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Originally posted by: Pittbboi
...Only that vision isn't what Nintendo sees for itself. Never have you seen Iwata say that he's comfortable with Nintendo being in last place, or that it only makes its hardware for its games. Remember, the main push by Nintendo back in the pre-Gamecube release period was to get itself back on speaking terms with third party developers. It failed at this, but that goal hasn't changed with the Revolution. Why do you think they're emphasizing how high production costs are becoming and making such an effort to bring them down? Nintendo wants other companies to develop for their hardware, and it wants to gain more marketshare to make its hardware that much more appealing. It's foolish to think that a Nintendo console could survive on it's own games. It simply can't. Nintendo knows this; a lot of people still apparently don't.
What a lot of us "naysayers" are doing here isn't just needlessly poking at Nintendo, it's realizing that some of the decisions made by Nintendo may hinder its own goals. I don't think anyone is doubting that games with still play well and look stunning on the Revolution with or without HD support. However, there's no denying that lack of this support will cost it potential sales--and Nintendo is in no position to risk potential sales, because sales determine how much 3rd party support you get, and THAT'S what floats a console.
There are two sides to Nintendo, two different avenues on which they must act. One side is the avenue that Iwata now heads, and that is keeping Nintendo in business. After all, Nintendo couldn't very well make great games if Nintendo didn't exist.
But that side of Nintendo only exists to ensure the viability of Nintendo's true driving force: Miyamoto and Nintendo's legacy as a software maker, their ability to freely innovate, and their ability to take games where they want games to go. This is what interests me most as a Nintendo fan. The business aspect of Nintendo's profitability is subordinate to Miyamoto's creativity.
Now obviously, this brings us to a question of "do the ends justify the means?" If Nintendo becomes financially dominant, but does so by sacrificing the only thing that truly is Nintendo, Miyamoto's legacy, then I, as a Nintendo fan would count it as an unsconciounable loss. Yet if That legacy survives, then I'm not too caught up in whether Nintendo is in 1st or 3rd place, as long as the games keep coming.
And even assuming that everyone here is working under the question, "Does HD support make-or-break Nintendo's future ability to create the games it wants to make?", I don't think the situation is as dire as everyone makes it out to be.
First of all, by striving for low production costs, Nintendo can minimize financial risk on hardware losses. GC didn't have as much support as the XBox or PS2, but Nintendo made money on it's own games, some licensing fees, AND the hardware itself: nowhere did Nintendo realize a loss except when the unique and specialized arenas of currency exchange (a weak dollar/strong yen) and hefty Research and Development coincided. And in addition to this, Nintendo can pursue the lowest price with more safety than Sony or Microsoft, and with a lower price point Nintendo consoles can become much more comfortable impulse buys for casual gamers rather than the 5-year contract you'll get when you buy the latest and greatest PSXBox.
Secondly, exactly what third party game has sold Gamecube, or the N64? Resident Evil's impact on the GC has been vastly over-rated by viewers (indeed, most were remakes, and RE4 has only moved 500,000 copies, a small amount compared to blockbusters). And the N64's only truly premier third party title was GoldenEye. Nintendo was responsible for every other signature game that kept the N64 afloat. And again, looking at DS with it's lack of marquee third party titles, again Nintendo has managed to sell the system with barely more than Nintendo Licenses and token third party ports.
And of course, while HD may be a selling point for the first-adopters, the techno-lusters, and the internet-savvy, 1080p is hardly commonplace now, nor would excluding 1080p make developers unable to make games that they could before (thus satisfying a key IanSane flashpoint: traditional genres (Street-Fighter-esque fighting games, for example) must not be excluded).
Finally, while the developers may definitely take advantage of 1080p support on other systems, it's exclusion makes Revolution development and ports easier, not harder. After all, this is eye candy.
Now it's no question that a COMPLETE lack of third party support will pretty much relegate a Nintendo console to the dustbin of history, yet that is highly unlikely, as long as EA sits pretty in their "top dog" position and desires as many console makers to fight it out while they rake in the big bucks.
But when reviewing the topic at hand, I'm amazed at the weight people give to issues like this. Iwata's job is to keep Miyamoto in business. Miyamoto's job is to keep making the best games he can possibly make. And I doubt that not supporting bleeding edge 1080p will endanger either aspect to the point that Miyamoto will no longer be able to make the next Mario.
High Definition or not, if the next Nintendo game rocks, I'll be there to buy it. And experience seems to show that although there are no more than 20 million people like me, that there are enough to keep Nintendo in the business of making games... which of course, is the only reason we're all here anyways.
Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com 
Topic: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis (Read 76571 times)
