I'm sure he already knows all this.
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Reggie: Wii U becomes profitable with just 1 game purchase
- Thread starter nickcv
- Start date
I'm sure he already knows all this.
Kind of like the Wii U if it were released 7 years ago.
It didn't matter how far they would have jumped up. MS and Sony would have been able to outdo it easily just based on the extra time they had until release.
The Wii U has reasons to it's price and power, and they're hedging their bets without risking the entire company.
The Wii U is not at the same power level as the 360 or PS3. It's above them.
WrenchNinja
Member
Dude. How about you think about international users who get screwed over because they can't send their shit to whatever Nintendo centre is in their country cause it doesn't exist? How about you think about the people who have their device stolen and Nintendo won't believe anything if they don't have a police report. It's bogus. It's extremely inconvenient compared to the competition and I cannot believe you think it's okay that your games are tied to the hardware just because you have the "privilege" of begging customer service and mailing them your device.
Yeah sure, I've heard the opposite to.Even if it gets stolen?
Oh that's nice. So because you've never had any problem, every one else hasn't either.
Oh right, like they worked it out like the Wii, DSi, and 3DS. And yet again, they start off with your account and games tied to the Wii U. They haven't learned anything.
NeonZ
Member
I wonder if it has to do with the Wii chipset? I imagined that they'd easily beat the past consoles because they wouldn't need to be tied to it at all this time, but that didn't happen. I guess the full Wii mode might have constrained the design in some ways...
Eteric Rice
Member
Not in terms of RAM (bandwith anyway or CPU power, unfortunately.
Schlachtor
Banned
Well, after looking at the hardware specs..... I guess it does! :-/
ScreenSplitter
Member
Amazing that some people manage to put a negative spin on this.
Not problems for competent developers. The hardware is still overall, more capable.
People going to the store and buying the latest CoD or Madden don't really care how fast the memory is. Nobody seemed to care before. They aren't going to start now.
Graphics Horse
Member
I'm not mechanically minded but it's surprising to me that they didn't use the old Wii processor as an OS/ I/O chip and power the games on a modern APU. Instead they introduced an ARM cpu for the OS side.
Edit: I think the PS2 and DS did something like that too.
Really?
ViperVisor
Member
The muscle car era of video games is dead.
You can still assemble a box of great hardware for a not outrageous price. MS and Sony will probably do this. Even though the results aren't as obvious as in the past.
What is almost impossible to do like 20 years ago is what I saw in that Mortal Kombat anniversary retrospective. A little engine that could putting out a big selling game. I wonder what the cost of making NBA Jam vs. only what 2K paid to license Michael Jordan.
A different analogy. The game industry covers more acres than it did before but the price of seeds and irrigation have way outpaced that. Nintendo is a game company who can't justify risking a lot on video games which is strange. The industry got huge with a lot of help from Nintendo so that others came in and the game became more hand grenades than horseshoes. Analogy number 3.
The generational leap Nintendo had to do that matters more than what is in the case was online. Strange thing is not Nintendo having only efficient hardware but how they fell behind with online. Only found out this year about the Satellaview system they had going in the 90s, that amazed me.
You can still assemble a box of great hardware for a not outrageous price. MS and Sony will probably do this. Even though the results aren't as obvious as in the past.
What is almost impossible to do like 20 years ago is what I saw in that Mortal Kombat anniversary retrospective. A little engine that could putting out a big selling game. I wonder what the cost of making NBA Jam vs. only what 2K paid to license Michael Jordan.
A different analogy. The game industry covers more acres than it did before but the price of seeds and irrigation have way outpaced that. Nintendo is a game company who can't justify risking a lot on video games which is strange. The industry got huge with a lot of help from Nintendo so that others came in and the game became more hand grenades than horseshoes. Analogy number 3.
The generational leap Nintendo had to do that matters more than what is in the case was online. Strange thing is not Nintendo having only efficient hardware but how they fell behind with online. Only found out this year about the Satellaview system they had going in the 90s, that amazed me.
It would appear you are easily amazed.
playingwithfire
Member
Uh, I'm only buying the deluxe bundle when it launches in the UK, cant afford any games just yet cos the good ones are mega expensive here. Sorry Reggie.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Um no, its not. You really don't seem to have any idea of what you are going on about.
