Fortune Magazine: How Nintendo is beating Sony and Microsoft

[Banshee16]

Is Blue Ray an albatross? One guy I know is crowing about the PS3, because of an announcement by Blockbuster about increasing their Blue Ray complement of videos, and reducing the HDDVD. He claims that because of that, it's an indication that Blue Ray is winning the war. If this is true, then the fact that the PS3 is a cheaper way to get a Blue Ray player than actually buying a Blue Ray player (from what I understand), you'd think that the PS3 would be in a good position as a result.

Banshee

 

[Bront]

The Wii is the first gaming consol that has gotten my mother to ASK to play it at family functions. She's not a gamer in any sense of the word, but she loves bowling and tenns. Games like Mario Party and Wario Ware are fun in groups, and condusive to picking up the consol for a few minutes or rotating out at a party.

I love me some graphics, but as long as you can tell what you're doing, do they need to be ultra sharp? My only worry about the Wii is that it may be replaced in 3 years by a newer consol. But, if it's around the same price point, I'll have STILL payed less for both of them than I would have for the PS3.

I'm never worried about the 1st party stuff from Nintendo, it is there on every console. I'm always concerned about the 3rd party stuff. It is looking up for the Wii, but I'll wait and see if it gets more attention than the N64 & GC.

It already is. The college games are coming back to the Wii finaly, which is good (and a good example of games you can sit around and taunt people while playing in the same room). And a lot of games that would have only been X-box and PS2 are now coming out 360, Wii and PS2 (Note, PS2 and NOT PS3 btw). There are also still plenty of good classic Gamecube games out there (Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos if you're into RPGs, Metroid Prime and Prime 2, and many other Nintendo classic franchises) that can be had for under $20 a pop.

 

[Bront]

We're already seeing this trend, with game publishers making Wii games and then porting them to the PS2. The consoles seem graphically similar and things I've read from publishers make it clear that the port isnt that difficult.

WFIW, the Wii is supposedly insanely easy to program for. It's debatable if it's easier than the X-Box, that's probably programer preference, but Nintendo has a huge software package available for game developers that's supposed to be pretty darn cool.

So ports TO the PS2 from the Wii make a lot of sense.

 

[Bront]

Is Blue Ray an albatross? One guy I know is crowing about the PS3, because of an announcement by Blockbuster about increasing their Blue Ray complement of videos, and reducing the HDDVD. He claims that because of that, it's an indication that Blue Ray is winning the war. If this is true, then the fact that the PS3 is a cheaper way to get a Blue Ray player than actually buying a Blue Ray player (from what I understand), you'd think that the PS3 would be in a good position as a result.

Banshee

The HDDVD/Bluray war won't be over for years, because they aren't NEED products.

VHS vs Betamax, you still had a VCR which was new and provided something incredably useful compaired to what was out there before (nothing). It was a mainstream product.

CDs and DVD provided increased clairity, but it's big features were size (for storage), Data access, ease of production, and durability (Tapes wear with age and use poorly), and the industry backed them. They were mainstream products.

But HDDVD/Bluray doesn't bring anything new to the table beyond storage, which isn't usefull unless you've already spent a good $3,000 to $5,000 on a system to use it. It's truely a luxury product, and most mainstreamers could care less beyond any preference to technical specs or companies.

 

[Vigilance]

Is Blue Ray an albatross? One guy I know is crowing about the PS3, because of an announcement by Blockbuster about increasing their Blue Ray complement of videos, and reducing the HDDVD. He claims that because of that, it's an indication that Blue Ray is winning the war. If this is true, then the fact that the PS3 is a cheaper way to get a Blue Ray player than actually buying a Blue Ray player (from what I understand), you'd think that the PS3 would be in a good position as a result.

Banshee

I think the importance of the Playstation consoles as media players has long been overstated and that the addition of media play capabilities is a nice bonus, as long as it doesn't affect a console in other ways.

The Playstation didn't succeed because it was a CD player, and the PS2 didn't succeed because it was a DVD player.

