Topic: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

[Ceric]

A bad example of what? How to potentially lower the cost of the PS4 hardware? If so, I'm sorry but I don't understand how that was a bad example.

It was an example of feature loss.  I can't take my PS1/2 collection and play it on a brand spanking new PS3.

[TJ Spyke]

PS2, no. But you can take your PS1 collection and play it on a new PS3.

[Stogi]

Ian, I think it's always been like that.

SNES's gimmick was more buttons.

N64's gimmick was the analogue stick and 3D.

Gamecube's gimmick was dual-analogue sticks and analogue triggers.

The Wii's gimmick was motion control.

The Wii U's gimmick is a touchscreen.

The trend of gimmicks has always existed.

[Chozo Ghost]

I think the difference with the Wii U will be that its gimmick will be harmless. I'm saying that for 2 reasons:

1) The touchscreen isn't something developers are forced to make use of, and if they want to make use of it they can just use it for a map or HUD or something easy and simple like that. Its not going to be like the Wiimote where a game has to be radically altered in order to function with it. The Tablet controller can simply be a traditional controller, and the touchscreen doesn't have to be employed at all.

2) It looks like the competition is going to rip off the tablet idea. This is bad for Nintendo having yet another of their innovations stolen, but its a good thing for developers because it makes their task of making multiplatform games much easier, because all three consoles will have similar controls. Again, that's very different than how it was with the Wiimote versus the traditional controllers of the competition.

So the Wii's gimmick ended up being a bad thing for developers, but the Wii U's gimmick is at worst something that can just be ignored. The Wii U's gimmick is pretty much just a console based rehash of the DS' touch screen gimmick, and I don't need to point out how extremely successful the DS has been as a system, so I'm certain the Wii U will do well if not great as a console.

[Kairon]

Ian, I think it's always been like that.

SNES's gimmick was more buttons.

N64's gimmick was the analogue stick and 3D.

Gamecube's gimmick was dual-analogue sticks and analogue triggers.

The Wii's gimmick was motion control.

The Wii U's gimmick is a touchscreen.

The trend of gimmicks has always existed.

Don't forget the NES' gimmick: R.O.B. and a Lightgun!

[BlackNMild2k1]

Wii U to launch @ $299?
from same source that said 768MB of "embedded" DRAM.... salt shakers everyone?

Nintendo will price the Wii U aggressively at $299 when it launches later this year, according to a report WiiUDaily has received (from the same source that brought us the Wii U system specs rumor). Nintendo will price the Wii U at $299 in the US, $299 Euro in Europe, and at 20,000 Yen in Japan, which comes in at around $250 USD. No word on Wii U software pricing.

If everything we've heard about the Wii U is true, then a $299 price point would certainly mean that Nintendo was selling at a loss for each system. But how likely is it that everything we have heard is true?
$299 is still my guess for lowest price, but I lean more towards $349.99 based on what's been rumored so far.

[Chozo Ghost]

It would sell out and be hard to find for months on end at that price. Then you would have people selling it on ebay for 3 times more. I don't think that would be in anyone's best interest (except the scalpers). $299 is the price Nintendo will want to get it down to in order to hit critical mass in terms of sales, but if the supply isn't going to be able to keep up with that then $329-$349 might be better for the time being. They can always drop the price later on once sales begin to taper off.

[Stogi]

I don't think $300 would be selling at a loss if we're using the rumors as a base. Every component in the tablet besides the screen is already in the 3DS or DSi. Being 7 (or was 9?) times more powerful than the 360 is certainly possible on a budget when you consider how far even phones have come in the past 6 years (7 by launch).

$300 plus a pack-in game is very plausible and profitable.

[NWR_insanolord]

I would be surprised if it were 300. Even if they'd be making a profit at that point, they can get away with charging more than that and still sell out the first few shipments.

[Stogi]

That's the exact same mistake they made with the 3DS.

Perceived value vs. Real value.

[Adrock]

It was an example of feature loss.  I can't take my PS1/2 collection and play it on a brand spanking new PS3.

I'm still not sure how it's a "bad" example. It wasn't a lost feature until Sony made it one. The original 60GB PS3 (and the MGS4 gun metal edition) had full BC because it had the PS2's entire chipset inside. Depending on how Sony handles BC in PS4, they can drive the cost down while still preserving BC. I read a rumor that they're considering ditching Cell which would essentially veto a Wii-like GCN mode approach. That would leave Sony with 2 options if they hope to keep cost down as much as possible: emulation or dropping backwards compatibility. Sony doesn't have to lose the feature entirely if they don't want to.

$299 is still my guess for lowest price, but I lean more towards $349.99 based on what's been rumored so far.

I'm hoping for $299 but I still think Nintendo is launching at $349.

[Chozo Ghost]

I think they would want to lose backwards compatibility. Letting people play old games for free doesn't make Sony any money. They want you to rebuy those old games so they can get more money out of you.

[FZeroBoyo]

I can see the Wii U being priced at $299.99, that was even my predicted launch price, and Nintendo has said once or twice that they're learned lessons from the 3DS. I'm guessing that means the Wii U will have a more reasonable price -and software to boot- so that Nintendo can avoid slashing a third of the price off within the first six months.
 
That said, a Wii U Ambassador Program with 10 Super NES and 10 GameCube games for early adopters would be pretty rad. 

[broodwars]

I think they would want to lose backwards compatibility. Letting people play old games for free doesn't make Sony any money. They want you to rebuy those old games so they can get more money out of you.

