Rumor: Cheap Components Hurting Wii U Development
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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Normally I'd be happy to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt here, and assume they've just rushed their prototypes out before they were ready. Nintendo is really pushing the third party developer bit and it seems quite plausible that they've jump the gun in this regard.
Except . . . well Nintendo is having a really bad year in general. It's hard to excuse a problem like this when they've had a number of blunders lately.
Even if the final product works fine I think they're likely to try rushing developers to complete games for the release period - and that could be a real train wreck. Either they'll have a ton of games announced for the release period that will miss that, or worse the developers will be pressured to release the games as is, they won't work well, and the developers will leave Nintendo behind.
Except . . . well Nintendo is having a really bad year in general. It's hard to excuse a problem like this when they've had a number of blunders lately.
Even if the final product works fine I think they're likely to try rushing developers to complete games for the release period - and that could be a real train wreck. Either they'll have a ton of games announced for the release period that will miss that, or worse the developers will be pressured to release the games as is, they won't work well, and the developers will leave Nintendo behind.
this used to be the way forward, but not so much anymore. Microsoft and Sony are able to offset some of the costs of console development early one due to having such a diversified business structure; their console department could take an initial hit financially in the short term and be covered by various other unrelated departments, and would start being profitable in the long term. This was the policy with pretty muh every console up until the Wii. This is a very risky strategy however, and if a console does not initially sell well the company may struggle to keep it on the market long enough to make proper returns. This was the case with Sega and the Dreamcast, who had no other real income sources on which to sit on when the Dreamcast sales were slow. On the other hand you can be compare this with Sony; the PS3 sales initisally caused the company to hemorrhage money, but was able to see the console into profitability because of its diverse portfolio of products.ASnogarD said:
Nintendo doesnt exactly have a diverse protfolio. They have the 3DS, which isnt doing well, and cant afford to have another Gamecube, which they only really were able to survive through because of strong DS sales. They arent as big as Sony or Microsoft and believe that they have to make profits from launch with their consoles in order to remain a major player.
You pay for quality, if Nintendo wants to keep making cheap equipment for the average consumer to shell out for a christmas present go ahead but developing a cheap console that they expect to be on par with the ps3 or 360 is either going to take a revolution(hur hur) in technology or a big loss like sony and I think Microsoft took.
- Apr 1, 2009
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hopefully they get this working or just suck it up and use better components, I know they are a bit gun shy of high prices since the 3ds crashed and burned a bit because of charging too much but, this is a console, hopefully the era of consoles isnt quite over yet
Well, it's no secret that Nintendo had to cut lots of corners on the original development of the original Wii, wich wasn't very noticable, but blatantly developing cheap controllers sounds like Ninty's getting into lots of trouble for free.
Bugs in consoles.. it can happen but yes it isn't nice if it ends up in production models. Take the Atari Jaguar, yeah I know that wasn't as success. But get this it had a bug in the production models that stopped the CPU from executing code within the main memory. Meaning that to get it to work you had to cut up the code in smaller parts and move it into the CPU's own memory. Yes that is a big problem you could code around this and Atari said "well with all the chips you have to code for the hardware not the CPU" Fact is many games we're coded on the CPU. So this bug really was a bummer.
Or how about the bugs in the PS1
sure more a success and easily programmed around or dealt with. But there we're bugs!
I would say every console probably has a few little issues here and there. But you gotta work around that and make things work. So the question is is the bug in the WiiU deadly or not. Is it something they can't program around. Is it something that simply means a new revision..using fixed hardware. We have to see!
Or how about the bugs in the PS1
sure more a success and easily programmed around or dealt with. But there we're bugs! I would say every console probably has a few little issues here and there. But you gotta work around that and make things work. So the question is is the bug in the WiiU deadly or not. Is it something they can't program around. Is it something that simply means a new revision..using fixed hardware. We have to see!
If Nintendo try to profit on initial console sales they will be losing in the size of the playerbase, they may get some returns on thier initial investment but will suffer from a smaller market overall.
It also depends on how difficult it is to port and develop on the console, but if the playerbase is not a significant proportion the console will lack in 3rd party titles ( much like the Wii is currently suffering, it is highly reliant on the gimmick and that party flavour is getting worn out ).
If Nintendo cut corners to try profit on the console at launch, they are basically gambling on poor components not breaking at launch and for a few months after launch... and if the components dont hold up the console loses a lot of the launch hype inertia and will fail to make the critical mass for the playerbase.
I would say take a loss initially then launch a budget version that takes out a few features, the launch party is where a console lives or dies.
It also depends on how difficult it is to port and develop on the console, but if the playerbase is not a significant proportion the console will lack in 3rd party titles ( much like the Wii is currently suffering, it is highly reliant on the gimmick and that party flavour is getting worn out ).
