Official Nintendo Fanboy Smugness & Gloating Thread

[juice]

Agreed, but that's not the point Darkflame was making, he was talking about the PSP and DS and new audiences. The PSP *is* strictly a Playstation gamer device and is pretty much marketed as such. I can't imagine many people bought a PSP who were not already into gaming. The DS, it's conceivable, but maybe over-egged a bit. My wife likes the look of the new pink ones and has played Nintendogs and Trauma Center and she's not really a gamer and I suspect it may well have drawn in a new crowd, but perhaps not in big numbers.

To be honest, I think it was more of a Sega Game Gear vs Gameboy moment.

Sega brought out a handheld console which was more powerful than Nintendo's, but was physically much bigger and had a shorter battery life.

(Nintendo also did the Sega vs Sony thing: the Dreamcast may have been great, but the PS2s backwards compatibility played a part in it's demise. Similarly, I suspect the DS backwards compatibility helped - though it also hindered, as large chunks of the community declared it to be an overpowered GBA)

Ring any bells?


Portable gaming should be just that: portable, and for playing games. Atari and Sega both learned that, to their cost. Sony didn't seem to take the lesson to heart. Instead, they launched an large, expensive, overpowered movie-playing beastie and the few schoolkids who could afford one ended up leaving it on their desk at home, as it's too big and fragile to cart around in a schoolbag...

[juice]

*All* the consoles have faaar to many good games to not own them. Once they get to the £100 or lower mark that is

I'm sure the same will be true of both the PS3 and the Wii. When consoles become cheap enough it becomes justifyable to own all of them. I guess the tipping point varies from person to person, but £100 or thereabouts is well within my budget if there's an awesome game or two for a system. When it came to getting a PS2 this was Katamari and Okami. Let's face it - each platform has games which can only be found on it, whether it's Guitar Hero or Mario Galaxy.

True dat. I've never bothered picking up a console until it's reached the "critical mass" point - there has to be at least half a dozen games which I have a high level of interest in.

[Snakey]

That there is what really happened, the rest was hype as usual. If you look back at the thread, it was mainly Snakey around here who started the talk about unusually low Wii price points. The official line, however, remained the same.

There's the official line for public consumption and there's what Nintendo
was telling developers in private. I get the impression and Snakey may
agree that behind closed doors Nintendo was discussing a much lower price
with publishers and developers. It's not just Snakey who said it was going
to be cheap.

Thank you. Samus should know this stuff by now, anyway

They managed to convince everybody that they were right, and that this thing would sell to people who wouldn't normally buy a console, because it was going to be extremely cheap.

Not to mention the bit that Samus didn't bold:

and when we say affordable, you may want to check our past records of price points, launching price points for any past hardware...

...Yes, lets. Gamecube? 130 pounds. Four years ago. This thing is a "GameCube+". It's the same hardware clocked 1.5x higher. Four years later, that hardware should cost MUCH less than 130 pounds. Telling us to "check past records of launching price points" strongly hints that this thing would cost the same, if not less, than the Gamecube did.

[namor7]

*All* the consoles have faaar to many good games to not own them. Once they get to the £100 or lower mark that is

Right on

[Samus]

Thank you. Samus should know this stuff by now, anyway

Please explain, you mean that I should know that Nintendo briefed you and other developers privately about an unusually cheap price point? Oh yeah, I should've known that? There's something else that makes me think you were just guessing, it has three letters, and when you're under those, you rarely talk about secret stuff in public boards.

They managed to convince everybody that they were right, and that this thing would sell to people who wouldn't normally buy a console, because it was going to be extremely cheap.

Everybody? Extremely cheap? In your head buddy.

The rest of this quote (wherever that came) remains to be seen, like I said, I think they're going to succeed in this.

Not to mention the bit that Samus didn't bold:

and when we say affordable, you may want to check our past records of price points, launching price points for any past hardware...

...Yes, lets. Gamecube? 130 pounds. Four years ago. This thing is a "GameCube+". It's the same hardware clocked 1.5x higher. Four years later, that hardware should cost MUCH less than 130 pounds. Telling us to "check past records of launching price points" strongly hints that this thing would cost the same, if not less, than the Gamecube did.

Even less? Well, yeah, maybe if you cut it up like that, but why do you feel the need to quote so selectively?

Btw. come on man, I had absolutely no reason to leave anything unbolded, the point is what it always was, here's the the full quote again:

Satoru Iwata:

[Laughs] As you know, that is speculation and we did not comment on the price point at all. What we've been repeatedly saying is that it's going to be an affordable price point, and when we say affordable, you may want to check our past records of price points, launching price points for any past hardware... I think you'll agree that we always come up with an affordable price point. So when we announce the Wii price point in the near future, I believe you are going to say, "That's an affordable price point."

This doesn't mean affordable as in compared to a GameCube, and you know it.

What they've been saying publically and what happened is pretty much spot on about the price we have now.

