Messages

501

General Gaming / Re: ♥ Loyalty ♥

« on: August 04, 2009, 12:00:33 PM »

The xbox360 is $200 now which is cheaper than a Wii.  The PS3 can be had for $250 if you sign up for a credit card from Sonystyle.com.  That's not factoring the fact that a Wii controller costs $60 versus the $40 from the competitors and you'll need an SD card for the Wii if you plan to utilize the download service at all.

I'm not going to argue prices with you, mainly because the $200 Xbox 360 is that totally stripped down version, and you keep talking about accessories like the 360 and PS3 don't have them.

Last year, the pro 360 was $250 with 2 games during the holidays.  Your going to see the same thing this holiday.  And the accessories do cost more with the Wii.  And there is no player choice titles for the Wii.  Yeah, some third parties drop their cost, but on the 360/PS3 you can get almost every title for a significant discount within a year of release.  You don't want to argue this because it's very easy to see that the Wii is at least in the same price range and most likely more $ for most people.  I also like it that since the arcade xbox only comes with 512 mb of memory it's stripped down.  What other system comes with that much memory?

If the Wii tried with a price drop of only $50 and maybe buying a big exclusive game could they push to the 65-70% range?  We'll never know because Nintendo is glued to short term profits that they don't realize that they risk turning off consumers in the future.

Could you explain this in detail?  I don't see how lots of people buying the Wii at the current price means they should drop it and how it would risk turning off anybody.  And LOL short term profits.  This isn't a charity, guy.

Yes, laugh at me if you will.  The Wii sold over 5 million in the first quarter of 08.  They sold just 2.23 million in the first quarter of 09.  They are getting close to saturation at this price point.  While Wii came out of the blocks faster than the PS2, the PS2 never saw a decrease like that.  So if Nintendo is happy because they are making money fine.  But they could of sold 5 million this first quarter.  They'd need to work with price to do it.  And there is the whole issue of economies of scale.  Nintendo has enough manufacturing capability to supply 5 million Wii's but they are only selling 2 million.  This means plant closures and increased parts cost for them.

I never said it was a charity, I'm happy they print money.  I'll have endless Mario sequels now.  But with increased HD adoption, and cheaper HD consoles consumers could start turning to the PS3 and 360.  If that happens they'll be hard to get back.  I know this company that paid millions of dollars to a supplier to keep them happy.  Without going into too much detail they had a contract tied to an indice that was grossly increasing and paid in arrears.  So they were paying well below market value for the product and charging their customers based on the increasing indices.  The company could have stuck it to them and said you signed the contract it's our money now.  But they didn't want to go with another supplier so they evened up with them.  Nintendo is walking that fine line by keeping prices high and eventually having consumers turn on them.  It's alot harder to get a customer back then it is to keep them. 

It's hard to say with certainty, but next generation when the 360/PS3 siblings have great graphics, new control schemes, and still have the third party dominance (since Wii isn't building bridges with developers) we'll see how well Nintendo does when people aren't caught off guard by innovative controls.

Didn't Sony already try a motion control thing?  Didn't it suck so bad people forgot it existed which helped them pitch their Wii knockoff this year?  Do you really think all those current 360 owners even like the prospect of Natal?  Do you think all those third parties who spent this whole generation knocking motion controls are going to be able to just magically adapt when Sony and MS force them to use motion controls?  This isn't so simple as it looks, dude.  Better graphics doesn't = TEH WIN, because that would mean the PS3 and 360 would be tops and Wii would be in the pit.  And to be honest, Nintendo can get all the graphical specs the 360 has and then some for bargain basement prices right now.  If anything it's MS and Sony who are painted into a corner because they really can't advance graphics further than TVs can display or even customers can appreciably discern.

Didn't Nintendo try the motion thing before and it stunk (Power Glove)?  Technology changes.  You see what Sony and MS want you to see right now.  I'm sure there is alot going on behind closed doors and alot of $ being spent on those techs.  Just like Nintendo and IBM's new agreement which is sure to be the HD console from Nintendo.  We'll see what everyone has in store for the next generation soon enough.  I'm just saying that Nintendo caught Sony and Microsoft with their pants down on the motion controlled thing.  They are not going to underestimate Nintendo next time or the market of casual gamers. 

