mantorok said:I actually think next generation is going to be more critical to Nintendo than this one, when I say that I mean - where do they go after the Wii (or DS for that matter)?
It's clear-cut for traditional consoles, you beef up the hardware, you show a few videos/screenshots and half of the gaming population sits up and takes notice. This, however, is difficult to do in Nintendos case if they still decide to adopt the mainstream audience. You can't demo Wii Music 2, Wii Fit 2 etc. and expect people to immediately appreciate the differences in front of them, obviously Nintendo will advertise the hell out of Wii 2 like they have done with the Wii and the mainstream audience will take notice, but when you think long and hard about it, it's not immediately obvious what you could do with the next-gen Wii, and this is what's going to be fascinating about next gen, even more-so than this one.
Due to the significant hardware differences it's been difficult for 3rd parties to simply port titles over to the Wii, for this reason the Wii is missing out on some fantastic titles that are really blowing up on the PS3/360. If Nintendo can afford to it would be really great if they could try and match-up in the hardware aspects of their next console, not only will it consume more 3rd party offerings it would keep Nintendo in the 'core' market, it will also keep the punters happy as well (an no Nintendo, besides the size of your wallet not everyone is thrilled about the selection).
So do they string out the Wii into Wii 2, or do they step up, use their profits and make a console that will not only storm the mainstream but also consume the core-gamers? Or, an even better question, have they already gotten the core gamers attention, 'does' every 360/PS3 own a Wii already? If the answer is Yes they don't have to do jack shit and I can stop speculating about what I know deep down will never happen because it's what I want and not what Nintendo want
.
Interesting times ahead.
The bigger question is, what will Sony and Microsoft do next? Their business model is clearly failing hard, they are loosing money fast. Will they follow Nintendo's business model of selling their console at a profit? Will they copy the wii-mote and try to go after the casual market? Only time will tell!
Another CNET article from Don Resigner (Author of the opening post)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10111170-17.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1001_3-0-5
Whenever I read a Sony or Microsoft press release or meet with company representatives, they're quick to point out that Nintendo's Wii console isn't a competitor. Why? They claim it's because the Wii does gaming differently and is more of a "casual" platform than a "true" gaming console.
It didn't get any better Monday when Microsoft sent a press release detailing the Xbox 360's performance on Black Friday. According to the company, its console sales "were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007."
Microsoft even worked Europe into its gloat session by detailing how well the Xbox 360 performs across the continent: "Xbox 360 sales have also surged worldwide since the September price drop, outselling the PlayStation 3 week over week across Europe."
Did you happen to see anything missing in those two statements? Was it a mention of Sony? Nope. Was it a mention of the Playstation 3? Not a chance. Was it the Wii and Nintendo? Show her what she's won: a Wii!
It shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this year, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for the Xbox 360, said the Wii isn't a competitor at all.
"I think for us, we don't really see the Wii as a direct competitor, we actually very much complement the Wii experience," he gushed. "It's obviously clear that we're going head-to-head with the PS3 in this generation."
Sony isn't innocent either, of course. Just a few weeks later, the company's CEO, Howard Stringer, told Bloomberg that he's played the Wii and he's not impressed.
"I've played a Nintendo Wii," he said. "I don't see it as a competitor. It's more of an expensive niche game device."
And yet, as Microsoft and Sony continue to focus on each other, it's the Wii that led the way on Black Friday and became the most desired product across retail locations worldwide. And we can't forget that that "niche gaming device" that isn't a "direct competitor" has almost outsold both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 combined.
Call me crazy, but when I go to Target or Gamestop and I see the Wii sitting next to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and I consider the fact that they all play games from the same developers (many of which are the same), have the same general price level, and provide the same basic experience, I'm inclined to believe they're competitors.
There's no debating the fact that the Wii provides a different way to play games, but it's equally undebatable that it's a competitor to the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360. Are we supposed to believe that Microsoft's decision to drop the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade to $199.99 wasn't to compete on price with the Wii? Are we supposed to believe that Sony's DualShock 3 controller's Sixaxis functionality isn't the result of the Wiimote?
Give me a break.
The Wii is a direct competitor to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. What does it hurt to say that if you're Sony or Microsoft? I just don't get it.
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Basically I see them using it as a convenient way to highlight the way they are doing well for themselves, by comparing themselves to the next closest competitor and not the company that is running away with things this generation. It is a bit funny to me that every Microsoft press release that is thumping their chest about sales, pretends like there are only two consoles on the market. The Peter Moore interviews showed just how focused MS were on Sony, either this view still exists or they don't want to say, hey, the other guys had the right idea.
