Tomorrow Could Mark Nintendo-geddon
The company is thought to be struggling with the falloff in Wii sales, the 3DS's inability to establish itself against a legion of mobile phones, and Japan's strong yen, which makes its own products more expensive to export. Nintendo incurred a 40 billion yen loss in the past six months (mostly against the Euro), and is projecting a full year operating profit of just 35 billion yen—a 27 year low for the Japanese manufacturer.
Opinions on whether or not the Wii U can turn things around are divided and hinge on whether the game's new controllers are hailed as a new innovation in a manner similar to the original Wii, or if they're dismissed as gimicky. Much of the argument has also focused on the question of just how much the Wii U will improve the Wii's graphics. The system will use a GPU based on AMD's RV770. That chip was significantly more powerful than anything included in the XBox 360 or PS3, but much will depend on how powerful Nintendo's custom implementation is.
|
Via: Reuters | News Archive
|
|
Well with the chip coming from ATI's Radeon HD 4000 series, it's going to be a significant improvement but Nintendo has an uphill battle when it comes to the other stuff. The controller looks comfortable but I'm not crazy wild about the touch screen on the controller; I mean sure, it has good use for those developers who figure out how to use it but for the other developers, they're just going to see it as a gimmick much as the other developers made the Wii's unique control function into a gimmick. (anybody remembers those cheap minigame compilations.) How it'll succeed is based on the games that are released for it during the launch and the road ahead. Example, Red Steel (a launch game) was a terrible game but it's sequel (a along the road game) was much, much better. If the launch games can show promise for the Wii U then people will buy it and if the games along the road can improve on the functionality then the Wii U is certain to be a best seller. And with the improved graphics and larger storage capacity, there is basically no reason for the game developers to skimp on content this time around, so it's likely to be a success right? We'll see... We'll see... |
|
**and Japan's strong yen, which makes its own products more expensive to export** "So why don't they do like we do and export manufacturing to Asia *China* and cut operational cost drastically. I guess its not that simple when a company like Nintendo is a pride and joy of Japan." |
1. iQue, the little known venture that Nintendo has in china, manufactures consoles for the Chinese market already. 2. The loss of many jobs in Japan, note that Japan still has the edge when it comes to technology and manufacturing said technology. If Nintendo closed down their factories and moved all of their operations to Japan, how many jobs do you think the Japanese loose. 3. Don't forget about possible incentives that the Japanese government gives to Nintendo to remain (also Sony possibly.) 4. Less obvious reason, but did you know how many Chinese workers are tired just by working there, that'd be bad for any company if the news leaked out. So there are tons of reasons why they can't do it. Tons... |
Wheatley:|
All companies go through ups and downs and Nintendo is certainly not immune. Their system is aging and for the portable system there are many people who don't want or need one. I really don't doubt the Wii U being a hit. Nintendo is much like Apple in their marketing ability. |
stuff on Hot Hardware
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