Also just to clarify, I don't think this is all a price issue.  I think they should drop their price on the Wii $50 for the holiday season.  This would offset the likely price decreases for PS3/Xbox360 and keep Wii in the forefront.  The thing that makes me more upset is the fact that Nintendo is adamant against deals.  Why is there not a player's choice?  Every Nintendo console has had one.  And why aren't they willing to work more with developers.  Maybe GTA 4 could have been on the Wii as well if Nintendo would of gone to TT and said, "Hey we know you've never had a GTA on a Nintendo console before.  If you do GTA 4 we will waive the licensing costs (approximately $12 a copy)."  That wouldn't have cost them anything and would have put an end to this hardcore games don't sell on the Wii crap.  But no special deals for anyone.

502

General Gaming / Re: ♥ Loyalty ♥

« on: August 04, 2009, 07:22:04 AM »

BTW Deguello do you own another system as well?

No, they are still too expensive.  Really wish Microsoft kept prices under control instead of just ramping them up so they could try in vain to show a profit in video games for once.

4.  Change the bundle already.  I'm almost shocked Big N didn't push a WII Sports Resort package?  Could easily sold another 1/2 million consoles per month but they didn't.

Maybe they should wait until their sales drop below their competitors or they stop selling faster than the PS2?  Just a thought. (A profite-yielded, not-losing-money-to-please-Ymeegod thought)

The xbox360 is $200 now which is cheaper than a Wii.  The PS3 can be had for $250 if you sign up for a credit card from Sonystyle.com.  That's not factoring the fact that a Wii controller costs $60 versus the $40 from the competitors and you'll need an SD card for the Wii if you plan to utilize the download service at all.  If your a Nintendo fanatic and need everything Nintendo, the Wii is a good console, but value wise, I have a hard time reccomending the Wii over the PS3 at this point.  At the beginning when the PS3 was $600 it was a no brainer.  But now that the market is so segmented I feel the PS3 is a better overall value and really can be had for the same price of the Wii (less if you factor controllers/storage).

The thing that annoys me about the Wii is since they are making money, they should use enough of it to make the Wii a better product.  I'm glad I bought a Wii, but in many respects I liked the gamecube better and if I recently bought a Wii I'd feel like I got ripped off.  $250 for 8 year old hardware is not a good deal.  Luckily I bought it at launch when I felt the overall package was worth $250 at the time.  There were some third party games that actually tried on the gamecube as well.  I'm a big fan of Remake, Metal Gear, Timesplitters, etc.  Some of those games held their own particularly against the xbox, but also somewhat against the bohemoth that was the PS2.

The other problem that annoys me is there was a time last generation where PS2 just took off and owned the market.  Most developers look at the market as PS3/Xbox360 vs. Wii.  They do this because the graphics/controls are so different.  So you'll see either a Wii only game (usually with wonky controls) or a PS3/Xbox360 game which highlights graphics/physics.  Typically the better games have gone xbox360/PS3.  When you look at NPD/etc.  It usually details the Wii owning 40-50% of the market.  Now this is clearly good especially coming from the gamecube which owned like 12%.  But the PS2 ended around 65-70%.  If the Wii tried with a price drop of only $50 and maybe buying a big exclusive game could they push to the 65-70% range?  We'll never know because Nintendo is glued to short term profits that they don't realize that they risk turning off consumers in the future.  It's hard to say with certainty, but next generation when the 360/PS3 siblings have great graphics, new control schemes, and still have the third party dominance (since Wii isn't buildng bridges with developers) we'll see how well Nintendo does when people aren't caught off gaurd by innovative controls.

503

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: August 01, 2009, 09:50:15 PM »

ugh.. so much too read..   first things first..
"and the self declared hardest hardcore wouldn’t own a Wii(image issues and all)."  talking about a certain shia are we?