^^Lol, I just read some comments on the article above Gigi. Wow, the pure hatred! Unbelievable. It not just there, at Gaf there are also weekly Wii bashing threads. There were two today. I will never understand these fanboys. If you do not like the Wii, play something else, no point in hating a piece of plastic. They are even saying Miyamoto is becoming irrelevant 
. It seems this is one of the few forums where we do not have pure hate for the Wii or other consoles for that matter.
I hate the 360!
Ha, now we are just one of the rest.
I hate the PS3! That big, stupidly expensive doorstop! 
Okay, continuing this issue, I think this topic can and will run for ages. There is a good editorial here that I read:
The Small, White Elephant in the Room
If you don’t follow the monthly NPD report you probably would have no idea that Nintendo has a significant lead in the American market. While the old guard of gaming press has been slow to downright resistant in accepting the Wii, the blame for the lack of Wii game coverage rests almost entirely on publishers.
And now this is juicy, EA has decided to make a kiddie kart racer of NASCAR so EDGE online questioned them about it in relation to wii support
http://www.edge-online.com/features/ea-racer-trades-paint-with-mario-kart?page=0%2C0
EA Racer Trades Paint with Mario Kart
We spoke with EA North Carolina founder and senior developer director on NASCAR Kart Racing Ryan Stradling and lead designer Stephane Imbert about the game itself, third-party Wii development and Reggie Fils-Aime's recent comments that third parties just don't "get it."
mantorok said:I actually think next generation is going to be more critical to Nintendo than this one, when I say that I mean - where do they go after the Wii (or DS for that matter)?
It's clear-cut for traditional consoles, you beef up the hardware, you show a few videos/screenshots and half of the gaming population sits up and takes notice. This, however, is difficult to do in Nintendos case if they still decide to adopt the mainstream audience. You can't demo Wii Music 2, Wii Fit 2 etc. and expect people to immediately appreciate the differences in front of them, obviously Nintendo will advertise the hell out of Wii 2 like they have done with the Wii and the mainstream audience will take notice, but when you think long and hard about it, it's not immediately obvious what you could do with the next-gen Wii, and this is what's going to be fascinating about next gen, even more-so than this one.
Due to the significant hardware differences it's been difficult for 3rd parties to simply port titles over to the Wii, for this reason the Wii is missing out on some fantastic titles that are really blowing up on the PS3/360. If Nintendo can afford to it would be really great if they could try and match-up in the hardware aspects of their next console, not only will it consume more 3rd party offerings it would keep Nintendo in the 'core' market, it will also keep the punters happy as well (an no Nintendo, besides the size of your wallet not everyone is thrilled about the selection).
So do they string out the Wii into Wii 2, or do they step up, use their profits and make a console that will not only storm the mainstream but also consume the core-gamers? Or, an even better question, have they already gotten the core gamers attention, 'does' every 360/PS3 own a Wii already? If the answer is Yes they don't have to do jack shit and I can stop speculating about what I know deep down will never happen because it's what I want and not what Nintendo want
Interesting times ahead.
Great post, what you say is true. Like you I hope they put their console on a more equal level technically so that they could actually get the major third party games.
Foolz said:I hate the 360!
Ha, now we are just one of the rest.
Ravenprose said:I hate the PS3! That big, stupidly expensive doorstop!
Failure, say it like they killed you dog, raped your father and stole your mom's cooky. Only then will you come close to the hatred some of these people have!
Why did you decide that big-headed drivers, tiny karts and weapons were the right direction for a NASCAR game? Is it simply because of the Wii's target demographic?
RS: When we looked at the Wii audience, it's family-based. It's getting a lot of popularity with the moms, dads and kids. So that's one factor. But NASCAR itself is a really family-oriented sport. One of their core business objectives is to appeal to the family. And thirdly, we already released the sim-style products on PS3, Xbox 360 and PS2.
EA also wants to expand the brand and capture the masses. We think it's a great title for the whole family.
SI: This is something to play with family and friends. People who play may not understand the nuances of the sport, but they just want to play with you. It's just a fun game to pick up and play.
Recently, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Forbes, "I will be able to say our licensees 'get it' [Wii development] when their very best content is on our platform. And with very few exceptions today, that's not the case." Do you take issue with that statement, or do you think he's correct?
RS: I don't take much issue with that statement. I don't think he's correct in all areas, even though I understand where he's trying to get to with that comment. But really when we focus back on NASCAR Kart Racing, we're really trying to appeal to the Wii consumer and the Wii demographic. It's not just a port of our simulation game, a "NASCAR 09-and-a-half." We basically started from the ground up and designed something specifically for Wii.
When I look at his comment, I think it comes from the fact that a lot of people are just pretty much porting their existing games over to Wii, and then dealing with the Wii Remotes in some shape or form. We definitely did not take that approach.
SI: The Wii Remote is nothing like anything else before. Our game is for the motion sensor. You're steering the car by steering the Wii Remote left and right. It's very intuitive. Your mom's not going to come over to play a NASCAR sim game, but she can play NASCAR Kart Racing.