There's no reason to single-out Sony on that, though.  Microsoft hasn't been a big supporter of BC either, and Nintendo is practically the master of trying to get people to buy the same game multiple times.

[Ian Sane]

I want the Wii U at a price point that has value to it.  If the system has to be a little more expensive in order to be capable, then so be it.  I would have gladly paid a higher price for a more powerful Wii.  I wasn't getting any deal with that price point, it was trade-off.

I do not want Nintendo to bork the specs to keep the price down.  They shouldn't have a $600 console either.  The whole thing is a balancing act.  And I sure as hell don't want the hardware to be severely compromised so that Nintendo can have a higher profit margin on the console itself.  That REALLY pissed me off with the Wii.  They didn't lower the specs so that everyone could afford it, it was so Nintendo could have a high profit margin.  They shouldn't take a loss but their profit margin for the hardware shouldn't be so high to compromise the system itself, which is what they did with the Wii.

1. It needs to be affordable.
2. It needs to be capable of playing modern games and competing directly with the next generation of videogame consoels.
3. It cannot lose money and really should have some sort of profit margin.

All three of those are essential and none of them should be serverely compromised.  The Wii compromised too much on item 2 and the PS3 compromised too much on 1 and 3.

[Adrock]

Outside of a few games, Nintendo still supports an entire generation's worth of games. Wii completely supported GameCube and Wii U completely supports the Wii. Every generation of their handhelds has supported the previous one. Only Gameboy Micro, DSi, and the new model Wii ditched BC and by the time those hit, you knew what you were getting and still had the option to get the other BC supported models.

[Kairon]

I still think a $299 pricepoint sounds most natural, especially in today's economic environment and with a devalued US dollar. I imagine the economy must be killing Nintendo's ability to price this thing higher.

But lately I've been warming to the idea of a multiple SKU solution to having stronger hardware but claiming a mass market price, with a $299 base model that Nintendo loses/makes less money on, and a $399 model with a custom casing, pack-in Wii-U Play game, 8 GB SD card, and some "Ambassador Downloads".

[Spak-Spang]

I think $299.99  is very likely...but I also see Nintendo pushing for $324.99 at launch as well.

I want Nintendo to make a profit from every system sold, and I want them to get things right with power...I am sure Nintendo may have been aiming for a $249.99 to $299.99 price point originally, and started putting new tech in...so that extra 25 dollars could be seen in the spec bump. 

What I want is for Nintendo to allow your VC and Wiiware games to go over to the Wii U...but I want them not to just go over.  I hope it hooks to your Nintendo account online and any downloaded games you have listed as yours can be transferred over without need of a Wii. 

I sold my Wii and disconnected all the VC games from the Wii...only to find out now nobody can play them.  It sucks, because it was literally hundreds of dollars of games.  Now, I know it would play a big part of me buying a Wii U if I can get those games back.  In fact right now, I wouldn't buy a Wii U because I am tired of how expensive gaming is...but I would buy it if I got all those games immediately back because they are the classics I love. 

[TJ Spyke]

I think they would want to lose backwards compatibility. Letting people play old games for free doesn't make Sony any money. They want you to rebuy those old games so they can get more money out of you.

There's no reason to single-out Sony on that, though.  Microsoft hasn't been a big supporter of BC either, and Nintendo is practically the master of trying to get people to buy the same game multiple times.

Microsoft's reason was that the Xbox 360 used a different GPU than the Xbox, so BC would have to be on the software side. If anything, they have shown that they care more than Sony  on the matter because for like 2 years they spent time and money adding games to the BC list (though they never got around to one of my favorite Xbox games: TimeSplitters 2).

[Chozo Ghost]

I think they would want to lose backwards compatibility. Letting people play old games for free doesn't make Sony any money. They want you to rebuy those old games so they can get more money out of you.

There's no reason to single-out Sony on that, though.  Microsoft hasn't been a big supporter of BC either, and Nintendo is practically the master of trying to get people to buy the same game multiple times.

Nintendo tries to get people to buy the same game multiple times, but they have had the best backwards compatibility record in recent years. The 3DS, DS, Wii, and soon Wii U all feature backwards compatibility to some degree. They don't extend backwards compatibility as far back as they possibly could, but they do a far better job of it than either Sony or Microsoft.

[MysticGohan]

Hey BnM Any rumors pertaining to GDC yet?  Seeing that were mere days away, I'm sure hoping to hear more on Wii U, maybe actual software shown off running on hardware, really wanna see what it can do lol.

Love to hear it.... MEGATON!

[BlackNMild2k1]

Hey BnM Any rumors pertaining to GDC yet?  Seeing that were mere days away, I'm sure hoping to hear more on Wii U, maybe actual software shown off running on hardware, really wanna see what it can do lol.

Love to hear it.... MEGATON!

News:
Crytek Nottingham (aka Free Radical) is Excited about Wii U!!

Rumor:
CryEngine Wii U Demo @ GDC
Timesplitters 4 Coming To Wii U

Speculation/Observation:
Wii U Triforce @ GDC?

[MysticGohan]

I smell... BACON!

[MysticGohan]

Speaking of Crytek and closeness with AMD, how about BioWare? seeing they are close to AMD as well. Would be nice to see the next Dragon Age game or Mass Effect III etc. I'm a big fan of both series.

[Chozo Ghost]

How come Sony has the largest real estate? If you combine the Tri-force alliance their territory is larger, but individually they are all smaller than Sony.