[Roobarb]

*All* the consoles have faaar to many good games to not own them. Once they get to the £100 or lower mark that is

Right on

I already buy nearly a game a month, just on Nintendo (portable and home) consoles , and like Darkflame:

I always complete games, and I make sure too only buy a game when I am sure I will want too complete it

How on earth anyone can find the time to play every good game on every console is beyond me, unless you hardly ever complete any of them

That was actually a pretty good post there, Darkflame. To people like you, and countless others, it doesn't actually matter at all.

What I was talking about, though, is the Nintendo plan to get people who wouldn't normally buy a console to buy the Wii. I think for that to work, the thing has to be much cheaper. That's what they were promising - it'd be really cheap. It isn't. A lot of people are no longer interested because of that.

Reading on further past this post, you and KB imply that 'by a lot of people' you mean developers? Is that right, or have i misunderstood? If you do mean developers, what do you see as being the difference between:
a) Pricing at the current Wii price over christmas, selling all available stock, then reducing price to boost demand next year.
b) Pricing at a lower than current Wii price over christmas, selling all available stock, then not reducing price as much, if at all, next year?

As someone who'd have liked a Wii this Christmas, but can't justify buying one at top dollar (or pound in my case), i'm still going to buy one next year. I'm obviously disappointed, but from a developer's point of view haven't Nintendo just priced according to demand? If there is something about raising the launch price that affects the long-term viability of the console, what is it?

I do have to comment on this bit though:

And if Nintendo says they are getting new audience with the DS, and Sony says THEY are getting a new audience with the PSP, I am more inclined to believe Nintendo for some reason

NES total sales: 61.78 mil (Nintendo's best selling home console to date)
PS1 total sales: 101.73 mil

I don't think anybody could really argue that Sony have been the most successful company ever when it comes to selling to "a new audience". Consoles were not mainstream until Sony stepped in.

I presume you'd agree that Sony's 'new audience' largely consisted of males in the 18-34 age group, whilst Nintendo's core audience was boys below that age? All Nintendo are saying is they're targetting older and females gamers, in addition to their core audience, with the Touch Generations games. I don't think there's anything contentious there, and those games have sold very well, so they're obviously having reasonable success with it. With the PSP Sony appear to be continuing to target that 18-34 year old male demographic, but in the portable space (at least based on the evidence of the games being portable versions of PS2 games).

Both of these strategies have broadened the appeal of handhelds and increased sales in that market, so a success all round really. Why does Sony still feel the need to denigrate the DS rather than just celebrate their own success? The new found momentum of the DS Lite, not just in Japan, but also the US and Europe, and comments from publishers like EA criticising the PSP's pricing must have really shit them up.

[Snakey]

Please explain

You should know by now that if I say something, I've probably got very good reasons to believe it. I don't make this stuff up. And you know it.

Everybody? Extremely cheap? In your head buddy.

Yeah, if that's what you want to believe.

The rest of this quote (wherever that came)

..from your previous post?

Even less? Well, yeah, maybe if you cut it up like that, but why do you feel the need to quote so selectively?

Err... I quoted what you quoted.

This doesn't mean affordable as in compared to a GameCube, and you know it.

Maybe it doesn't if you've been brainwashed. But back in the real world, that's exactly what it says. Right there. In English. Read it again. "and when we say affordable, you may want to check our past records of price points, launching price points for any past hardware..." - yeah, that doesn't mean affordable compared to previous stuff at all, does it? Oh, wait. That's exactly what it actually says.

what do you see as being the difference between:
a) Pricing at the current Wii price over christmas, selling all available stock, then reducing price to boost demand next year.
b) Pricing at a lower than current Wii price over christmas, selling all available stock, then not reducing price as much, if at all, next year?

Big difference. They may well be planning on doing a) (hell, they did it with the N64. Twice. That didn't really piss off their most loyal fan base even slightly, did it? )

You think fleecing your customers like that is a good idea? I don't.

I don't think there's anything contentious there

Oh, no, neither do I. Just pointing out to Darkflame that Sony are infact very good at selling to people who wouldn't normally buy.

[namor7]

Please, guys, not again...this stuff gets boring.

No offense, Samus, but Snakey's right, and he almost always is. You take his comments way out of context, dude.

Find something to agree upon, eh?

[Yak]

I just made my Wii deposit in Gayme.

[HGFB]

They're doing preorders? I thought they hadn't started yet?

[Snakey]

Nah, he just nipped in for a piss.

[Yak]

They started today - they rang me yesterday to inform me (and I mentioned it in this thread earlier) .

[Deckard]

I just made my Wii deposit in Gayme.

Phone call at lunchtime then

[HGFB]

They started today - they rang me yesterday to inform me (and I mentioned it in this thread earlier) .

According to the Game website they haven't started yet. Bastards.

[Yak]

They started today - they rang me yesterday to inform me (and I mentioned it in this thread earlier) .

According to the Game website they haven't started yet. Bastards.

Possibly because I'd already put my name down as "interested" they gave me the nod slightly early. But nonetheless i did mention it here within minutes of getting the call .