Nintendo has a new system that will be more powerful than the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360.
I would hope so when competing against consoles that were released 6 years earlier. I'm curious to see how they will implement a "large touch-screen" on the controller, since it calls to mind radically different designs than Wii controllers.
There are a lot of interesting ideas that you could put together when everyone has a private screen. I wrote up the cons and pros of having such a system and where the innovation will come from when I was looking at tablets as the controllers:
The Gamecube already had private screens with GBA adapters.
In Crystal Chronicles each player had their own menu, a secret competitive challenge (in an otherwise cooperative game), and a unique view of the area (one gets a map, one gets a dot for every monster, one gets a dot for every chest, one gets information on monster attributes).
Four Swords also used the GBA screen, but it was basically just so you could go in a dungeon and wander off without splitting the screen on the TV or making you stay together.
There were probably more games that used GBAs for private screens or other multiplayer gameplay, but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.
There's no reason a normal controller can't act as a pointer. It would eliminate the normal complaints (extra cost for the joystick attachment, limited applications) while maintaining it for those rare games that work best with a pointer.
There's also no reason a coffee cup can't be used as a pointer, but the physical affordance doesn't work well.
The Wii pointer worked because it had the right shape to be held in a hand and pointed. If this new leaked picture is the actual controller, how are you supposed to hold it in one hand and point? Or are you going to use two hands now?
I'm still very sceptical about how genuine those are.
Nintendo is still strongly focussed on making an inclusive family environment, and I can't imagine how each person having a separate screen would help that. Those controllers are almost as big as the Wii itself. You're not going to give that controller to your grandmother as you all sit on the sofa at Christmas. Also, the controller invades on the 3DS's territory a little too much.
It's good news if they do make the most developer-friendly console though, considering their current consoles have the most developer-unfriendly dev process. Hopefully that will extend to their 3rd party developer relations too.
I'm pretty sure that both Microsoft and Sony are on a 10 year plan with both of those systems, which means you won't hear anything about a PS4 for another couple years at least.
That said, this seems like a pretty smart move on Nintendo's part. They get to release hardware thats not the most expensive/fastest available, but still beats the current market, and gets to live at the top of the performance chart for at least a few years.
From what I understand, the often quoted 10 year plan includes overlap with the release of the next console, similar to how the PS2 still sold quite well at the start of the PS3 era, as well as the PS1 before it.
The PS3 was announced about 18 months before availabiltiy, so we actually should be pretty close to an announcement.
The rational thing for Sony and Microsoft to do is to stand down on any new console. Both consoles push 1080p and there's been no mass adoption of 3D or other display technology to warrant a new introduction; Crysis 2 is being released for both platforms and there's no real consumer demand for yet more polygons. Both companies are able to turn profits on their gaming divisions; Nintendo isn't likely to outcompete them on a technical basis, either.
In short, I think the 10 year horizon might actually be too short.
Please no, both consoles have been holding back PC gaming. Crysis 2 actually has lower system requirements than the original Crysis precisely because they bent over backwards to make it work for PS3 and 360.
Actually it's about pushing the state of the art and the technology, something hardcore gamers have been the main driving force for in computing since the mid 90s.
But forget all that, you want to make money off of a Farmville clone.
Sony/MS said that Move/Kinect qualify as "a new console", which would put PS5/Xbox5 around 2015. I don't think they'll wait quite that long, but the next generation isn't coming soon either.
Interesting that they are pretty much abandoning their massive lead on casual gaming (which is a way bigger market than hardcore gamers). My parents enjoy playing Wii, but I don't see them buying/playing a console with 4 extra screens.
Sounds like a gimmick to this guy. I have a feeling Microsoft and Sony are giddy as hell because Nintendo is about to drop the ball.
Why do you say that they're abandoning the lead in casual gaming? I assume it's their comment that "new system that will be more powerful than the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360". If so, being more powerful than a PS3 or XBox 360 isn't remarkable considering those devices are 5-6 years old and that's about 16 Moores-law-years ago. Being more powerful than a PS3 places you in casual gaming territory; being hella more powerful than a PS3 places you in hardcore gaming territory.