Lol, did you see his quote about his mom.  http://perezhilton.com/2009-05-04-shias-mom-naked-and-scary

I think everyone is reading too much into the HD effect.  Yes, it matters.  I have a PS3 and a Wii and if the game comes out for both, I am 95% likely to buy it for the PS3.  Some people will look at the 360 being HD and buy choose the 360 over the Wii thus causing less demand for hardcore titles on the Wii.  So yes, HD has an impact.  I don't know how much but it is certainly there.  It also doesn't help that review sites always compare Wii graphics to the HD systems.  The best they typically say for Wii graphics are clean, artistic, and good colors.

I think the more important issue is that Nintendo has not tried to get those types of games on their systems for years.  Nintendo is top class.  But take away their games, and the only thing I can think of as must have titles is Bond/Perfect Dark for the N64, then Resi series for the gamecube (which technically all the games except 0 are on the PS2).  When you ignore the hardcore market for 2.5 generations (N64, gamecube, Wii thusfar) the hardcore jumped ship.  Most of us die hard Nintendo fans started with the NES/SNES glory years and have stuck with Nintendo through.  The playstation generation would rather have the Halo's/Devil May Cry's/Metal Gears/GTAs than Mario/Zelda/Metroid.  When Nintendo has a an equivilent of those series, and it's exclusive, then they will start to get the hardcore back.  While Conduit is fun, it's certainly not an equivelant of what is available on other systems.

504

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: August 01, 2009, 10:51:43 AM »

And in the current climate, 1080p means moneyhats that nobody wants to spend.

http://www.switched.com/2009/05/28/recession-not-hurting-hdtv-sales/

Apparently, not everyone shares your thoughts.  Obviously alot of people are hurting or scared, but alot of people are still spending $.  HDTVs are cheaper than ever, as well, after the anti-trust fines that most manufacturers got hit with last year.  $500-$600 will buy you a great 30-40 inch TV.  Not that $500 is cheap, but if you have been wanting a new TV or are now going to be spending alot more time at home, consumers haven't been shy to buy in.

Also, 720p is high def.  While certainly 1080p is better quality, most consumers depending on the size of their screen/distance from screen, would not notice as much as a difference as from 480i to 720p.  Another factor is few cable channels broadcast 1080p and only blu ray provides 1080p.  Most 360/PS3 games only come in 720p, with few coming in 1080p. 

I'm not a big fan of 3d television until they make it where I don't have to wear goggles period.  When they start pushing the 3d sets though, you'll probably see them start at $10k and work themselves down to more affordable levels years later.  So that tech is a ways off from mainstream.

505

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: July 31, 2009, 07:36:16 PM »

I would agree that most people do not appropriately use their HDTV correctly.  But I don't think it is as prevalent in people under 25 which is the target demographic for xbox360 and PS3.  So yeah, if the 40 year old father hooked up the 360, it may not be optimized, but the college age student struggling with technology?  I'm sure someone can bring up an example of one, but overall getting a 360 online is as complicated as hooking it up correctly to an HDTV.  The differing factor is if the individual actually has an HDTV or just online service.  Additionally, a 360 on a SDTV will look better than the best Wii games.  The 360 just has more power which means more happening on screen, better physics, better antilasing, more draw, etc. 

506

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: July 31, 2009, 04:12:44 PM »

I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but if you had two tvs, same manufacturer, quality, cost, etc.  One is 1080p and the other is 480i, the consumer will purchase the 1080p one 100% of the time.  Most of the time, people are not willing to pay the premium associated with 1080p because 480i is good enough.  Not equal, not better. 

I found the article you specified.http://www.ask.com/bar?q=how+many+xbox+360+users+use+high+definition&page=1&qsrc=0&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.1up.com%2Fdo%2FnewsStory%3FcId%3D3161833

The article is over two years old.  During that time the # of people with 360's went from about 6M to 18M.  Also, the # of people with an HDTV went from about 20% to somewhere in the 40-45% range.  http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16014.cfm  You honestly would have trouble if you didn't want at least a 720p tv as my local Walmart has no SDTVs in stock.  So I believe that overall knowledge of HD and things HD has gone up. 

