Topic: Free Radical says no to Wii

[ruby_onix]

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Surely you don't advocate that Nintendo place themselves in the same position as Microsoft and Sony, hemorraghing money or looking at breaking even in 5 years?

I think I've explained a few times that that's not my position. Although I do think that to remain competetive, it's been proven that Nintendo would have to be insane not to take a <$50 loss on the hardware. But of course, Nintendo thinks (and knows) that they can get away without doing a lot of things.

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Like I stated previously the Xbox still runs for 150$ and that is for the bare bones version, so what is so horrifying about the Wii being 50$ more when it is not only more powerful (how much so remains to be seen) but will most likely be bundled with extras.

Anyone who buys an original Xbox right now is a freaking moron. How you can think that's good for the Wii is beyond me.

The extras are "added value" items that have high profit margins and just increase the profits while giving you the illusion that you're actually getting something of value. I'm not happy with the idea of increasing the Wii's MSRP by $50 just so Nintendo can toss a tech-demo Wii Sports game into the box in a $0.99 DVD in a paper sleeve.

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P.S. I thought Moore's law applied to processer speed?

I thought that was all Wii had over the Cube.

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Ooh. Good points. I wonder how MS can justify their $40 dollar wired controller and $50 wireless one. Unlike Nintendo, they didn't spend 2+ years experimenting to make that thing.

The controller is the price that'll deliver as much profit as they think they can get away with.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: Kairon

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Originally posted by: VGrevolution

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Would you agree that the GameCube hit the "sweet spot" in terms of the most power for your money? And that it came in at $200? Moore's Law says that computers can double in strength every 18 months (yes, I know, it doesn't exactly apply to every situation). I don't see how anyone can think that five years later, a GameCube x2, at $200-250 is the best hardware Nintendo could possibly hope for.

If the Wii comes bundled with an extra controller a game and perhaps some other goodies, then I see no reason why the 200$ price isn't justified. Like I stated previously the Xbox still runs for 150$ and that is for the bare bones version, so what is so horrifying about the Wii being 50$ more when it is not only more powerful (how much so remains to be seen) but will most likely be bundled with extras. Sounds like a heck of a deal to me!

In response to your R&D point, I was mainly referring to figuring the price for the controller, you HAVE to include R&D somewhere in your prices, heck look at Xbox 360's controller being 40-50$, you can't tell me that is the true cost of the parts. You are also forgetting that this generation is not like any other generation before for NIntendo, their focus is on the controller and thus most of the cost will be derived from that instead of hardware, with the GC all they needed to worry about when it came to cost was a relatively generic controller and what was under the hood.

P.S. I thought Moore's law applied to processer speed?

Ooh. Good points. I wonder how MS can justify their $40 dollar wired controller and $50 wireless one. Unlike Nintendo, they didn't spend 2+ years experimenting to make that thing.

And I thought that Moore's Law didn't apply to speed or power at all, but instead merely to the number of transistors they stick on a chip?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

It looks like you are right about Moore's Law, at least according to Wikipedia. I've heard it as processing speed, but it is nice to get some clarification. Speaking of Ruby's graphical power argument, I personally don't see the Xbox 360 that huge of a step above Xbox, it is quite minor compared to previous generations. Now it seems graphics are more about bigger areas and shinier objects to look at. We are quite past the point where even the weaker systems are "ugly" looking. Wii may be less powerful than PS3 and Xbox 360, but it will be far from ugly (in fact some of the games look quite attractive visually).

[getter77]

Again, GC power doubled or tripled(or around those lines) makes perect sense IMO.  NES>>SNES  SNES>>>N64....and so on.  Genesis>>>Saturn as well.

Just because Sony and to a lesser extent MS decide to overpump their specs(inflates all manner of costs, less likely there will be games that manage to take advantage of SUCH a huge boost by the end of the generation etc) to appease the hardcore PC folk in terms of numbers on paper doesn't mean that is the smart move....or even one justified considering the past trends in the industry.

Especially with us at the stage of diminishing returns, Moore's Law only goes so far...and generally fails/can be manipulated here and there depending.  Despite Nintendo claiming to be "new" this time around...it all really falls in step with logic and all the past console practices.

If we were hearing devs lamenting the Wii's lack of power...oh I dunno...7 years from now...I'd be inclined to take them seriously since the community at large will surely have most, if not perhaps all, of the PS3's power figured out effectively by then.  Yet, this one seems to think they are already that far ahead when the system isn't out yet and all the devs simply have not had the breadth of time and experience to tinker with the machine.  One that they have to learn from scratch in a new way to boot versus the vastly easier to tap into Wii.

[nemo_83]

the graphics you will never see on Wii

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Fo sho.  Wii is stupendously better and doesn't sink that low.

[couchmonkey]

I had a look at Haze, it's a pretty sweet looking game - graphically, who knows about gameplay?  Now I'm starting to understand why they're not putting it on Wii...not because the game wouldn't work, but because they'd need a second team just to port it.  The graphics have to be scaled way back, probably the same for A.I. and possibly physics, plus they have to get the Wii controller to play nice with the game.

This is the new reality for small developers: releasing a game on the Wii is basically releasing it on a totally different platform.  EA can afford to release 4 different versions of a game, especially if it's got a big name like Madden or Harry Potter attached to it.  That might not make sense for a small developer creating a brand-new franchise.  This could have a negative affect on Nintendo, although I think Wii will do fine thanks to its unique merits.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Free Radical's publisher is digging itself a nice big hole of net losses.

[Ceric]

On the DS thread, Internet being funny I'll come back and link, there is a link to the trailer for FF:III for the DS.  I would personally encourage you to look at that.  In fact I would strongly encourage everyone to take a gander at it.  If You can do that with a DS which is a lot less powerful then all the current systems except the GBA then it gives me a lot of hope for what the Wii is capable of in competent hands.  As I mention there.  The game looks as good as most PS2 games if not better then a lot.  Learned long ago that the proof is in the pudding.