Treblaine said:
(1) Well I have been gaming on PC for a long time and I have spent HOURS fiddling with game settings and I KNOW what I am talking about when I say that HD matters. And HD of course means high resolution, 720p and above, Anti-aliasing. This add SOOOOOOOO much. It matters for precision, for
I have been a PC Gamer since 1993. I am well aware what value adding additional pixels has. Simply put, it makes an image
sharper. Resolution is literally the only thing that HD implies. It does not imply that there is more
data available to render, or that the image is given any post processing to reduce aliasing nor does it imply that a more taxing shander or particle effects or lighting engine is in place.
Treblaine said:
You can also see it in the HD Re-releases of the likes of God of War that actually do not use any new game assets, just the same polygons but high resolution and full Anti-aliasing makes a world of difference. This is the main reason I game on PC, so I can play the likes of Bioshock in 1080p with anti-aliasing and it is WORTH IT! Especially if you have a screen to appreciate it like a computer monitor or quality HDTV.
The assets you list were still
designed for a particular resolution. Simply put, that means there will be less detail in them. This is less a technical distinction than one of style and direction. Yes, the option to render at a higher resolution certainly adds something to the game especially if the game was
designed to be used at high resolution (like Bioshock).
Take the recently released HD remake of Beyond Good and Evil. It is certainly
sharper in all respects but it still
looks like a game made last generation. They aren't going an making new higher polygon models. They aren't recreating the 2D assets knowing they'll have more pixels to work with. They simply took the same assets they used for the previous game and render them with more pixels. Does it look better? Yep. Does it look
significantly better? Nope.
Treblaine said:
(2) Hmm, you just sound denialist. You say it has no uses, I give good examples of basic principals, you even admit it has uses yet arbitrarily conclude "it isn't significant".
I did not say it has no uses. I said they have not
demonstrated any significant use.
Treblaine said:
Are you kidding? This has so many hardcore applications, consider this: you can take this system on holiday and play it without a TV.
The same can be said of my DS, my PSP, my Laptop, my iPhone, etc.
Treblaine said:
Just take out of suitcase, plug in power, then play CoD in your bed, or in front of TV anywhere around the house. Continuing your home console experience. The applications of combining third and first person perspective.
This is
not a significant use. I already HAVE a mechanism for displaying my game. I even have portable mechanisms for displaying my games. You have yet to give me any scenario that alters the way I play a game that is significant enough to justify purchasing the device on the technology present. This reason alone is why I call it a gimmick.
Treblaine said:
(3) They similarities aren't pertinent because Nintendo is far stronger now than Sega was back in 2000. I will say this again: Dreamcast did not fail, SEGA FAILED! The company ran out of money and couldn't pay their debts, the Dreamcast was doing well (sold 11 million units to spite being out only 16 months in the main markets) but the company was finished, it's lucky that its software division survived at all.
Also the Dreamcast wasn't a "bit more powerful" it was a true next-generation console. Do these look like graphics PS1 or N64 generation are capable of?
It was still
less powerful than the soon-to-be-released PS2. It was also limited in that it used CD media versus DVD.
Yes, there are reasons the Dreamcast failed. Among them was that they launched their console at the wrong time with the wrong features. Others include Sega alienating developers, enormous piracy problems with the platform (Dreamcast media had no copy protection at all), insufficient liquid assets at Sega etc. The dreamcast was by no means a
bad console, it was doomed by terrible strategy.
Treblaine said:
The only problem Dreamcast had was many PS1 games were straight ported to Dreamcast without any attempt to improve graphical fidelity nor even both implementing anti-aliasing.
Wii U is indicated to have about the same advantage in graphical power as the PS3 has over Xbox 360. This is not a generation above 7th gen (360, PS3).
And here you dance around my point on the subject. The console is more powerful than the 360 or PS3. That is only a significant detail if, on that console, developers spend the resources to make use of it. That motivation is provided by having a significant install base. My entire point here is that, as it stands right now, I do not see any
evidence that suggests Nintendo will rapidly gain ground on the two other HD consoles.
That it can accept straight ports is all fine and good. It really is. But if I can already play on the 360 or PS3, and all of my friends will play on the 360 and PS3, and I'm already invested in both of
those platforms, why would I get a WiiU to play them? The short answer is I
wouldn't. And I tend to think I'm not alone in that. And those tens of millions of casual gamers that made the Wii a success? Do you
really think they'll jump right on board with a new better console when they were rarely convinced to buy a new game of any sort?
Treblaine said:
(4) It doesn't matter if 3DS doesn't sell well, the DSi is their breadwinner. Nintendo is not on the brink of collapse, this is NOT going to be another dreamcast, stop implying it is.
3DS sells at a profit, get that!
I never implied that Nintendo is on the brink of collapse; indeed, I have asserted more than once that they are not
currently in any danger. Sure, it's great that the 3DS sells at a profit. But when their sales tumbled after the first week to a mere few ten thousand units per week suddenly things look less sunny.
