round.
John Lucas

It's so hard to make a living in the videogame business. Most who join MUST be doing it for a labor of love. All these studios shutting down is depressing.

John Lucas

Freakin' rumors.
Something makes me wonder if Nintendo's ultimately behind all of this.
Maybe it's a way to create more attention for the company.
The more I think about it, the more this seems like some kind of campaign.
And I still don't believe E3 2011 will show Wii's successor. It's not time for that yet.
John Lucas

@Foetoid I disagree.
Everybody always expects Nintendo to do just what all the other console makers do. But that's not how they became profitable & successful all these years.

HD should stand for Hype Defined. 1080p? 1080i? There are going to be superior HDTVs coming out in a few years. What about 3DTVs already? Technology always moves forward.

Going backward with controllers by packing Classic Controller? Nintendo defined the so-called traditional controller 27 years ago & back then it surely wasn't traditional like those joysticks.
That's like asking Nintendo to focus on the NES Advantage when they wanted you to play with their NES Control Pads.

The Wiimote ain't going away. Motion control ain't going away. It's the new standard & it will be how home console games are played. Move & Kinect underlined it. It's here to stay, like it or not.

Blu-ray player & all that? Unlike Sony, Nintendo is solely here to sell games & game-related devices. Netflix was used because of Nintendo's aim for Wii to keep the system on & being used. But trust me they would rather you be buying games to play on the console than watching movies on it. Movies don't give them a dime, games do.

They win back core audience by making games. Lots of games. All the other console makers forget the most central point of a game console & that is selling games to play on them. They concentrate on these bells & whistles features because they know they can't beat Nintendo in game-making craft.

All Wii needs is a software jolt & it's back in big business. All that other stuff is extracurricular.
John Lucas

@NaeemTHM The only problem with that is the 5-year console cycle is dead. Thank God it's dead!
Prematurely cutting the life of a console is what did the Dreamcast in after Saturn was abruptly stopped 4 years in its lifetime.

It was never normal, NaeemTHM. The only reason this stupid 5-year tradition got started was because of new competitors entering the videogame scene & old incumbents trying to upstage these upstagers or reclaim lost ground.

In reality, your chart should go:
Famicom: July 1983-November 1990 = 7 1/3 years before Super Famicom
NES: October 1985-August 1991 = 5 5/6 years before SNES

Super Famicom: November 1990-June 1996 = 5 7/12 years before N64
SNES: August 1991-September 1996 = 5 1/12 years before N64

N64 (Japan): June 1996-September 2001 = 5 1/4 years before Gamecube
N64 (U.S.): September 1996-November 2001 = 5 1/6 years before Gamecube

Gamecube (Japan): September 2001-December 2006 = 5 1/4 years before Wii
Gamecube (Japan): November 2001-November 2006 = 5 years before Wii.

Wii (Japan): December 2006-???
Wii (U.S.): November 2006-???

Nintendo was reluctant to move from Famicom/NES to Super Famicom/SNES. Only competition forced their hand & continued competition created those rough 5-year cycles.

But what real competition does Nintendo have on the home console front? Yeah, the 360 is on a tear right now but it's only in America. Microsoft spent an arm & a leg to get that kind of momentum & Nintendo just coasts by on Wii. Yet Wii keeps up pretty good for a console mostly neglected by its maker.

The 360 for all of its momentum could not beat the Wii in 2010 neither for the holiday season nor the year. Wii still has a lot of life left in it, Nintendo just has to get off their butt & get it out.

This is not the typical generation. It's going long this time. There are no new competitors entering on the home console front & all players are sticking to the ones that brought them to the dance. Nintendo would be foolish to try to launch now. It's short-sighted.
John Lucas
John Lucas

This is not true. There is no need for this right now.
Nintendo's not gonna cut the life of this console right now as strong as it's still selling. I don't care WHO'S reporting these rumors.

If Nintendo tries launching a brand new console now, they're shooting themselves in the foot. They are not guaranteed to bring over all the audience who bought Wii to a new console & they are not guaranteed to get 3rd party support on a new platform either.

It will be a loss of leadership from Nintendo if they go this predictable & reactionary route. Wii didn't go HD like everyone wanted but the HD Twins went motion control like everyone expected. Those Twins changed their entire consoles & marketing approach because they couldn't top Wii. Wii only put out new colors & didn't change a thing.

There WILL be a Wii successor but it sure as hell ain't coming out in 2012 & won't be announced in 2011. Wii is still too strong & the only fault it has is that Nintendo won't support it with enough games.
John Lucas

There will be no price drop. There will be no WiiHD at E3. There will be no Wii2 at E3. People have lost their heads on this Wii thing lately with the 360 finally selling like a super-hit console.

Wii sales are still strong, people. Compared to itself, Wii looks poor & weak but compared to history, Wii is still selling very well. When Wii was blowing all minds with its 2 1/2 year out of stock fever, it was like Zeus. Now that it sells more moderately in comparison, it's just your everyday Greek strongman. That's still a lot of muscle.

Nintendo has basically left Wii out to dry for the past 2 years outside of the holiday season. They did this out of focusing on Apple's potential retail disruption through the games sold on the App Store to their many devices. That's why the 3DS exists, the DSi wasn't enough to stop it. But because of that fact, Wii was left on cruise control as Nintendo defends their illustrious handheld turf. What happens in Japan soon spreads to the rest of the world & handhelds not home consoles are the primary platforms there. Of course, Nintendo's laser-focused on the 3DS in face of iPods, iPads, iPhones & $1 games.

