Topic: Sony's Motion in the Blue Ocean

[Chozo Ghost]

The thing is, I highly doubt Nintendo would be the market leader if they'd gone with hardware on par with the 360, as they wouldn't have been able to get the price low enough that the blue ocean crowd would be willing to pay it. Remember, the cheapest 360 at the time of the Wii launch was already $50 more, and Microsoft was taking a huge loss on it. Popular and underpowered or unpopular and on the same technical level, either way you get crap third party support.

I agree completely. If Nintendo had done what Ian says they should have done and released hardware on par with its competitors then it would have just been a rehash of the last generation, except that the 360 would have been in the PS2's shoes. Releasing cheap (inferior) hardware was the only way Nintendo could keep their console affordable enough for them to sell as many of them as they did.  This is how they were able to overcome the 360's install base despite its early start and grab the title of market leader.

It couldn't have happened any other way. With Ian's advice Nintendo would have faced another grueling GCish generation and who knows? They might have went bankrupt or something. Good thing they followed the wise course of affordability and simplicity. This means they will still be around and in great shape for the next generation when they can catch up with graphics.

[ThePerm]

chozo ghosts puts it pretty good. Like Acclaim with the Turok series as an N64 exclusive vs acclaim with the Turok series on multiple consoles. They put a great effort out on n64 and sold millions of copies of that series, but when they went multi-platform they half assed the series. It really comes to team management. I gave Capcom a jab earlier, but really they still doing better by support for Nintendo than many other 3rd parties.

[Ian Sane]

price point is very important too, the Wii until the xbox 360 price drop was the only console with a reasonable price point.

But Rock Band is probably the most expensive game ever, aside from Steel Battalion, and it was huge with all audiences.  I've noticed that most people are irresponsible with money.  I know tons of people who make less money than me but are always broke because they don't really take into account how much things cost.  They buy things on credit that they can't afford and live from paycheque to paycheque.  The decision to buy something is based entirely on whether they want it and have the means to legally walk out of the store with it at that particular time (ie: enough credit or cash).  A lot of the mainstream acts this way.  That's why marketing works.  That's how places like Starbucks are successful.  That's why fads exist.  That's why we get these weird frenzies over a specific hot item every Christmas.  Frugal people don't fall for this stuff.
 
The Wii sparked a buying frenzy.  Everyone had to have it.  That creates the sort of scenario where price is not that important.  It just had to be at a price point where the general public could scrounge up enough cash or credit to walk out of the store with one.
 
Price certainly did not hurt.  But I don't think it was the deciding factor.  Remove Wii Sports and try to sell the Wii on the strength of NPC Twilight Princess and the whole thing would have bombed.  Wii Sports is so important to the Wii's success that I say that everything else is a potential red herring.  The price, the controller, the name - I don't think we can give any of those credit.  Having that killer app everyone needed to have is such a major factor that attempting to do that again should be Nintendo's primary goal next gen.
 
And since Nintendo made a profit off the hardware, could they not have kept the price point the same, increased the power, and planned to break even on the hardware while making profit from the games?  Knowing Nintendo I think the most likely reason they borked the hardware was to squeeze every last cent out of us.  I think the goal was more "what's the cheapest hardware we can make with the maximum profit margin that we think we can get away with."  Do you think Wii Sports looks like a glorified N64 game because it's more marketable or because it involves less effort from Nintendo?  Do you think Wii Sports would have bombed if it graphically resembled Virtua Tennis?  Or if it was actually deep enough to allow for a full 9 innings of baseball?  What's the true hook?  The fact that it's dumbed down or the fact that you swing the controller and the guy on the screen swings it the same way?
 
All this emphasis on a killer app though means that for the present time, Move isn't going to be all that successful.  They have not shown anything that has that "must have" appeal.  If it ever does though it will take off.
 

What do you have to say about games like Street Fighter IV making its way to the Iphone? The Iphone does not have cell-processors and gigs of RAM. If that game could be done on that device then I'm sure it could be done on the Wii as well.
 

