Nintendo's position in the industry NOW vs a few years ago

I contrast that with N. since Nintendo stuck in their industry.

I didn't know this, and it's a weird connection, but makes perfect sense; Itoi of course also doing the Earthbound/Mother series, and being a voice actor in the Totoro flick.

1) Low price, especially compared to PS3. I can't even afford a Wii right now, actually, but it's actually feasible at sometime within a year or so. The PS3 I will never ever be able to afford. Ever.

2. It's controller draws in people who normally don't care about videogames. Sort of like how like how your sister (or weird cousin, or whatever) doesn't give a shit about Halo 2, but will watch a few rounds of Guitar Hero or DDR and want to join in.

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Nintendo increases forecast 20%
Net profit forecast 100 billion yen -> 120 billion yen.

The company today raised its sales forecast for DS players this fiscal year by 15 percent to 23 million units and software by 22 percent to 100 million games. Sales of Wii games will reach 21 million games this year, compared with an earlier target of 17 million.The company left its target for Wii console sales unchanged at 6 million units.

Sales this year will probably rise to 900 billion yen, compared with 740 billion yen forecast in October and 509.2 billion yen a year earlier, the company said. Nintendo also raised it full-year dividend forecast to 480 yen, from the October estimate of 400 yen and 390 yen a year earlier.

I was going to say something along these lines, and in terms of Apple, too -- from a non-serious gamer's perspective, the way they've designed and branded their products in this sort of friendly, gadgety way (not unlike Apple's image vs. Microsoft and PCs) has appeal outside of the base of hardcore gamers, young men, shooters / sports players, etc. Whereas the Xbox comes off as fairly complicated and hardcore and techy for someone who's not really committed to gaming, and while the PS is sort of in-between (and has stuff like DDR or the Sims for that cross-wise appeal), I think it still feels to some people like buying a Creative mp3 player instead of an iPod, if that makes sense.

Does Coyote Nate play second life??????

Wii/DS = iPod
360 = hi-fi stereo system with 10-CD changer and surround-sound Dolby and XM Satellite radio and all kinds of inputs for your ridiculous audiophile turntable and holy shit how do you work the graphic equalizer?? I just want to listen to Bob Marley's Legend

xp Second Life is the sorriest shit I've seen in ages.

(Anyways Nintendo: I'm waiting to see what kind of third-party stuff starts happening later this year before buying one.)

http://vgcharts.org/

Enjoy.

All the add-ons with teh 360/PS3 were graphics and sound. The Six-Axis added features, but also removed alot of them. Lateral move...
Whereas the Wii was designed to increase the graphic capabilities a bit but more to make it easier for gaming to be fun.
Old school games that don't have to be ported or be different from when you first played them? Done.
Interesting controls that work? Done.
Cool storage options? Done.
Perfect packwards bompatability with all games and most hardware? Done.
Basically, I think It's a move that a system should have made 5-8 years ago, and I've thought and said that for years.
Everyone likes to be vindicated.
The Wii's success makes me happy for that reason, and it means alot of games will be out when I get one.

this is excellent

Isn't the standard price for PS3/360 games $59 and up, as opposed to $49 for Wii games?

(I could be off on this;I haven't been in a store that sells videogames since the Wii came out)

i would totally buy a console that had perfect packwards bompatability

Not sure which is which, but that's probably me dealing with liking a mix, and having no nicottene in my body...forever.

http://unspun.amazon.com/list/show/3761
^ only slightly better than drm cds!

Demand Outpaced Supply for New Game Consoles
By MATT RICHTEL
Published: January 12, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 11 — The Xbox 360 outsold the Wii, which outsold the PlayStation 3.

That in a nutshell is how the crucial holiday shopping season went for the video game industry’s latest consoles. But that battle does not tell the whole story of a curious December.

Over all, the industry sold $3.7 billion of hardware, software and accessories in the United States last month, up from $2.9 billion in the same period a year ago. For the full year, sales were $12.5 billion, the industry’s highest-ever returns, according to widely watched figures released Thursday by NPD Group, a market research firm.

During December, Sony in particular turned in surprisingly strong sales — but not for its new PlayStation 3.

In a development that industry analysts said speaks to the strength of the video-game market and the lure of low prices, the nation’s best-selling console during the holiday season was Sony’s PlayStation 2, a six-year-old system.

Americans bought 1.4 million PlayStation 2s during the period. That was more than the Xbox 360, which sold 1.1 million units; the Nintendo Wii, which sold 604,000; and the PlayStation 3, which sold 491,000.

The sales figures for the PlayStation 3, and in particular the Wii, fell below the expectations of industry analysts.

“The biggest surprise is the Wii,” said Mike Hickey, a research analyst with Janco Partners. He said analysts had projected Nintendo would sell around 1.2 million, twice what they wound up selling. Mr. Hickey and other analysts had estimated Sony would sell 500,000 to 600,000 PlayStation 3s and Microsoft would sell 1.1 million to 1.3 million 360s.

But for Sony and Nintendo, the trouble was not demand but supply, Mr. Janco said. “It probably means that Nintendo missed its goal” of shipping four million Wiis worldwide by the end of the year, he said.

This might just be my own take on it, but look at the thing: it is a shiny, white plastic console with glowy blue lights. Gee - iPod much?