But even with this virtual abandonment, Wii held off the competition throughout 2009. Only PS3 Slim's introduction in September beat the Wii & Wii wasn't far behind either even then.
For the 1st half of 2010, the story was just the same with the usual one-month anomaly due to big name game (Halo 3 in Sept. 2007, Bioshock 2 in Feb. 2010) or remodeled console. But Microsoft was on a mission in 2010 & struck a well-played campaign to topple the Wii starting with the introduction of the XBox 360 S in June.

Unlike the PS3, this remodel had staying power. Remodel in June, Halo: Reach in September, Kinect & Black Ops in November & you see month after month of the 360 beating the once-invincible Wii. Headline after headline showing Wii looking weak in comparison to 360. You would think that 360 had Wii's number that year & would be the best-selling home console in America for 2010.

Not so. All Nintendo did was slap on some red paint, a Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary sticker, temporarily pack-in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, give a strong holiday lineup led by Donkey Kong Country Returns & they ended up with the 2ND BEST Monthly Sales for Home Consoles in videogame history with December 2010's 2,360,000. The momentum train called the 360 only sold 1,860,000 that month which was their best monthly total EVER. But in the end, not only couldn't the 360 beat Wii for the holidays, it ALSO couldn't beat them for the year 2010 EITHER.

A console basically running on fumes stops a console with nitro in the engines. Oh & for the record that 1ST BEST Monthly Sales for Home Consoles in videogame history? That was Wii in December 2009 with 3,810,000. This number doubles as THE BEST sales for ANY console EVER—home or handheld—in videogame history. The Wii was counted out then too if I remember correctly.

The first 2 months of this year prove this point again. Lazy Wii still sells close to what a Motivated 360 sells from month to month. January 2010 had the 360 at 381,000 while Wii was at 319,000. February 2010 had the 360 at 535,000 while Wii had 454,000. And what did Wii have to show for this strong number? Just coasting off of its holiday lineup & freakin' Mario Sports Mix of all things! Microsoft's putting its all behind the 360 while Nintendo lets it run on cruise control & Wii STILL keeps up.

That's why I KNOW there will be NO price drop but also NO new console or even NO new upgrade. When Nintendo puts attention back on Wii it will freshen up. At E3 2011, the only thing you will see is a Wii Revival. A strong lineup of top-notch software that may make 2010's surprises look pale by comparison. Wii gets games at E3 as this 7th generation, which destroyed the 5-year console cycle forever, continues.
John Lucas

@PN04 Your reply is an example of how so many misunderstand what the videogame industry is. I'll say it again:
Videogaming is NOT—repeat— NOT a technology industry.
It is a entertainment industry that USES technology to deliver that entertainment.

This is the fundamental difference between Nintendo & the other companies in the business. You NEVER hear them go on & on about specs & all the technical details of what makes up their machines. That's engineer porn. Nintendo instead usually talks about the novel experience that their technology brings. And they focus it on game-craft not trying to make a console stand toe to toe with a PC.

Consoles were never meant for the cutting edge. They are to reach a certain plateau in tech to last over a extended period of time to sell. Once you hit the 'good enough' mark, you're fine with the mass market of customers. You want the cutting edge?, it's called the PC. It's been here forever.

My earlier post showed the many many examples of what I stated. Those who keep mistaking the videogame industry as a tech industry are doomed to fail. It USES tech but the focus is ENTERTAINMENT.
This generation as proven this over & over across the board. Wii didn't go HD but 360 & PS3 went motion control. But it's not about the technical aspects of motion control, it's the experience motion control provided that gave Nintendo the edge. This edge that Microsoft & Sony now want after pushing the "cutting edge tech" motto for 4 to 5 years.
John Lucas

Sony hasn't learned a damned thing! Hahaha! Not a damned thing. It is NOT and it has NEVER been about "cutting edge tech". So many are confused on what the videogame industry is supposed to be about.

Videogaming is NOT—repeat— NOT a technology industry.
It is a entertainment industry that USES technology to deliver that entertainment. Repeat that outloud a dozen times or so until that sinks in.

How many generations do we need to prove this truism?
In this current generation, the 7th, Wii remains the leading home console being the weakest of the 3 major competitors. It was SUCH a leader that its competitors, the XBox 360 & PS3, redesigned & virtually relaunched their consoles with motion control add-ons to compete with leading Wii. Meanwhile, all Wii does is give you a couple of new colors. There's no "Wii HD" yet & probably won't ever be.

In handhelds, the weaker DS TROUNCED the stronger more "cutting edge" PSP all over the world. DS used established tech in new ways to get the edge on PSP. Wii put more emphasis on fashioning a new way to play over technical horsepower & won just the same.

In the 6th gen, the weaker PS2 KILLED the stronger Gamecube & original XBox. That weaker PS2 was so good that it STILL selling all the way into 2011, the middle of the current gen! It's 11 years old & they're STILL releasing new games for it like WWE All-Stars.

In the 5th gen, the weaker PS1 topped the powerful N64 & Sega Saturn with its dual core processors.
In the 4th gen, the weaker Sega Genesis matched up & at times beat the stronger SNES.
In the 3rd gen, the weaker NES conquered not only the stronger Sega Master System but the home computer market which eventually forced those computer game developers to start producing for the consoles where the money was at.
In the 2nd gen, the weaker Atari 2600 beat out the stronger Mattel Intellivision.

And the biggest example of all: The weaker, black & white (pea soup green), non-backlit Game Boy UNIVERSALLY DOMINATED the Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, NEC TurboExpress, & Sega Nomad. All those color backlit powerful systems buried by a little thing that played Tetris.

Tech is supposed to serve the experience not the other way around. I would think Sony would know this by now after seeing how the PSP & PS3 performed but I guess not. Worldwide numbers have PS3 still behind the 360 much less the Wii so Tretton better take a second look before he says someone's falling behind.
John Lucas