The HD TV revolution took the Big N by surprise.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/34975
Miyamoto "wanted to go HD sooner," according to a recent interview with 4Gamer translated by KameDaniRyuu.
His reasoning behind holding off on making the Wii HD was that Nintendo thought "it was going to take some time for HD televisions to become common," but that "HD became more common about 2 to 3 years earlier than we had anticipated."
Going on to talk about the recent release of 4K televisions, Miyamoto stated that while he doesn't "see the need for Zelda in 4K," franchises like Pikmin could benefit from being able to show much smaller details.
Apparently everyone thinks the HDTV adoption rate was super high in 2006. They weren't STANDARD until around 2007 or later.
Sorry, but I'm not buying this revisionist history now, not after all those years of Nintendo denying that HD mattered. This sounds more like Miyamoto (and, by extension, Nintendo) trying to not admit that they were wrong about HD adoption.Dude, that was PR 101. If a company is trying to sell an idea, they're not going to tell you the opposite. For example, "It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno!" Have you ever had DiGiorno? It goddamn tastes like DiGiorno and no one is mixing that up with delivery. No one. Ever.
Sony was one of the groups pushing for HD, of course they would support it in the PS3. Microsoft likely assumed this to be the case and pushed it on the 360 for that same reason.
I really don't think that the PS3/360 had much impact on HD-TV sales,
Coming off the Gamecube, Nintendo wasn't really in a position to make the Wii an HD console. Yeah looking back now it would have worked but it was a whole different world back in 2005.
Sorry Broodwars, Adrock is right on this one. Them admitting midway through the Wii's life cycle that they should have made it HD would contradict with their messaging they made from day 1, AND basically admitting that Sony & Microsoft's offerings were more attractive than what Nintendo was providing.
Sorry Broodwars, Adrock is right on this one. Them admitting midway through the Wii's life cycle that they should have made it HD would contradict with their messaging they made from day 1, AND basically admitting that Sony & Microsoft's offerings were more attractive than what Nintendo was providing.
This was more than simple PR, though. Nintendo was outright hostile to HD during the Wii era, practically calling it the death of the industry. To use that Digiorno analogy, Nintendo was not only saying that Digiorno was just as good as Delivery, but that Delivery pizza causes heart attacks in anyone who eats it. That's why the revisionist history is particularly funny. This is the company that said that "no one will be able to tell the difference between SD and HD, anyway!"
Making the most money in the last generation and losing 2nd place to Microsoft by a few million consoles meant they couldn't make an HD console and couldn't compete in the marketplace?
I get the Wii was successful because of motion controls, but it would have been snapped up with motion controls and HD at $350/unit. The PS3 started at $600 and at one point you could buy a PS3 for $300 when the Wii was still $250 and the Wii was owning the PS3 in sales. It certainly could have started at $350 and been a success. I've heard part of the reason the 3DS was so overpriced at launch was because they thought they left money on the table by pricing the Wii so low.
NES - 62 million
SNES - 49 million
N64 - 33 million
Gamecube - 22 million
This is why after the Gamecube back in 2005, Nintendo couldn't afford to make an HD system. Yeah they still made some profit off the Gamecube but the overwelming majority of their money that gen came from the GBA. After a clear drop in every home console they released since the NES, there was a clear concern Nintendo's home console market would soon be dead. That's why they decided to change things up with the Wii but made the system weaker so if it failed it wouldn't damage the bank.
Once again, nobody had any idea how popular the Wii would become. Do you not remember all the conversations in 2005 after the Wiimote was first revealed how risky everyone thought it was? Even Nintendo was shocked by its success which is why Wii were so hard to find its early months because they had no idea demand would be so high. Had the system been comparable to the 360/PS3 in power and sold less then the Gamecube, it would have cost Nintendo billions. Making the system a modified Gamecube like they did wouldn't have seriously hurt the company if it failed since it was much cheaper to produce.
It's easy to say now how Nintendo could have made a more powerful console but nobody could have predicted its success back in 2005.
The Xbox 1 sold 24 million which isn't much more than the Gamecube and they went all in on the HD era and did extremely well.
Also, Microsoft lost a ridiculous amount of money on the original Xbox. And they knew that going in. They were fine with losing money for a while in order to gain a foothold in the market. In contrast, intentionally doing something you know will cause you to lose money is the last thing Nintendo would ever do.
4 years in for a Wii HD 2010 that would get them to PS360 level but just that. Then 2014-15 Wii U after seeing Sony and MS's hand. They would have righted them to the generations at that point.
Ironically when they launched the Famicom, it was the most advanced console hardware ever at that point while Sega released a product of it time, the SG-1000, which was about on par with a Colecovision and got creamed. Nintendo were the ones with the future-proof console thinking beyond the exact time the product was released. They KNEW how to do this at one point and then seemingly unlearned it over time.
If Nintendo had any idea how huge the Wii would be they'd have upped the specs and put Motion+ in the box and charged $100 more for it, which, it seems pretty clear from how things played out, people would have paid. But that's like saying if they knew what they know now Microsoft would have used a different soldering technique; it's easy to say now.
Microsoft had a manufacturing defect, they didn't chose to offer faulty hardware.They kind of did according to this article. (http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/). Basically, it contends that Microsoft knew about the high defect rate (mainly due to continually adding features after the hardware was locked down), but opted to launch anyway to beat Sony (and to a lesser extent, Nintendo) to market which, quite honestly, is pretty crummy of them. Sure, Microsoft's intent wasn't to launch broken hardware, but it's pretty dishonest to launch broken hardware knowing it's broken.
If Nintendo had any idea how huge the Wii would be they'd have upped the specs and put Motion+ in the box and charged $100 more for it, which, it seems pretty clear from how things played out, people would have paid. But that's like saying if they knew what they know now Microsoft would have used a different soldering technique; it's easy to say now.
But alot of the gaming industry was saying that they made a mistake then and I remember being really disappointed at the time. Microsoft had a manufacturing defect, they didn't chose to offer faulty hardware. Yes, they deserve alot of blame for that debacle, but it's much different than what Nintendo did. Nintendo chose to offer inferior hardware. The funny thing is the Gamecube should have shown them that the market wanted technical specs since they brought the Gamecube in $100 cheaper than the competition and it didn't make the Gamecube a good seller. I remember Nintendo being lambasted at the time for lack of HD and that was assuming fewer sales. Much different than a hindsight is 20/20 situation.
Actually, GameCube had the same online capability as PS2 (minus the external hard drive). It's just that developers pretty much chose not to do online for GameCube.
[size=0.85em]That said, there's no way they could have matched the PS3 or even the Xbox 360. If 2006 Nintendo took a few billion-dollar loss like those companies did, it'd sink the company.[/size]
In australia all tv's have to be hd or you cannot watch tv :'( as all tv stations have moved to digital!
Pnly for old tv's ;)In australia all tv's have to be hd or you cannot watch tv :'( as all tv stations have moved to digital!
Don't they have converter boxes like they do in the United States?
Stupid spellcheck: Only for old tv'sPnly for old tv's ;)In australia all tv's have to be hd or you cannot watch tv :'( as all tv stations have moved to digital!
Don't they have converter boxes like they do in the United States?