If Nintendo cut corners to try profit on the console at launch, they are basically gambling on poor components not breaking at launch and for a few months after launch... and if the components dont hold up the console loses a lot of the launch hype inertia and will fail to make the critical mass for the playerbase.
I would say take a loss initially then launch a budget version that takes out a few features, the launch party is where a console lives or dies.
This is just a rumor right now, and if all we're seeing for a "reliable track record" is two cases of stating the obvious, I'm not sure how to feel about this rumor. But for the sake of discussion, let's assume there is some truth to this.
Serious Answer:
So there have been problems with making the controller? Well considering that's one of the biggest points... well... yeah, uh, Nintendo, you better get to that if you don't want to, you know... crash and burn. There is plenty of time left for development, and there have been plenty of issues for consoles during development. This isn't an new thing. Still, Nintendo can't afford to cut corners here. The sooner they fix it, the better.
Joke Answer:
Well, it's not like a catastrophic hardware problem has ever stopped a console from being successful before. *Looks at 360*
Serious Answer:
So there have been problems with making the controller? Well considering that's one of the biggest points... well... yeah, uh, Nintendo, you better get to that if you don't want to, you know... crash and burn. There is plenty of time left for development, and there have been plenty of issues for consoles during development. This isn't an new thing. Still, Nintendo can't afford to cut corners here. The sooner they fix it, the better.
Joke Answer:
Well, it's not like a catastrophic hardware problem has ever stopped a console from being successful before. *Looks at 360*
I don't see that using cheaply made components is a good idea at all. It's what led to busted hinges, it's what gave us the RRoD, hell even my computer suffered because Asus decided to use cheap capacitors on their motherboards to save a few cents per motherboard, and the damned thing exploded.Worgen said:
If they can't build quality hardware with quality parts they can expect a lot of problems to follow their console's launch.
Nintendo 2005 - Lets invest our time and money on releasing products that appeal to all ages, and try to broaden the range of not only people who play games, but broaden the definition of what constitutes a game.
Nintendo 2011 - LOL WE R GUN TAYK GUD IDEA ND SELL TEHM GUD
Im kinda disappointed. The Nintendo 3DS seemed like it had potential. Then I saw the starting lineup. And currently the only buying point is for portable versions of really really good N64 games that most of the people interested in having already own.
The WiiU, honestly, didn't hold my attention. I really liked the Wii, I just felt that no one really bothered to tap into its potential. If Nintendo had spent a bit more time pre-production making the motion controls better, I think we would have seen a lot more gems.
Its looking like the WiiU is going to have that same problem. And the whole idea of having a Tablet for a controller is a bit, well, disheartening. Nintendo haden't even refined their initial product. The WiiU is just adding more onto of an imperfect idea.
Nintendo has flashes of brilliance, but the execution of a crosseyed parapelegic driver. Your hurting everyone else and yourself.
Nintendo 2011 - LOL WE R GUN TAYK GUD IDEA ND SELL TEHM GUD
Im kinda disappointed. The Nintendo 3DS seemed like it had potential. Then I saw the starting lineup. And currently the only buying point is for portable versions of really really good N64 games that most of the people interested in having already own.
The WiiU, honestly, didn't hold my attention. I really liked the Wii, I just felt that no one really bothered to tap into its potential. If Nintendo had spent a bit more time pre-production making the motion controls better, I think we would have seen a lot more gems.
Its looking like the WiiU is going to have that same problem. And the whole idea of having a Tablet for a controller is a bit, well, disheartening. Nintendo haden't even refined their initial product. The WiiU is just adding more onto of an imperfect idea.
Nintendo has flashes of brilliance, but the execution of a crosseyed parapelegic driver. Your hurting everyone else and yourself.
It is much too soon for this type of technology to be cost effective. It is a nice innovation, but cost to performance ratio makes it questionable at best. 5-10 years from now, maybe. Right now? No way. Nintendo has a laundry list of better things it could be doing to get back in the game. You don't need gimmicks to sell a gaming system unless it is aimed at casuals.
Remember the last time Nintendo made a console with a normal controller and no gimmicks?It was called the GameCube and very few people actually bothered to buy the damn thingJBGigas said:
Exactly.It's an unsubstantiated rumour yet some people are so eager to see Nintendo fail that they'll believe anything negative said about themTowowo2 said:
Well remember.. the DS originally sold for about 2x what it cost to make. I believe the production cost was $139, and it sold for $300. Even now it still selling at a profit.Worgen said:
Although I've totally ignored the Wii (First generation ever that I've skipped the Nintendo console, and I've had NES through Cube), and as strange at this console looked.. I had a little hope for it, but this is not encouraging. As someone said above.. just go back to a controller attached to a box that plays amazing Nintendo games. The motion control fad is over, the music game fad got bloated and died (Thanks EA and Activision.. had to release a new game every 3 months huh?), the 3D fad is basically DOA, return to what made them great.