There's kind of an analogy between Madden 09 All-Play and and NASCAR Kart Racing; both have harder-core versions available. But it's strange that Madden 09 All-Play, an accessible game made for the mass market for a console that is massively popular still didn't make sales that were as competitive as the core-focused versions of Madden 09. All-Play's performance was a bit surprising.
RS: I can understand the surprise. Everyone's trying to figure out how best to be on the Wii, without a doubt. Madden All-Play's a great game, by the way. I enjoy it a lot. But I think everyone is trying to figure out what that market really is.
SI: The Wii is like no other console so far. It's a completely different experience. PS3 and 360, we know those consoles pretty well. When it comes to Wii, we're still trying figure it out, how to make the best games on that console.
Lastly, what about NASCAR Kart Racing's online, Mii and controller support?
RS: NASCAR Kart Racing does not have an online mode, and there's no Mii support.
Iga_Bobovic said:Foolz said:I hate the 360!
Ha, now we are just one of the rest.
Ravenprose said:I hate the PS3! That big, stupidly expensive doorstop!
Failure, say it like they killed you dog, raped your father and stole your mom's cooky. Only then will you come close to the hatred some of these people have!
the 360 killed my dog, raped my father, and stole my mum's cooky.
Better?
Another article, Ubisoft talking now
http://www.edge-online.com/news/ubisoft-third-parties-can-find-success-wii
Speaking at the UBS Global Media Conference this week, Ubisoft CFO Alain Martinez explained, "We saw that at the end of this year, there were not so many Nintendo products, and we thought there was a window of opportunity, especially on the Wii [Balance] Board."
Ubisoft expects holiday Wii releases Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip to sell 1.5 million and 1 million units worldwide, respectively. Both games are Balance Board-compatible.
However, a well-planned release strategy isn't enough to be successful on Wii, Martinez said.
"...Still, I think that publishers have been lagging behind in terms of innovation versus what Nintendo has done."
He drew comparison to the Wii's handheld sibling, the Nintendo DS, saying the current third-party market share on the handheld is encouraging. "I believe to date, Nintendo is about 30-35 percent market share. So that means if you are aggressive, and if you come up with the right products, you can gain market share there."
Martinez continued, "It's possible. Nintendo is surely not making it impossible for people to make good games [on its systems]. They've been helping us make games. So it's up to us."
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Ubisoft know what they are talking about on DS as that platform brings in more revenue for them than any other platform at the moment. Yes, Petz payz offz. 
This was posted in Neogaf by Kame-Sennin
There are other reasons that third parties don't want to compete on Nintendo platforms, but they are not the kinds of things they want to discuss in front of shareholders. The reality is that the Wii and DS are disruptive to the standard software development methods of most third parties. The Wii and DS are attempting (and succeeding) to change how consumers perceive value in software. The traditional model says that increasing the visual fidelity and feature checklist for major franchises annually will net strong sales. Instead, Nintendo is pushing player/software interaction and social interaction while downplaying the importance of visual fidelity. They're also moving towards a long-tail or "evergreen" sales pattern. Most large publishers have large, incredibly layered, inflexible development structures. When you take that into consideration, a massive shift in software development philosophy must be terrifying. What's worse is that this new philosophy is relatively untested and the market being targeted is ill-defined and under researched. These publishers are often too large to take advantage of the new market. It's unlikely a developer like EA or Ubisoft would be able to turn out a product like Wii Fit or Wii Sports without MASSIVE restructuring and most likely a change of CEO (see: Yamauchi->Iwata). Do you think John Riccitiello wants to talk about that in a conference call?
I always held the same believe, Nintendo not only disrupted the other console manufacturers but also the software makers. The upside is that small developers can grow because the are more flexible. A good example this gen is Marvelous!
Did you guys see Patcher on EA?
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/12/11/will-riccitiello-survive-ea-slump-we-ask-pachter
What [EA] really needed to do... was take their core products and get them on the Wii. So get the Wii audience to want to buy Burnout and Tiger Woods instead of coming up with a whole new division to make MySims and Boom Blox and Boogie.
Even though by contract they have to say Boom Blox is great, it didn’t sell that great. And Boogie didn’t sell at all and Facebreakers didn’t sell at all. Those games are victims. Take what you’re good at and convince the Wii audience they need to buy it. Clearly, the Wii audience is willing to buy games. They just need to be sold on why they should buy these games.