I wouldn't have run with this silly idea until I was in the store I bouht my Wii from. Behind us was this guy who asked us "so what's this Wii thing you guys are getting? Is it just that?" *points to controller*. We explain that no, thats the controller, see, thats the console *points to box*. Clueless dude goes "oh wow ok. I'm gonna buy one" and heads to the counter, WTF. He wanted to buy one purely because he'd heard about it and it looked cool and everyone else was.

Again - iPod style hype.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Wii and I hate apple, but I think it is a curious parallel. Feel free to kick my argument over.

erm, wasn't this the Dreamcast too? and that fell on its arse.

500K DS/DSLite were sold in december, and 200K Wii.

Except Michelle Wii.

nintendo's secret weapon: they're concerned about profitability. they don't lose huge $ per unit sold like microsoft and sony.

i think they're doing better now than they have in years.

the wii is ACTUALLY doing something different for a home console, whereas the last two consoles were "hey we're so different, here's the exact same thing our competitors are doing except with wierd expensive proprietary storage media and terrible 3rd party publisher support"

I'd post something more, but that last post is alot like my older ones, but more concise and to the point.

The Wii is a little weird, cuz while I think we all get totally entraced by technology that has OMG LESS BUTTONS in any kind of friendly/intuitive way, I think pressing buttons is a lot of the fun of playing video games, so I'm not sure it's necessarily some step toward a whole different future of gaming control. (Motion stuff is obviously cool, but it's like playing a piano or something -- part of the fun will always be pressing the keys.)

1. golden tee
2. light gun games
3. DD fucking R
4. oh fuck it, everything else anybody ever plays at dave & buster's or jillians, or any arcade or bar that has arcade machines

button mashing is crap!

Also, Tom, the games you mention there either (a) require controllers specific to the game, whereas I'm talking more about basic console controls, plus (b) don't all deviate from the pushing-stuff thing I'm talking about -- DDR just involves pushing buttons with your feet instead!

Insofar as comparing it to a piano, well sure. That's all well and good, polyphony and all.
Thing is, the guitar is easier to grasp and play more complex chordings. it puts intervals in a relatively visual perspective. More intuitive, but less polyphony.

Two different animals.
I think there's room for the 360 and the Wii in the market.
But I think the 360 should come with some kind of keyboard/pad and a mouse. -_-

xpost
Oh dear I will try not to get all "I've been misunderstood" over here but for the record I'm not in favor of lots of buttons or button-pushing! Just saying that having something to push is fun, and I don't think it can be all that replaced by motion or eye-tracking or brain-reading or whatever.

The "press down on the sticks" thing in Katamari = the only asstastic part of the game.

Nabisco, have you played the Wii?

When I first saw the Xbox controller I was reminded of those late-80s flight / mech / tank games for PCs, the ones that came with a laminated keyboard overlay explaining which keys did what -- I still don't know how anyone ever managed to use practically a whole keyboard's worth of controls in real-time.

I thought the introduction of shoulder buttons was nice, but only when you only use one per side and they do something intuitive -- it feels less like button-pushing and more like "squeeze the controller." (Ha, I'd love to play some kind of fast-paced shooter where tense squeezing of the shoulder buttons slows down to "bullet time" -- I'd squeeze up anyway!)

I was pretty fucking badass at these games! MechWarrior 2, Red Baron and LHX = my favs + numerous other flight sims!!!!

http://static.flickr.com/95/273642177_186e5ac83c.jpg

I realise this is lame, but I've tried, oh lord how I have tried /Otto. So yeah, I can see why the Wii is an advantage to the non gamer.

That said, it seems to be a nuisance to the gamer. I've watched Nick play Zelda and Red Steel and get the shits because the wiimote wouldnt respond as he wanted it to - whereas buttons ALWAYS WILL.

I think of myself as a frustrated disillusioned gamer.
I've been waiting for an interesting console to appear since the Saturn(which ended up being a disappointment, I KNOW) and there HAVEN'T been any.
Fuck, good games are hard to come by.
Too many fancy chmancy versions of doom/quake/wolfenstein but without any semblance of FUN. 'Let's see, are they any new fighters this year?...fuck, I'm not wading through all these hundreds of SHIT games!'
No wonder it took me 3 years to HEAR ABOUT Guilty Gear.
You know, I didn't know shmups were MADE after 1999. They've been BURIED. Alot have never been ported from their arcade releases. Also, most of the good console ones were limited release Dreamcast games and never made it to the states. -_-

I'm sure the FPS games getting somewhat creative and the Wii's arrival are somewhat coincidental, but there are a couple it would take more than 30 seconds for me to be sick of, I'll admit.

I hope Nintendo realises the potential of the controller for shmups.

It's not really all of the buttons that are the problem, it's being forced to use all of the buttons. If possible, games should be designed so they can played using 3-4 buttons, and if more serious players want flexiblity, just add in an options screen where you can map out actions to the other available buttons.

Or not.

I guess I've just spent an evening playing Marble Madness + SNES Mario Kart + Contra, and spending about 10 seconds, cumulatively, teaching other people the controls, and I started missing the old days.

My roommate has a PS2/SNES/N64, so that allowed me to finally play Katamari.

This sounds crazy btw
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/240631/What_the_heck_is_YoKai_Watch_10_things_you_need_to_know.php

How so?

Hey, more Level-5, I'm down for that.