Treblaine said:
It's not like PS3 were it is only profitable with 40 million sales, every sale is money in the bank.
I think you're mistaken on this front. There is a cost associated with the design and manufacture of the 3DS that will take some number of sales to overcome. I
seriously doubt the current sales of the 3DS have managed to make the whole venture turn a profit. Sure, each one taken as a stand alone product might make money but nintendo has
millions invested in the platform.
Treblaine said:
Also, you may not remember (possibly too young) but back in 2004 the DS had a terrible launch year, but once the library inevitably grew it picked up incredible steam.
If you want to do a direct comparison, the DS sold incredibly well (and managed to garner 3 million pre-orders) with 500k units being sold in the first week in the US. Strong sales continued for the life of the handheld. By contrast, Nitendo is currently posting
record low income and they openly admit that the sales of the 3DS are lower than they hoped.
Treblaine said:
Remember the big Nintendo handheld titles like Pokemon Black/White were on old DS right after a DS price cut. They are cannibalising their own sales with a $99 DS Lite.
That points to a poor strategy, wouldn't you say? Especially in the face of stiff competition from phones and sony's next contender?
Treblaine said:
All this talk of Wii u = dreamcast sound like a self fulfilling prophecy. You keep saying it as if eventually people will believe it that will cause it to be true as their doubt prevents them supporting it!
That's the best thing about this debate. I don't need to you believe me nor do you need to convince me that you are correct. All we have to do is wait around for 36 months or so and we'll see if the 3DS manages to be a success or if the WiiU manages to make significant inroads with core players.
Treblaine said:
How about you stop undermining confidence in the new Nintendo platform with pure conjecture!
Only if you stop supporting them with the same
Treblaine said:
(5) Yes games begin development up to 18 months before launch but that is designing assets on PC, like all the art, character models, AI, maps, etc. But all that is not assembled on a dev-kit till relatively late in the process. Everything doesn't have to happen at once, you may not buy on launch week nor even the first year of launch, but that doesn't mean it is a useless POS.
Direction, features, technology: all of these are done during that period. Very early in the cycle they need to know what their target is meaning, were they to choose the Nintendo as their flagship platform to maximize how their game looks they'd have to start
now.
Treblaine said:
Relatively poor launch games is not some special trait of Nintendo NO CONSOLE HAS A GOOD LAUNCH LINEUP!
I never once said this was a Nintendo thing. But they have many times in recent memory chosen to launch without
any of those titles people like me get excited about.
Treblaine said:
Not PS1, Not N64, nor PS3 nor even Xbox 360. Xbox fanboys may say PGR3 is worth giving a crap about, but so too Nintendo-fanboys will say Red Steel was killer. Stop obsessing over how the launch gets overhyped. It is a platform to grow not instantly beat everything.
I think you miss my point entirely. You get hung up on the minor details of what I'm saying and not the big picture. Nintendo is launching a console with only somewhat more power than the current HD consoles six years late. They are going to try to gain market share from companies that already
own the HD market. What drives hardware sales is
software. Currently the offering shown is games I can already play elsewhere and a few tech demos for classic Nintendo franchises.
The problems I see with this are simple. First, Nintendo is going to have trouble gaining market share in this arena under the best circumstances. The only way to do this quickly is to sell the console at similar or, better yet, lower prices than the competitors and even that will only help if people think there is a chance of being rewarded for their efforts.
The increase in power makes it possible to port directly and that will certainly increase the number of titles available on the system fairly quickly. But because of the current install base of
zero, the only developer who's likely to back a risky project that uses the WiiU as it's primary platform is Nintendo.
Without some significant difference in the quality of a game on the WiiU and my 360, when given the option between the two platforms I will almost certainly opt for the 360. Thus, without significant exclusives (or a price of the WiiU low enough to be considered an impulse buy) the WiiU will have difficulty convincing core gamers to hop on board in significant numbers. And I see no reason to believe the tens of millions of people who bought a Wii and never bought games afterwards would make the jump in significant numbers either.
These factors are what make me believe the system is not going to be the hot seller Nintendo is hoping for. What's more, Nintendo is launching
their console at a time when it is almost certain the new Playstation and Xbox are being designed. The possibility that this current cycle might
end in the very near future is one of the many problems with the timing Nintendo chose.
To give you a brief summary, the problem with the WiiU is that they launched a system to compete directly with the 360 and PS3 who are well entrenched in their respective markets. They are doing this with little to offer save ports. They have a history of having, far and away, the
worst online infrastructure of the three. They are doing this at a time when people at Sony and Microsoft are
going to be thinking very hard about the new cycle.
Does this mean that Nintendo is doomed? Nope. Does this mean the WiiU is doomed? Again, the answer is no. What it
does mean is that the odds against the WiiU being a significant success are quite long. To bring this back to my initial post, it is precisely these long odds that have caused the stock price to drop.
