Nintendo has been in business for a lot longer than almost any company you can name (1889!) and have seen off some enormous rivals several times (Sega, Atari, etc.).
Nintendo make profit on almost everything they release.
Nintendo make big releases every now and again, stringing them on with life support in the form of games that turn out to become famous in their own right.
When Nintendo do plop down a new console it's invariably innovative and top-of-its-game (not necessarily the best hardware, but definitely better in gaming terms).
Nintendo is an inventor. They toil away in their little sheds for years in complete secrecy until one day they walk out, plop something into a business person's hands and blow everyone away. Then while the market are still reeling from that, they just wander quietly back into their shed and aren't seen for another few years when they rinse and repeat.
Precisely BECAUSE they aren't saying "Oh, no, our competitors have something new, we have to copy it in our own way and get back into the game" is why they are able to do what they do. They don't really care about Kinect, or anything else - they have money enough to last a decade, and that gives them a decade to make something even more spectacular without having to worry about the day-to-day running of the businesses. Wiis are still being sold but they have enough to go back into their shed and devote the next few years to R&D and playtesting which the other rivals *cannot*. They will have their own ideas, which might work (Wii) or might flop (VirtualBoy) but will be away from the conventional elements of the time that are competing in the market. And when they deliver their next invention, people will give them millions and, because of using their brains and not just throwing expensive hardware at a problem, they will invariably make profit on every unit sold.
It's also true that they decide what they want in the next, say, Mario game. They decide what they want to be able to do. Then they build a console around that, not the other way around.
You can try to make Nintendo look foolish and show how "you know better" if you want, but invariably you will end up with egg on your face. Nintendo know their market better than anyone - they almost single-handedly invented it. Leave them be. The "Wii 2" (which it will almost certainly NEVER be named) will be to the Wii what the Wii was to the Gamecube, or the Gamecube to the N64, or the N64 to the SNES, or the SNES to the NES, or the equivalent trail in the handheld markets. It will take years to arrive - you'll have just about forgotten about your Wii and Nintendo will be absent from the market for a year or so - and then it'll blow your socks off. After a few months people will complain that it doesn't do X or Y or that it's "outdated" or "underpowered" while Nintendo will have another decade's research money under their belt and be working on the next one.
Nintendo know what they are doing. Sod Wii 2. I want whatever the next stage is - which will be more advanced gameplay-wise than anything on the market in the next few years.
Original comment here: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1875118&cid=34280608
Nintendo make profit on almost everything they release.
Nintendo make big releases every now and again, stringing them on with life support in the form of games that turn out to become famous in their own right.
When Nintendo do plop down a new console it's invariably innovative and top-of-its-game (not necessarily the best hardware, but definitely better in gaming terms).
Nintendo is an inventor. They toil away in their little sheds for years in complete secrecy until one day they walk out, plop something into a business person's hands and blow everyone away. Then while the market are still reeling from that, they just wander quietly back into their shed and aren't seen for another few years when they rinse and repeat.
Precisely BECAUSE they aren't saying "Oh, no, our competitors have something new, we have to copy it in our own way and get back into the game" is why they are able to do what they do. They don't really care about Kinect, or anything else - they have money enough to last a decade, and that gives them a decade to make something even more spectacular without having to worry about the day-to-day running of the businesses. Wiis are still being sold but they have enough to go back into their shed and devote the next few years to R&D and playtesting which the other rivals *cannot*. They will have their own ideas, which might work (Wii) or might flop (VirtualBoy) but will be away from the conventional elements of the time that are competing in the market. And when they deliver their next invention, people will give them millions and, because of using their brains and not just throwing expensive hardware at a problem, they will invariably make profit on every unit sold.
It's also true that they decide what they want in the next, say, Mario game. They decide what they want to be able to do. Then they build a console around that, not the other way around.
You can try to make Nintendo look foolish and show how "you know better" if you want, but invariably you will end up with egg on your face. Nintendo know their market better than anyone - they almost single-handedly invented it. Leave them be. The "Wii 2" (which it will almost certainly NEVER be named) will be to the Wii what the Wii was to the Gamecube, or the Gamecube to the N64, or the N64 to the SNES, or the SNES to the NES, or the equivalent trail in the handheld markets. It will take years to arrive - you'll have just about forgotten about your Wii and Nintendo will be absent from the market for a year or so - and then it'll blow your socks off. After a few months people will complain that it doesn't do X or Y or that it's "outdated" or "underpowered" while Nintendo will have another decade's research money under their belt and be working on the next one.
Nintendo know what they are doing. Sod Wii 2. I want whatever the next stage is - which will be more advanced gameplay-wise than anything on the market in the next few years.
Original comment here: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1875118&cid=34280608
