Topic: Steven Kent "Pulls an IGN"

[MarioAllStar]

Nintendo doesn't need to compete on that level. The Wii is selling very well and the user base will only increase in time. With so many people who own a Wii, surely publishers will recognize there is plenty of money to be made with the Wii (and DS).

Ok, it doesn't always work like that, but I still don't think Nintendo needs to send out money hats.  

[denjet78]

Quote
Originally posted by: MarioAllStar
Nintendo doesn't need to compete on that level. The Wii is selling very well and the user base will only increase in time. With so many people who own a Wii, surely publishers will recognize there is plenty of money to be made with the Wii (and DS).

Ok, it doesn't always work like that, but I still don't think Nintendo needs to send out money hats.

I'd actually be ashamed of them if they did, which puts me in a tight spot because how did the whole Capcom 5 thing get started? Was it really just reciprocal in regards to the whole handheld Zelda thing they had going? It most likely was knowing the boat loads of cash that they made off of the deal and also why the Capcom 5 was allowed to fall apart. If there was a solid deal with direct cash changing hands most likely Nintendo would have locked them down to ensure that what ended up happening didn't. But if the deal was more open, as in if Capcom was happy with the profits from the Zelda loan that they might throw a few exclusives Nintendo's way but things ended up just devolved from there I absolutely wouldn't have any problem with it.

Still though, there is that nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe...

...

Nah.

[Magik]

Quote
Originally posted by: Galford
I said it before and I'll say it again.

Holidays 2007 will be the real test for Nintendo.
If Nintendo can find a solution to Halo 3 and MGS 4 the Wii will do well.
If not expect by 2008 the Wii to suffer the same fate as the GC.

Note: Edited for grammar.

Totally agree with you.

Holidays 2007 will be 1st MAJOR deciding factor as to how ALL 3 consoles turn out.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that holidays 2007 will essentially be armageddon for all 3 console makers, and will probably be the greatest time to be gamer EVER.

Microsoft and Sony will definitely have at least 2+ AAA titles ready for the holidays so Nintendo must have something ready.  The more and more I think about it, I'm starting to really think that two out of the big three titles - Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers Brawl, Metroid Prime 3 - will be held off till the holidays solely to combat Microsoft and Sony's big titles.

[wandering]

Quote
Originally posted by: denjet78

Quote
Originally posted by: MarioAllStar
Nintendo doesn't need to compete on that level. The Wii is selling very well and the user base will only increase in time. With so many people who own a Wii, surely publishers will recognize there is plenty of money to be made with the Wii (and DS).

Ok, it doesn't always work like that, but I still don't think Nintendo needs to send out money hats.

I'd actually be ashamed of them if they did, which puts me in a tight spot because how did the whole Capcom 5 thing get started? Was it really just reciprocal in regards to the whole handheld Zelda thing they had going? It most likely was knowing the boat loads of cash that they made off of the deal and also why the Capcom 5 was allowed to fall apart. If there was a solid deal with direct cash changing hands most likely Nintendo would have locked them down to ensure that what ended up happening didn't. But if the deal was more open, as in if Capcom was happy with the profits from the Zelda loan that they might throw a few exclusives Nintendo's way but things ended up just devolved from there I absolutely wouldn't have any problem with it.

Still though, there is that nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe...

...

Nah.

What's wrong with money hats? How is Nintendo paying Capcom for an exclusive game any different than them paying IBM for an exclusive chip?

[ThePerm]

I think Nintendo needs to be sending out a few money hats this generation, if Microsoft and Sony are going to do it then Nintendo has to otherwise it will hurt their third party stance as it has been, hell with the money theyve been making on virtual console they should be able to afford lots of those hats.

[Kairon]

I personally think that Nintendo shouldn't neglect the smaller studios with regards to moneyhats too. I think they should actively seek out small developers like N-Space and try to sign them tentatively to long term small game contracts.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[UltimatePartyBear]

Long term contracts like that don't work in the video game industry.  You sign a five year contract with some developer because it has talented people, they chafe under your terms, they leave and form a new competitor, and you're stuck funding the empty husk.

[Kairon]

That's why you get the small cheap ones, they're hungry for ANY opportunity, and Nintendo's a GREAT thing to have on their resume. They'd practically be eating out of your hands. And the contracts shouldn't be too long, more like 2 or 3 game contracts, making the deal VASTLY appealing to the small studios whose employees are practically living from paycheck to paycheck.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[couchmonkey]

Isn't Nintendo already basically doing this with the likes of Cing?  Maybe it should be doing even more, but so far I think it's doing an okay job.  When you look at the DS lineup

On Capcom, I'm sure Nintendo gave Capcom a moneyhat for the Resident Evil series, or RE4 would have gone multiplatform a lot sooner.  I'm not sure about the Capcom 5 - I used to think they were voluntary and Capcom changed its mind later on, but  who knows?