The big thing about the Wii was how accessible the controller was to every member of the family. You just point it at the screen, even your grandparents can do it! Touchscreens, not so much.
They don't reign supreme for sitting on your sofa with your family. You wouldn't expect the average grandmother to feel comfortable using an iPad to control a game. The Wii was focussed on the whole family being included. Also, four people sitting on a sofa staring at individual screens isn't the most sociable either.
They haven't abandoned the casual gaming market, they've conquered it and now they're moving up the tier where Microsoft and Sony have retreated and where those two may meet their doom. See http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20080325182052/http://mal...
I've gotten used to dismissing people who dismiss Nintendo's next things as mere gimmicks. "It's a toy" is often the hardest criticism: well so what, we're talking about video games not deadly weapons.
Nintendo releases the Wii, Wii stalls next-gen consoles by shifting the focus of other companies to create movement sensing peripherals. The Wii moves on to the next market, that is some good strategy right there.
Their lead in casual gaming isn't so massive if you consider that their competitors in the "casual gaming" space include not just Xbox and PlayStation but also iOS, Android, and Facebook games.
That's just in the American market, too. In equally important Japanese market, you have to throw Gree and DeNA in there too.
The Wii's appeal is about multi-player gaming in the same physical space.
iOS, Android, and Facebook don't compete with Wii on that count at all. MS and Sony have made efforts at this, but still, the Wii is the most genuinely social gaming system.
Nintendo is about multi-player gaming in the same physical space.
They've paid a token effort to online gaming and digital distribution, but every platform they've released since the NES has focused on playing with others in the same room.
The Wii was Nintendo's first console in a long time to be more than profitable. If they pull the Wii's success off again, people will be less skeptical on the next one.
In 1998 (N64) Nintendo made $1.2 billion in profits, which at the time was being compared to their previous record of $1.25 billion in 1993 (SNES).
There's no public information about how much of that was N64 profit and how much was Gameboy, but at least based on a private Nikkei investigation they said, "This success is attributed to the performance of the N64 and Game Boy, as well as its compatible software."
I couldn't find anything concrete about the Gamecube with a quick search [edit: Gamecube was also clearly profitable; see below link], but I just saw vague information that the Gamecube was profitable but less profitable than any other system up to that point.
Either way, it's common knowledge that Nintnedo sells all of its systems at a profit, so even only selling 20 million Gamecubes, it's unlikely it resulted in a loss, especially after you figure in the ridiculously high first-party software sales.
Nintendo also has an incredible track record of not being able to foster healthy relations with third party developers, and being outright hostile to indie developers (see: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/03/21/fils-aime-nintendo-not-...). The Wii, outside from the first party titles, was pretty much a wasteland at least compared to the offerings of Microsoft and Sony. This I think has led to the Wii having a fairly low attach rate and, at least anecdotally, the number of consoles that were bought for Wii Sports and have been gathering dust ever since.
Well, nothing prevents nintendo from using wii controllers and games on the new console, and possibly scaling them up to make them look better. Just lookup Wii HD on youtube to see the games running on 1080p on an emulator.
Also sounds like now you will be able to buy DS and Gameboy games from the marketplace as well.
I'm guessing that it more has to do with the state of their 3D tech. Maintaining the "sweet spot", and all would be pretty difficult with a handheld controller piloting a console.
Have you watched kids (or maybe even yourself) play a game? Writhing around in your seat, leaning with your virtual character's movements, leaning forward at those particularly tense moments... it all makes for a tough sell when you need to view your 3D screen at a particular angle in order to see anything but a blurry mess.
I really hope they release a workable VR console. All the individual component technology exists, we just need an innovative company to bring together into one affordable package.
I would hope so when competing against consoles that were released 6 years earlier. I'm curious to see how they will implement a "large touch-screen" on the controller, since it calls to mind radically different designs than Wii controllers.