R&D isn't an expense that is calculated per unit. It goes into the net profit calculation of the entire business venture. There is a succinct difference between that and what reggie is talking about. Like GH said, R&D is written way before the console even launches. It doesn't "go down". Its not part of the COGS. There's no way you can lose R&D money for every console sold.
What Reggie is talking about is the BOM, manufacturing, and shipping costs. Its been the same thing for every loss-leading console. The loss of the per-unit sale is offset by royalties from services and games. e.g would be, the Xbox 360 was turning a per-unit sale profit in about a year after it launched but the whole project wasn't a net-profit(meaning R&D and initial losses and sunk costs) until a few years later. Or the PS3 has been turning a per-unit profit since 2010 but the whole project isn't anywhere close to being profitable.
And yeah, the PS3 BOM approached $900 by itself. Not to mention manufacturing and shipping.
polyh3dron
Banned
This is AWESOME.
Go Nintendo Go!
Go Nintendo Go!
polyh3dron
Banned
Why would Microsoft or Sony even bother to release a new console if it wasn't a significant improvement over the current one? What would be the benefit? I keep reading posts like this and it boggles my mind.
IIRC, the GameCube lost "single digit" money (aka: less than $10 per-console) when it launched all of the $200, $150, and $100 price points. So WiiU losing "single digit" money fits right in with the GameCube.
Of course, Iwata hates price drops (he fought against the GameCube's price drops, and is proud about Wii hardly receiving any), so WiiU won't keep up the same level of aggressive pricing. But for now the money-losing part is similarly aggressive.
Probably because it's seen as "following the leader", and also makes you less money.
Which is why I think they picked the price that they did.
300$ - price parity with the non-poop versions of the 360 and PS3, even though it's more capable, they expect a lot of 360/PS3 ports. Especially since they've started developers off with twice the RAM. They'll say something about "not competing against them", but we all know what's up. Either way, even if the Wii U was literally the same tech as the PS3 or 360, they'd be stupid to price it less than the 360 or PS3.
Now the PS4 and 720 will come out later on, at 400$ or 500$. They ain't hitting 300$ and being a super monster in power. Now Nintendo will be in the position of having an 'automatic' price cut compared to the new hardware. They're the cheapest console without having to move their price. It won't matter if the PS3 or 360 drop price at this point, as Nintendo will start riding the 'more capable' line.
Their hope is basically let MS and Sony duke it out with standoffs on price cuts, they won't be getting near the Wii U's price point any time soon, so they get their price stability they want while still looking like a good option. Even if it's near impossible to downport a 720 title, you're still going to see XBLA720 ports to Wii U with Nintendo's emphasis on digital as smaller devs won't have the money or time to make AAAATOTHEMAX games graphically.
Apart from games which required lots of buttons or had online features. GameCube games were almost always superior to PS2 versions. Try playing the PS2 version of metal arms or sonic heroes. Even stuff like fight night, nba street and burnout were better on the GameCube. IGN used to have a series of head to head articles and poorer GameCube ports were the exception rather than norm.
StreetsAhead
Member
Wii.
polyh3dron
Banned
lol.
Give me one reason why people would buy a PS3 or 360 successor that didn't have any substantial graphic improvement. Name one gimmick they could put in such a console that would make it a worthwhile purchase.
ViperVisor
Member
That is too vague to answer. The environment is always changing. Sony and MS are likely to keep trying to anticipate inertia of the industry. For the last decade it was bring things online and Toy Story graphics.
It is still a big thing but it is like a big ship having to go through a canal with a series of locks.
Nintendo is going about it bit differently.
Gross.
No, but actually, I don't think I've ever bought more than 1-2 launch titles before. Launch titles just usually suck, minus the occasional killer app like Twilight Princess or something.
caligula13
Gold Member
oh no, what have I done?!
I already preordered two games!
I already preordered two games!
The Invisible Man
Neo Member
I'm not sure if this has been asked before but, how can this console be sold at a loss? :/
StreetsAhead
Member
I dunno.
But, if you'd told people in 2004 that Nintendo would nearly quadruple the Gamecube's sales by adding a motion remote to the basic Gamecube set-up with a little more ram and faster clocks, you'd probably have been laughed out of the internet. I'm sure a creative engineer could come up with something.