This initially annoyed me a lot.  But then I realize that iPhone games don't have to be good to suceed.  At Comic-Con a few years ago I tried out Street Fighter II for the cellphone.  It SUCKED.  But I realized that I wasn't the target demo.  The iPhone is a shitty gaming platform.  But the fact that some games still sell well enough on it to make a profit suggests that the people who buy iPhone games have much lower standards of quality.  So a half-assed SFIV port will be well received with the iPhone gaming market.  The Wii may be popular with non-gamers but it is still a videogame system and thus there are certain standards.  We know that the best selling games on the Wii are good games like NSMB.  A Wii port would be compromised and inferior.  But on the Wii quality actually does matter.  A crap port on the iPhone can therefore stand to be more successful than a crap port on the Wii, due to the lowered expectations of the audience.  We know that the Wii audience isn't so embracing of junk as third parties initially thought.  But porting a PS360 game to the Wii means an expected drop in quality.  Street Fighter IV: Inferior Wii Edition isn't going to sell.  Only a proper port of Street Fighter IV would sell but that isn't possible.
 
Now maybe third parties should have made the Wii their priority to begin with.  Okay, but why would they have when the Cube was last place last gen?  It was a given that at least at first their big games were going to be made with the other consoles in mind.  But they weren't able to port those games over.  They would have to start over so they released half-assed stuff to get games out ASAP and then those didn't do well.  But now they're already working on new PS360 projects and they're iffy about a Wii project because they don't get why their existing Wii product bombed.  There's some screwing up involved here but Nintendo did not make it easy to just switch plans.

[NWR_insanolord]

I'd complain about you calling the iPhone a shitty game platform when it's not and you clearly haven't played anything on it to come to that conclusion, but you say that there aren't good third party games on the Wii despite not actually playing any of them, so I figure what's the point.

[KDR_11k]

The PS2 required a multitap to accomodate four players during a time where all other consoles had four controller slots as standard.  Did this relate at all to the PS2's success?  Obviously it wasn't a big enough issue to damn the machine but I wouldn't assume that since Sony did that and won that that was the right decision to make.

It didn't damn the console, that's my point. When Nintendo and MS came out with consoles that had four controllers people didn't go "hey, that's better than my PS2, I'll buy it!" Move could only really succeed against the Wii if HD was something that many people were REALLY missing. Again it's about dealbreakers, not just inconveniences.

[Adrock]

The irony of Playstation Move is that it looks more like a toy than the Wii ever will.

PSM gets a few things right, namely the round edges and analog triggers, while other things (i.e. the more important ones) are ultimately muddled by poor design choices. I like that there are more face buttons on the wand and a d-pad on the subcontroller. Unfortunately, Sony completely missed the point by putting the buttons around the large Move button. The d-pad (I use that term loosely considering Sony still can't figure out how to make one correctly) on the subcontroller looks too close to the analog stick to be used comfortably in most gameplay situations, unless it's meant as a substitute to the analog stick and I can't think of a situation where that would be a better idea. And just what the hell was Sony thinking putting the start/select buttons on the side of the wand? Ridiculous.

[Stogi]

More face buttons on the wand? If you include the D-pad, the wiimote has just as many.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Wiimote = 11 buttons (12 w/ Power Button)
A, B, +, Home, -, 1, 2, up, down, left, right, (power)

Move = 9 buttons
Move, T, square, triangle, X, O, Start, Select, Home

Nunchuck = 2 buttons
C, Z

SubCon = 9
up, down, left, right, L1, L2, X, O, Home

WiiChuck = 13 buttons (14 if you count the Power Button)
MoveCon = 18 buttons

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The Wii Remote plays most games in the Wii library, including retro games.

SMove, doesn't.

[ThePerm]

im pretty sure the d-pad on the Move controller is so that people can play fighters, its not a bad idea really, the comfortable nunchuck doesn't have its own d-pad, but the nice thing about remote controls are you can adjust your hand location, its slightly less comfortable, but more functional.

[broodwars]

The D-pad on the DS3 has its uses.  I prefer using it in FF XIII for making quick menu decisions and choosing Crystarium path choices, and games like God of War use it to execute equipment switching (much like some games on the Wii use the Wiimote's D-pad).  You also pretty much have to have it for some PS1 titles since not all of them support the analog stick.  I'm not quite sure what use the D-pad will have with PS3 motion-controlled games when you have both pointer functionality and the analog stick available, but I suppose it's always nice just to have it there.

[Urkel]

Reggie comments on Move.
 
Some choice quotes:
 

 IGN: So -- you got anything that can compete against Sony's revolutionary Move controller and sub-controller?

[Reggie leans back in his chair and laughs for several moments.]

 [Reggie laughs]

 [he snaps]

 Reggie Fils-Aime: [Laughs]

 Reggie Fils-Aime: [Laughs]

 Reggie Fils-Aime: [Laughs] I'm not going to give you anything.