Crystal Chronicles was a public moneyhat - part of Nintendo's super-special joint funding project, don't remember the name.

Twin Snakes was basically a moneyhat - Nintendo/Silicon Knights did almost all of the work and Konami probably got a big chunk of the profits.

Personally I don't mind money hats when they're above the table.  It's when I hear rumours of secret deals - such as Microsoft supposedly paid some publishers to skip GameCube for multiplatform games - then it bothers me.

[ThePerm]

q fund

[Ian Sane]

couchmonkey's post pretty much states that Nintendo's problem has never been an inability to compete financially with the competition's moneyhats but rather that they just plain suck at them.  A moneyhat for a port of a PS1 game with a Nintendo second party doing all the work while a true sequel is annouced for a competing console at the exact same E3?  That's a pretty sh!tty deal.  Ditto with exchanging a GBA licence in exchange for one Final Fantasy game in name only that sucks anyway and nothing else.  Nintendo's moneyhats typically involve significantly more benefit for the third party then Nintendo themselves and none of them seem to result in any real support.  On the Cube Nintendo's deals typically involved them getting used.

I think setting up a few deals is in general a good idea but, f*ck, don't be so stupid when setting them up.  Though I think some of the lousier Cube third party deals were a result of Nintendo being so out-to-lunch regarding third party support in the first place.  They probably thought their deal with Konami was a good deal and that a port of Metal Gear Solid 1 would satisfy the fanbase's request for a Metal Gear game.  Kind of like how they misinterpret third party support as "having third parties work on Nintendo franchise games that would have been made anyway".

[Galford]

"Q fund",  I forgot about that Perm.

Well it's good that Nintendo made up with SE when they did.
If Nintendo didn't give a GBA license could you imagine Sony getting SE exclusively for the SE?

I know SE supported the Wonderswan Color, but that system wasn't even as powerful as the GBA.

Unless DQ9 flops the PSP is dead in Japan.

[Chozo Ghost]

Once the PSP rolls in, Nintendo will make less money.

Umm, actually the opposite will be true. I know, because I'm speaking to you from the future, lol.

[Stratos]

LOL, time travel posting.

[Monteblanco]

LOL, time travel posting.

Yes, but particularly funny article to read in retrospective.

[NWR_Lindy]

Man, was the PSP a flop or what?  Geez, the format is absolutely dead now.  Sony really needs to go back to the drawing board with their whole handheld concept.  It was typical Sony...overengineered technology that nobody wanted, needed, or asked for, but they expected people to pay top dollar for.  That's been their Achilles heel ever since the PSP was released.

I've heard stories that Sony's hardware people never talked to their software people, and when looking back over the last 6 years, that's absolutely true.  It's like the PSP and PS3 were made in some sort of alternate universe where consumers had unlimited funds to spend on game hardware, and then they were teleported back to our dimension where Sony's software and marketing divisions actually had to make software for them and sell them.

[Ian Sane]

Man, was the PSP a flop or what?

Actually I'm pretty surprised it still exists.  It had an okay launch but after that it just lost all momentum.  I didn't think it would last even three years.  But it's still in stores and games are still being made for it.  Yes, it's a flop but it's still one of the very few non-Nintendo portables to last this long.  I think the Game Gear is the only other one.
 
At the very least Sony could probably learn from this and do better with a new portable.  I don't think they actually WILL since they just launched that stupid PSP Go.  But they COULD.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Adventures in BIZARRO WORLD.

[Chozo Ghost]

Man, was the PSP a flop or what?

Actually I'm pretty surprised it still exists.  It had an okay launch but after that it just lost all momentum.  I didn't think it would last even three years.  But it's still in stores and games are still being made for it.  Yes, it's a flop but it's still one of the very few non-Nintendo portables to last this long.  I think the Game Gear is the only other one.

That's only because of Sony's incredibly deep pockets. The PSP hasn't really picked up any momentum, but its continued along steadily thanks to Sony's vast wealth behind it. I think its probably like the original Xbox where it never made any actual profit, but the point of it was just to serve as a wedge for Sony to get their foot in the door. If that was their goal, then the PSP could be looked at as a success and the PSP2 could build off that.