"Weaker" parts do not necessarily cost that much less to produce.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This is false. We had a thread the other day about the new tech used for streaming.
majortom1981
Member
R&D is expensive. So even if say the console costs $325 to make and they make $25 dollars on each console (made up numbers) they would still have to make back the money they spent on developing the console.
Are you new here?
StreetsAhead
Member
My father bought a PS3 in 2009 for the BluRay player and has never bought a game for it.
Some people do that kind of stuff.
But the ps3 made sense. It was actually cheaper than a BluRay player. What would you buy the WiiU for? Bitching on Miiverse about not having any game to play?
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Are you an investor? If not, they probably don't care about your opinion, sadly.
Starwolf_UK
Member
Why would Reggie say this? Now the shareholders are going to see shipped figures and expect profits? I await the share price up 2% story...
Though that said given how more games are made than hardware and the figures Nintendo reports are shipped, IIRC for 3DS 4 games were shipped for every 1 hardware (in total sum of all games; not like 4 copies of Nintendogs...) that means doesn't this mean it is already profitable as really the game is in the retailers hands rather than the consumer (contrary to GAF belief retailer buys game, Nintendo has the money then, Nintendo don't accept retailer returns as traditionally, they don't need it as their stuff sells well enough).
Though that said given how more games are made than hardware and the figures Nintendo reports are shipped, IIRC for 3DS 4 games were shipped for every 1 hardware (in total sum of all games; not like 4 copies of Nintendogs...) that means doesn't this mean it is already profitable as really the game is in the retailers hands rather than the consumer (contrary to GAF belief retailer buys game, Nintendo has the money then, Nintendo don't accept retailer returns as traditionally, they don't need it as their stuff sells well enough).
Its all about the long term view (Iwata, feel free to feed that line to the shareholders when they want your blood for still being in the red despite giving up Saturdays and Sundays).
olimpia84
Member
Fun games?
All games are fun. If not, they're something other than games.
After that, it's just a matter of taste.
I'm playing Skyrim because it's fun, i'm playing Civilization V because it's fun. I sell shit cookies because it's fun.
You know, when Neo in Matrix responds to the Machine-God's "and if you fail?" with "I won't", it's because it's fun.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This is wrong on multiple levels, even your definition of the word "game."
gundamkyoukai
Member
Had a feeling they were not losing allot .
They should start making profit on hardware sometime during the next year .
They should start making profit on hardware sometime during the next year .
olimpia84
Member
I stopped there.
Wow... just wow. If it is not about graphics, its a straight up gimmick? Dude, really now?
iamshadowlark
Banned
Sigh. Again, R&D is a sunk cost. Has nothing to do with selling at a loss. Google it.
Maybe, they're meant to be fun?
I dunno, i think that the essence of a game is to be fun. And fun can be found in sadness, drama, horror, circus (clown) and even work. Fun is about enjoying.
And, I want to know more about the multiple levels you said.
http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/fun (in french)
Fun for me is "divertissement" (entertainment), games are entertainment.
Game is about playing, it's about entertainment. You know, art isn't a form of elitism, it's just cultural entertainment.
Games are entertainment and a form of art. Like cinema is entertainment, painting is entertainment, and all should be about entertainment.
Oh guys, please, don't want to explain the difference between Chicago's and Frankfurt's schools point-of-view, but clearly, i'm one of the guys that see entertainment as art, and art as entertainment. And for me, games are about playing, playing is about entertainment and should be FUN.
Ok?
And by the way:
Etymology of the word "game" by wiktionary
From Middle English game, gamen, gammen, from Old English gamen (“sport, joy, mirth, pastime, game, amusement, pleasure”
, from Proto-Germanic *gamanan (“amusement, pleasure, game", literally "participation, communion, people together”, from *ga- (collective prefix) + *mann- (“man”, equivalent to ge- +‎ man; or alternatively from *ga- + a root from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think, have in mind”, equivalent to ge- +‎ mind. Cognate with Middle High German gamen (“joy, amusement, fun, pleasure”, Swedish gamman (“mirth, rejoicing, merriment”, Icelandic gaman (“fun”. Related to gammon, gamble.in his defense i gotta say that i expected this thread to simply die after a couple of reply XD
The teardowns indicates that the system's construction is pretty spartan, so it's probably a smaller loss more in line with the Gamecube.