The CD capability *DID* help the Playstation gain dominance because that increased storage capacity led to games that literally couldn't have been made without it. The Final Fantasy series, for example, jumped to the PS because the CD gave them the ability to make VII the huge game that it was.

Now clearly Sony thinks being a media player is an advantage, because of the 1st party development effort they put into UMDs for the PSP, which was largely a fiasco.

With regards to the PS3, the addition of Blueray is mostly what has jacked the price up. So for now, yes I think it's an albatross, because there aren't enough exclusive games for the system, which is affected by the price.

If developers begin to see a need for all that space on a Blue Disc though, and begin to develop games specifically for the PS3 as a result, then the addition of Blue Ray becomes a huge win.

But barring that, yes I think it was a mistake.

 

[Arnwyn]

If developers begin to see a need for all that space on a Blue Disc though, and begin to develop games specifically for the PS3 as a result, then the addition of Blue Ray becomes a huge win.

But barring that, yes I think it was a mistake.

And even more of a reason for Sony to kick themselves in the ass, hard, when it comes to not getting the exclusive (limited time or otherwise) for GTA IV. Already Rockstar is complaining about the 360's poor storage space, and noting the PS3's superior blu-ray (reported at IGN among others).

Konami has already said that MGS4 will fill up a blu-ray disc (again, reported at IGN).

Sony has to be nuts to not heavily incent developers to use the blu-ray's space, which is a competitive advantage for them - though it is increasing, but very very slowly (see the PS3's version of Stranglehold, which includes the entire Hard Boiled movie on it).

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25736714

That right there points at what might be hurting the PS3 a great deal, too. It would be interesting if people just not knowing the full capabilities of the PS3 could account for its lack of sales at the price, rather than putting the blame soley on Sony.

 

[John Crichton]

It already is. The college games are coming back to the Wii finaly, which is good (and a good example of games you can sit around and taunt people while playing in the same room). And a lot of games that would have only been X-box and PS2 are now coming out 360, Wii and PS2 (Note, PS2 and NOT PS3 btw). There are also still plenty of good classic Gamecube games out there (Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos if you're into RPGs, Metroid Prime and Prime 2, and many other Nintendo classic franchises) that can be had for under $20 a pop.

I didn't mean attention from people, I meant attention from 3rd party developers actually releasing lots of good exclusive games for different genres.

 

[Mallus]

Konami has already said that MGS4 will fill up a blu-ray disc

I wonder how many developers can afford to make games that do that? Does all that space to fill have the unintended effect of 'raising the bar' too high for smaller developers?

see the PS3's version of Stranglehold, which includes the entire Hard Boiled movie on it

My first reaction to this was "Neat!". My second, a few seconds later, was "How does this add any real value to the product?". Sure, it drives home the point that Blu-Ray has a lot of storage capacity, but unless the customer really wants both the film and the software, they're left paying for content they don't want. Bundling items like that is usually reserved for marketing shovelware.

As for Nintendo's success; a hearty congrats. Me, I'm waiting for a die-shrunk 360 that won't melt itself, for no other reason than the upcoming games (Mass Effect and Bioshock, I'm looking at you).

 

[Vocenoctum]

And even more of a reason for Sony to kick themselves in the ass, hard, when it comes to not getting the exclusive (limited time or otherwise) for GTA IV. Already Rockstar is complaining about the 360's poor storage space, and noting the PS3's superior blu-ray (reported at IGN among others).

Konami has already said that MGS4 will fill up a blu-ray disc (again, reported at IGN).

I can see where a sandbox game (like GTA) might push boundaries, especially if they broaden the tiles to use, but I think there's also the matter of whether they COULD shrink the games to fit on a DVD or not, rather than whether they can fill a BluRay.


Also, I saw some new discs coming (Warner maybe? TDVD?) that will run on both HDDVD and Bluray, and that'll probably become more common. (resulting in a win for whoever's player is cheaper, probably)