Matthew94 said:
But we're not talking about per/GB. We're talking about getting it into a console. 32GB of flash memory is still going to be cheaper than a 160GB HDD which is pretty much the lowest size drive that I could find on scan and ebuyer. Now you save £X per unit and scale it into the millions. That's a healthy amount of profit that you have just made.
I would aslo call a 25% boost in read speeds more than "slightly faster", that's a healthy increase and it's nearly 300% faster than the PS3.
This is also a pretty relevant point. Nintendo aren't using the loss leader strategy, they intend to make a profit and not incur millions (or even billions) of loss like the other guys did.
Also HDDs are fast for pure read/write but for seek times they are still woefully slow. At least with using the flash memory the WiiU OS may be quite a bit nippier than the creaky XMB.
Finally, of course it's not going to be a 360 or PS3 killer. Like I said, Nintendo can't afford to throw billions at the console and take shit loads of loss just to "win". It's better to do what they are doing which is make profit.
No,
YOU are not talking about cost-per-gigabyte in contradiction of the issue you raised of saving money. Physical Size is not the problem. Who in any SERIOUS consideration of what console to get is going to be swung by volume of the box being a few cubic centimetres larger?!???
160GB for storage is better money spent than 32GB, HDD or SSD or SD Card type flash memory. It's pointless having 32GB at the most and 8GB at the least for internal storage, scan time cannot help the fact that you can't install any practical number of current-gen games on that small amount of storage. That's the storage for a smart-phone, NOT for a home console.
25% is only slightly faster when we have gotten used to the SATA speeds we get with HDD drive installs (ooooh, I said "HDD drive", If such petty things annoy you... deal with it).
Without HDD, this supposed "next gen" console is inferior to current gen right out of the gate. And it sure as hell has next-gen pricing.
I don't think anyone outside nintendo REALLY knows for sure if Nintendo is using a loss-leader strategy or making a profit on the WiiU hardware. You don't know, I don't know, these are company secrets that we can't even guess at till we get detailed hardware breakdowns, analysis of wholesale pricing, comparison of patent costs per component use and so on for a rough ball-ark figure. But for precedent: Nintendo did say they were making a profit on 3DS, everyone said it was overpriced then a huge price cut... does suggest they are selling 3DS at a loss and Nintendo is willing to do that to ensure sales.
"it's not going to be a 360 or PS3 killer"
That's not the least of what I'm worried about, this isn't JUST going to be uncompetitive with the PS3/360 in business terms but also in terms of performance, it's NOT going to strive to drive forward technology, it's going to wallow in selling to the least informed and most exploitable part of the market. And if Nintendo does well at this, then everyone will think they have to copy them.
You know what I think Nintendo should do? Get OUT of the home console market and stay out. Release their Nintendo catalogues and franchises on other consoles, PC even. Portable handheld market, who knows, but I don't like Nintendo acting like there is any reason to get their hardware other than 3-5 first party exclusives with no significant number of system-selling third party on their hardware. Those days are long gone.