[BlackNMild2k1]

LMAO


but seriously, EyePet

If this game was Nintendogs Wii there would be another evergreen Nintendo 10+Million seller that never leaves the NPD Top 20.

[Adrock]

More face buttons on the wand? If you include the D-pad, the wiimote has just as many.

Clearly, I don't.

im pretty sure the d-pad on the Move controller is so that people can play fighters...

That crossed my mind but I would think most people who play fighting games would have a DS3/Sixaxis, if not an arcade stick. I wonder how many PS3 owners would have Move and not a regular controller. Move is the add-on after all. Also, the button placement on the wand kind of makes playing fighting games a pain in the ass.

[broodwars]

That crossed my mind but I would think most people who play fighting games would have a DS3/Sixaxis, if not an arcade stick. I wonder how many PS3 owners would have Move and not a regular controller. Move is the add-on after all. Also, the button placement on the wand kind of makes playing fighting games a pain in the ass.

Considering that the PS3 comes with a Dualshock 3, I'd say we can safely assume the answer to your question is "Zero."     And fighting game fans won't use the Move even if the button placement and whatnot are good.  If Street Fighter 4 is any indication, they'll just get a specialty controller built for fighting games, because that's what "real" players use.

[ThePerm]

lol imagine if Sony copies the motion controller only to find out Nintendo's next motion controller is some sort of ridiculous alien technology

[BlackNMild2k1]

Sony will have 9 months of Move before Nintendo reveals whatever it has cooked up for Wii2HD. So Sony better use that time wisely.

If Nintendo actually takes more than the baby step that Sony did with Move past the capabilities of the Wiimote+ then, Sony is kinda stuck with the inferior tech going into the latter half of their 10 year generation.

And I'm not even gonna mention how dated MS might look with their controller-less interpretation of motion controls.

[Adrock]

Sony has until the end of the year before Zelda Wii is unleashed and blows everything they have out of the water.

[MegaByte]

I played it.  While the specs seems solid (even overkill), it's obviously not a finished package.  Nobody seems to be integrating all of the features at once, so it still isn't perfect.  For instance, in their basic augmented reality demo, the automatic color changing wasn't implemented, so it would sometimes start tracking things other than the glowing ball (even though the rotational movements were still accounted for properly).  This resulted in a baseball bat tracking some guy's crotch in an unfortunate manner.  For sure, it works much better than Wii, but it's clearly not ready for prime time.

[BlackNMild2k1]

This resulted in a baseball bat tracking some guy's crotch in an unfortunate manner.

He must've been packin'. Black guy?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Reggie comments on Move and Natal.

The Next Wii Will Innovate, Nintendo Would Be "Embarrassed" If It Was Sony, Microsoft

"I think a hallmark of Nintendo is that we are constantly trying to innovate," he said. "I think we would have been embarrassed to do what our competitors are currently doing."

"So, all I can tell you is that we will innovate. We will provide something new. Something that the consumer and the industry will look at and say 'Wow, I didn't see that coming.'"

[mac<censored>]

Reggie comments on Move and Natal.

The Next Wii Will Innovate, Nintendo Would Be "Embarrassed" If It Was Sony, Microsoft

"I think a hallmark of Nintendo is that we are constantly trying to innovate," he said. "I think we would have been embarrassed to do what our competitors are currently doing."

"So, all I can tell you is that we will innovate. We will provide something new. Something that the consumer and the industry will look at and say 'Wow, I didn't see that coming.'"

It's a damn good thing somebody in this game has a bit of pride in their work...

Tho in all fairness to Sony, I suppose they're probably in "hunker down and do whatever it takes to not go out of business" mode right now.

[Chozo Ghost]

Nice to see Reggie kicking more ass using only his words. He's absolutely right, too. There's nothing whatsoever to be proud of in being a copycat. By copying Nintendo the competition is admitting Nintendo was right, despite what they may have said back in the Wii's early days.

[EasyCure]

This resulted in a baseball bat tracking some guy's crotch in an unfortunate manner.

He must've been packin'. Black guy?

Here I thought you were the only one with a PhD in Penis Fencing!

[BlackNMild2k1]

This resulted in a baseball bat tracking some guy's crotch in an unfortunate manner.

He must've been packin'. Black guy?

Here I thought you were the only one with a PhD in Penis Fencing!

I know, but I wasn't at the event, so it couldn't have been me.