Also, I strongly question the validity of the poll.  The 360 target demographic is 13-25 years old.  Which means that for the 13-18 year olds, the poll probably polled the parents which will never use the device or maintain any knowledge of the device other than their kid wanted it.  For the 19-25 year olds, they probably don't have a land line which means they would have been excluded from the poll.  If 60% of people use xbox online (as indicated by Microsoft), I would think a similiar # of people use the HD capability of the machine.  Maybe that's high, but certainly at this time more than 30% of the people are using the HD status of the machine now. 

507

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: July 31, 2009, 02:14:49 PM »

These are the hardcore fans you see in today’s market.  I’m not doubting that they own a Wii, but I’d be surprised if they own only a Wii.  So then what comes up is where do the big players with AAA games put their games.  This is what runs through their head.

1.   The hardcore market is probably greater with x360 and PS3.  As most Wii hardcore owners probably own one of those, and the self declared hardest hardcore wouldn’t own a Wii(image issues and all). 

So in conclusion, no AAA developer is going to put their best stuff on Wii.  The only way it would sell is with an exclusive so the hardcore players (which probably have all systems or at least a subset) will have to buy the Wii version.

You seriously overestimate the number of people who own multiple consoles.  You act like there are millions of them who are actually responsible for games getting huge sales or small sales.  There aren't that many.
(double post but at least its a different topic then my previous)

It's really unprovable, but yes, I would believe that the # of people that owns at least 2 consoles in somewhere in the millions. 

My math is approximately 300 million people in the US.  Average household size of 2.6 means about 115 million households. 

According to VGChartz (I know this will get discounted)  there are about 24 million Wiis, 18 million 360's, and 9 million PS3's sold.  Now if there were no duplicate purchases there would be a new console in 44.4% of all US homes.  I believe that is really high.  Additionally, if you look at where they say it ended, there were 50 M PS2's, 16 M xboxes, and 13 million GCs.  That would be 68.7% of all households is where we should end up.  Anyways I was focusing on hardcore users.  I consider those to be people that game >10 hrs a week and buy >10 games a year and I consider there to be less than 5 million of those people.  But if they spend that much time gaming and that much $ on gaming, I would think that yes, one console would not be enough for them.

508

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: July 31, 2009, 01:53:30 PM »

A lot of the arguments I even see for the hd aka "hardcore" consoles seem to be the old pc standby arguments for higher resolution.  Console owners in the past laughed at this argument because they didn't care.

Not because they didn't care, but because
1.  TV's were typically much larger in size (so they didn't have to sit 1 ft from the PC monitor.)
2.  TV's are generally in the family room where most people spend most of their time and their is room for entertaining/friends. 
3.  In the past almost nobody had a TV cabable of high resolutions. 
4.  PC's don't have the best controllers.

Console owners laughed because they were the "cool kids".  Yeah, go with your high res game sitting right by the screen by yourself with the no name controller.  Most people want higher resolution.  Question is whether they think it is worth the price. 

509

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo - "Wii are confused."

« on: July 31, 2009, 01:23:51 PM »

Yet to be fair, it's not really Nintendo's fault these games aren't selling. It's either: a) our fault because we bitch about the lack of hardcore games yet WE DON'T BUY THEM. b) 3rd Excuse Makers don't advertise them enough. c) Entertainment value and replayability. Conduit is good for an FPS... it's just so genetic, and Madworld entertains for only six hours.

You know the Wii is a great console when the company who makes it is just as confused as we are. I love you so much, Nintendo. :3

To be fair it really is Nintendo’s fault.  I love the Wii, but I can see it for what it is.  It has great Nintendo Hardcore games.  It has fun casual multiplayer games, and it has some good quality B type games (Madworld, Conduit). 

The problem started with the SNES.  Nintendo was on top of the world.  And because of this they were able to stick to very basic business principles.  Everything that we do makes us money(usually lots).  I’m not complaining, good businesses make money and they rake in a lot of my money.  But the problem is, Microsoft and Sony play differently.  They release consoles with features that far outstrip their price point (whether you want the features or not) and they are willing to pay $$ to get AAA games because they want their systems to be the defacto hardcore game system. 