I
think EA is going to figure this one out, and you know what? They weren’t the only ones who screwed [the Wii] up.But that’s not why they're blowing up now. They're blowing up now because they're more spending money than they should be chasing revenue that hasn’t yet materialized.------------------------------------------------------------
This was interesting, Newsweek N'Gai:
http://www.slate.com/id/2206243/entry/2206594/
Taking this back to consoles for a moment: Microsoft's Xbox 360 had a year's head start on the competition, and as its executives love to remind us, the bulk of all console sales during the last generation took place at $199 or less—the current entry-level price for 360. Sony was all set to achieve global domination coming off consecutive wins with PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Yet in just 24 months, Nintendo has blown past its rivals and continues to do so even though the 360 is now $50 cheaper than the Wii's suggested retail price. To put this Nintendominance in perspective, for the month of November, Wii (2.04 million) outsold Xbox 360 (836,000), PlayStation Portable (421,000), Playstation 3 (378,000), and PlayStation 2 (206,000) combined.
Now if that's Game Over as far as the console wars are concerned, why are the major developers and publishers continuing to spend the bulk of their budgets on Xbox 360, PS3, and high-end PC games? Part of it is because Nintendo's own games have historically dominated sales on its own platforms, and that's been true for Wii as well. Part of it is because the creatives and the suits at third-party publishers don't know how to address the expanded audience on the Wii; they've tried a number of things—some bad, some good—but many of their efforts have underperformed. Yet as Electronic Arts' well-publicized struggles demonstrate, the winner-take-all software market on 360, PS3, and high-end PC games can pose just as much risk to a publisher's bottom line.
Yes, the data show that the video-game industry's revenues continue to rise. But how sustainable is that when development budgets are tilted toward 360, PS3, and high-end PCs and away from the market-leading Wii and low-end PCs. If a remake of Resident Evil 4 sold extremely well on the Wii, surely there was an opportunity for Dead Space. The liberating sense of movement in Mirror's Edge could have translated well to the Wiimote and nunchuk. But because EA built those games for the top-of-the-line machines, the Wii wasn't even a possibility. So with Nintendo as top dog, I think it's time for publishers to throw it a much bigger bone by leading development on Wii, then up-porting the games to the more powerful systems, which should result in a larger addressable audience. (Hard-core gamers' flames coming in 3 … 2 … 1.)
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I don't necesarily agree with him, but I agree that there are issues these days when it comes to the cost of development, the world recession, too many big titles in the pot at once, a limited Wii audience etc.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/take-two-we-just-cant-ignore-wii
Take-Two: We "Just Can't Ignore" the Wii
Take-Two's biggest blockbusters such as Grand Theft Auto IV and BioShock skipped the Nintendo Wii, but with the console's installed base growing by leaps and bounds, the publisher may need to more seriously consider more Wii opportunities, execs said Wednesday.
"Even though we think M-rated content is much more appropriate for the PS3 or 360, we have to look at the Wii as a viable platform across all our labels," said CEO Ben Feder during an earnings call. "We have to, because we can't ignore the installed base. You just can't."
Take-Two previously released the M-rated Manhunt 2 on the Wii in 2007, which stirred up controversy as the game's violence was put into motion with the console's interface. The violence earned it an Adults-Only rating initially, and was only released once Take-Two downplayed certain scenes. It failed to attract a wide audience within the Wii's then-smaller userbase.
But Take-Two has seen success on the Wii with the family-friendly Carnival Games franchise."The success of the Carnival Games franchise gives us a great foundation upon which to build" on the Wii, Feder said.
"Some of our best content really isn't appropriate for the Wii. That said, Carnival Games has been a massive success for the company, and we're looking at ... extending that brand to other areas."
The exec also said sports franchises will address the Wii market in the coming year.
The DS title GTA: Chinatown Wars, an M-rated game, may also serve as a barometer as to how a typical Nintendo audience would react to future adult-themed games on Wii.
Feder said Take-Two's partnership with Nintendo is "the strongest it's ever been" and the company has been working closely with Nintendo on GTA: Chinatown Wars.
"They provide great feedback for us," he stated.
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Ugh, so more Carnival games, still no AAA mature content? A DS game is going to show if Wii games would sell? Isn't RE4 and Red Steel a barometer? Imagine if Dead Space came out on Wii as an exclusive (I'm not talking about quality) just hypothetically if it was as good as it was but with Prime 3 graphics it would cost half as much or less than the current version and sell over a million like Prime 3 has too. Assuming that it wasn't the worst version of a game that people would rather buy on other platforms. Seriously everyone acts as if they dont know what to make on the system, when the answer is easy. Make the same shit you were doing on Xbox and GC, make it good and promote it well. Dont treat it as sloppy seconds with C-Team development C-Team budget or C-Team promotion.
Great post.
"Or, an even better question, have they already gotten the core gamers attention, 'does' every 360/PS3 own a Wii already? "
The answer is yes? But they aren't buying games for it, because the games they want aren't being made for it, because it's not powerful enough. Uh oh, back to going around in circles! The solution is to buy De Blob.