But I honestly don't think that was their goal. I think Sony really intended to throw Nintendo out of the Handheld market entirely (or at least push them to a distant second), because that is after all what they did with the PS1, right? And if that is the case, then the PSP has been a huge disappointment and failure for them. PSP GO is a no go, and the UMD movie idea was a laughable joke that went nowhere. I think they really had high hopes for it, just as they did/do with the PS3, but Sony was in for a rude awakening when reality shattered their arrogance. This is what happens when you get too arrogant and think you are invincible.

[jakeOSX]

and unfortunately for sony the iPhone is a bigger competitor to the PSP than the DS. Why have a PMP that can play games when i can have a PMP that can play games AND make phone calls.

this is a good one to read in retro-spect. nintendo came out strong (i cringe at 'on top' because that implies they 'won') and is again in a good position.

but let's not forget, nintendo was always a leader. even in those down times EVERYONE was looking and thinking "ok, what is nintendo going to do next?" their influence has never diminished.

[Chozo Ghost]

I have to agree. The only advantage the PSP had over the DS was its multimedia capabilities. It could play music, surf the web, watch movies, etc. Which was something the DS and lite couldn't do (the DSi sorta can). But now there's the Iphone that can do all of that and more, and much much better. There were a lot of people back in 2004 and 2005 predicting the PSP was going to win, and at that time with the PSP's better graphics and with Sony being the dominant power (in the console arena), it isn't hard to see why people would think that, but now when we look back in retrospect it is actually very easy to see why things played out the way they did. It turns out having a touch screen is a far more useful feature for portable gaming than an analog nub. It also helped that Nintendo provided new and innovative games that couldn't have been done on any other system.

Miyamoto himself said back then that there's nothing the PSP can do that couldn't be done on any other system, and he is absolutely right. If you own a PS2 then you already have a system that can play virtually all of the games the PSP can (because most PSP games are ports from the PS2). The PS2 costs less, and has a larger library of cheaper games. Why mess with an expensive handheld with a tiny screen, poor battery life, and gimped controls when you can own a PS2 plus a DS for not much more money and get so much more value instead.

[Adrock]

Well, supposedly, Sony is still missing the point because the PSP2 is apparently somewhere between the Xbox and 360 in terms of processing power. We can probably assume that it'll probably include a camera, mic, touchscreen, and accelerometer too but still be one step behind Nintendo. It's scary what the Tegra 2 (all but confirmed apparently) can do, but that's not what's going to make Nintendo's next handheld special.

[Chozo Ghost]

Well, supposedly, Sony is still missing the point because the PSP2 is apparently somewhere between the Xbox and 360 in terms of processing power. We can probably assume that it'll probably include a camera, mic, touchscreen, and accelerometer too but still be one step behind Nintendo. It's scary what the Tegra 2 (all but confirmed apparently) can do, but that's not what's going to make Nintendo's next handheld special.

I think in the next generation of handhelds we will see all the competitors pretty much on par in terms of their capabilities. The PSP is a good deal more powerful than the DS, but in the next race the DS' successor is likely going to have HD capability and probably be on par with the consoles of today. The PSP2 will also be HD and be powerful too. It might even be MORE powerful than the DS2, but it won't really matter much. The gap between the handhelds of the next gen won't be as much as it is today, and so that will be pretty much irrelevant.

So we will have a PSP2 and DS2 which are pretty much evenly matched for all intents and purposes. The PSP2 will almost certainly have a touchscreen and probably some sort of motion controls, but the DS2 will also have that.

So what it will come down to is who has the better games. As long as the DS2 is backwards compatible with the DS it will have a huge advantage right off the bat. This is a serious problem the PSP2 is going to have to deal with, because the PSP2 would have to encumber itself with a problematic UMD drive that breaks down and eats up batteries in order for it to maintain backwards compatibility, and in the end backwards compatibility on the PSP2 won't count for much because except for a handful of exceptions it lacks quality exclusives that people would actually want to play on a successor.

So this is going to be a huge dilemma for Sony in the next race, and I can't see how they can have any hope of winning. So what we will probably see is a repeat of this generation's race with Nintendo being way in the lead (as usual) and the 2nd place competitor being far behind.

Of course, Sony might not even be 2nd place next time around. The Iphone is likely to fill that spot, and of course Microsoft and other companies probably have their own intentions. So who knows?

[KDR_11k]

What, HD on a handheld? You know how huge it would have to be to cram 1280x720 pixels on the screen?

[BlackNMild2k1]

I'm hoping for 800x400 like cell phones.