Developers were forced to deal with Nintendo with the SNES because it dominated the market.  Then came the N64, and the costs associated to deal with Nintendo went through the roof.  Developers came to Nintendo and said we’ll make an N64 game if you will help us out.  And Nintendo said don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  So they walked over to Sony (and then Microsoft) because the others were more than willing to do things to help developers get more sales and develop better games.  Nintendo for their part thought they could fill the void, but 3d games takes eons longer than 2d games do for development.  So us Nintendo fans started getting used to game droughts.

Then Sony domination started.  Almost of the quality games (other than Nintendo and a couple of third parties) were home to the Playstation.  Well, diehard Nintendo fans will most certainly have a Nintendo brand console, but most hardcore players either became Sony fans or And fans (owners of a Nintendo and a Sony or eventually Microsoft console). 

These are the hardcore fans you see in today’s market.  I’m not doubting that they own a Wii, but I’d be surprised if they own only a Wii.  So then what comes up is where do the big players with AAA games put their games.  This is what runs through their head.

1.   The hardcore market is probably greater with x360 and PS3.  As most Wii hardcore owners probably own one of those, and the self declared hardest hardcore wouldn’t own a Wii(image issues and all). 
2.   Sony and Microsoft will probably give us a discount on licensing fees to offset the costs (Nintendo won’t because that’s uncharacteristic of them) and we can charge 20% more than on the Nintendo console to offset the higher developmental costs associated with an HD game. 
3.   If we just develop for all consoles the Wii game sales will suffer because: 
a.   We don’t really have the resources to develop two engines at once (generally an xbox to PS port or vice versa would cost less than rebuilding the engine for the Wii.)  So if we go the 3 game route, the Wii version is going to look pitiful and have poor physics.
b.    The hardcore don’t want the Wii version.  Graphics matter to hardcore fans.  If controls were the same, hardcore would pick up the game with better graphics (budgets aside).  And maybe you can blame this on the 3rd parties but Wii-mote is not accurate enough for most games.  Anything that uses IR (FPS) is the exception but waggle for a serious competition falls short because it is not accurate enough. 

I know I’ll get ragged on for this, but I’m a Madden fan.  So naturally I tried out the Wii version.  I may even try out the 2010 version because it has IR passing and uses mostly button pushes.  But the first versions of Madden sucked because quite frankly there was no classic control option.  An example, I’m Peyton Manning driving down against the Titans looking to seal up the AFC Championship game.  I see Marvin Harrison streaking a post across the middle.  I go to throw… wait, I go to throw… wait, now I’m sacked, oh I fumbled, oh they are scoring a TD to put the game away.  But I’m sure that happens to Peyton all the time.  Going down an important stretch of the game and the wii-mote malfunctions changing everything.

So in conclusion, no AAA developer is going to put their best stuff on Wii.  The only way it would sell is with an exclusive so the hardcore players (which probably have all systems or at least a subset) will have to buy the Wii version.  They know Sony and Microsoft will help them out but Nintendo won’t help them out even for an exclusive.  So some of the extra development costs will be offset in choosing Sony/Microsoft.  AAA games don’t start will 100 million dollar budgets, they start as good concept B games.  Those are the games the Wii will continue to get because you can make a Wii game cheaper and the goal is to have the hardcore purchase it because it is Wii only and they are interested and hope it catches with the casual crowd which the Wii maintains. 

I’m not saying Nintendo should just go throwing money everywhere, but Capcom (a known AAA developer some opinions aside) could have easily developed SF IV or RE5 or DMC 4 or on and on, but Nintendo hasn’t developed the relationship and they certainly haven’t cultivated that market on their own machine.  To cultivate it would take time.  We saw them almost do it when they bought Silicon Knights but again $ spoke to Nintendo with low sales and they decided to sell Silicon Knights to focus on what they knew instead of trying to develop that market.   

Monster Hunter is an exception for two reasons.  A:  The main customer base is Japan and Nintendo is killing in Japan.  And 2, the gameplay is much like Pokémon which means, that Nintendo has inadvertently created an audience for this game. 

Silent Hill is tossing us a bone like Remake.  It’ll probably be good.  But it’s been remade so many times for PS/PSP that they really have no where else to take the series but to hope that they can reach a new audience with the Wii.