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> Actually, Sony's electronics sales have been down because the cheaper
> manufacturers are beginning to match their new features very quickly. The
> mass market (ie., Joe Six Pack) has a real tendency to want to pay less
for
> the same thing.
I work at the god forsaken place that is best buy. (its god forsaken i am
sick of seing american big box stores invade my country, but no matter). I
can say with absolute certainty that the average customer who has not done
their own research will want the sony, even if i show him the JVC right next
to is that I think is better.Or the Toshiba that has much better colour
reproduction for $100 less. He still wants to sony. He doesn't want a
"second class product".
> That's why the PS2 is now half of what it was launched at. In fact, all
of
> the systems are now half of what they launched at. Hmmm.
Notice that it took the PS2 a LOT longer to come down in price, because it
had the advnatage of mindshare. Never underestimate mindshare.
> > What you say is true. Though you ignore that Xbox had the "cool" factor
> > going for it right from the begining, and the Cube, sadly, did not.
Before
> > Xbox even launched I knew a LOT of people who were completely psyched.
>
> That's true, but I don't think it was based on price. I think it was
based
> on marketing, on the fact that it was more powerful and MS was going to
make
> sure that you knew it. Not nearly as more powerful as people were lead to
> believe, but it did have the advantage, and MS made the most of it.
The stupid thing is, Xbox is more powerful is about the same way that a Game
Gear is more powerful than a Gameboy. If you take away the colour screen,
you have nearly identical hardware, right down to the processor.
>
> Remember, the Gamecube was designed to compete with the Dreamcast and PS2,
> not the XBox. If that had been the case, the Gamecube would have been the
> clear technology leader. The "cool" machine. So why keep the price low?
> Because Sony could easily undercut them if they didn't design the system
to
> be inexpensive to manufacture. They figured this way it would be more
> power, same price, and they could match any likely PS2 price cut without
> heavily subsidizing the system. They also planned on courting third
parties
> with lower developer costs than the PS2, which would allow them to charge
> higher license fees and still offer the same or even better profitability.
Despite all my arguments agains't intorducing at a lower price that the
competition, I actually think $199 is the sweet spot for a console. I never
buy consoles at launch because $299 is simply too much for something that
will soon be outdated, and that's can't be upgraded.
>
> However, the XBox put the Gamecube into a "tweener" position, not only in
> hardware power, but in the critical ease of development area Nintendo was
> counting on. To make things worse, MS gave the XBox a huge advertising
> budget and was obviously not afraid to lose billions on their first
console
> try. Nintendo's failure to adapt to this new situation was a serious
> problem. They stuck to the same license fee structure, which was a
> disaster, and was probably the biggest reason for losing third party
support
> early on. Why develop for the Gamecube when you could develop for the
> PS2/XBox instead at a much lower price? In the marketing arena, Microsoft
> was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to push third party games, a
> good way to make friends with third party developers. Nintendo never
> countered that, and they also failed to counter the image that the console
> skewed young. The end result was a flow of third party support away from
> the Gamecube and to the XBox, which obviously became a self fulfilling
> prophecy after a while.
>
Exactly.
> > Not bloody likely. This third pilar thing is just a way to fend of some
of
> > the inevitable whining from people who recently nought GBAs or SPs.
>
> Yes and no. I think that they really do want to keep the GBA viable.
Keep
> in mind, they also have no certainty over whether the DS concept will fly
or
> not.
Perhaps not before E3, but now? The damn thing stole the show.
> If Nintendo announced the DS as the next Gameboy, and it flopped,
> whoa - major problem. It's just too different from the traditional
Gameboys
> to take that chance. It also isn't compatible with GB or GB Color games,
> and that would be an issue if this was being marketed as the next Gameboy.
I don't think so. I mean, I had personally though it was time to abandon
backwards compatabilty and built a true next gen handheld using a media
other than carts. I did not expect Nintendo to again and maintain
compatabilty by using to slots. Bonus, I guess. I still have reservations
about the media they chose. 128mb is a bug imporvement over the GBA's
average of 16mb, but it's going to be quite restrictive compare to the PSP.
I think audio and texture wuality will be the biggest losers, or perhaps
game lenght with be sacrificed in favour of better audio and textures.
On another note, we have not had it confirmed that GB/GBC games don't work,
and I am inclined to think that they DO WORK. The reason being that the GBA
did not emulate the GBC hardware, it was actually there, as I am sure you
are aware. This meant that many lazy ass developers, much to my furstration,
relied on the GBC sound hardware for music and or sound effects in GBA
games. Even top teir games like Golden Sun were obviously using GBC hardware
for some of the sound effects. What happens to the sound of these games when
played on a DS?
That's why I think that GBC games will work just as they did on GBA. The
guts of the GBA are incredibly cheap these days, there's no reason not to
inlcude them. But hey, who knows.
>
> On that subject, after watching the hands on tour video at Gamespot, I'm
> pretty sure it will do very well. Some of the stuff they showed with the
> touch screen & stylus was pretty amazing. It provides a totally new level
> of control over a game. The WarioWare demo is obviously a great example
of
> some of the neat stuff you can do with it. They also have a tech demo
where
> you can carve things, and the guy carved a rotating watermelon with the
> stylus. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But my jaw dropped when I saw
it
> done. He deformed a 3D object, in real time, with fine motor control,
> effortlessly.
I have seen the video. Very impressive. A completle pointless excersize, to
be sure. but neat anyway. It brings to mind many possiblities. Perhaps we
could see a resurgence of PC style point and click adventure games on this
handheld? I rememeber one puzzle in Leisure Suit Larry three had you carving
a peice of wood into erotic art. One the DS you could be required to
actually carve it in order to pass, instead of just typing "carve wood".
There could be hints left around as to whay needed to be carved, and
then....
Or what if you had to write on the wall in a certain place?
Perhaps using the microphone it would be necessary to leave a message on
someones answering machine at a certain time.
Endless potential.
> They also mentioned on another video that the DS will be able to send
games
> across the wireless connections, so that for instance, one cartridge could
> provide everything for a four player multiplayer game. If it can do that
> with the full version of a multiplayer game, and not just cut down levels,
> that's going to be huge.
Yes, deifnitly one of the most exciting things yet. Plus Nintendo has stated
that online play will be possible, and that it would be free, since they
don't agree that charging for online play is a good business model.
> > the Gameboy dynasty since Game Gear (which oddly no one seem to
> acknowledge
> > how popular it actually was, game gear lasted fives years againt
gameboy
> > and a hell of a lot of people had one).
>
> Yeah. The strange thing is that one of the problems that did in the Game
> Gear was poor battery life, and here Sony is, releasing a handheld that
will
> only last 2-2.5 hours before needing to be recharged. I find that to be
> bizarre, I really thought it was a typo at first, but apparently that's
what
> they are saying. Granted, it won't actually eat expensive batteries...
but
> 2 hours before I have to start looking for a place to plug it in? They'll
> have to improve that, there's no way I'm going to spend a penny on the
thing
> unless the battery lasts at least 5-6 hours, and preferably closer to 10.
It doesn't stand a chnace with battery life that poor. I honeslty never
thought Sony would make a mistake like that...
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