The nintendo Wii

[Nacho]

No, but seaching posts made months ago to keep a discussion does...

You are underage, and undersmart... If that word exists.

[Helm]

haha undersmart

SSH: the groupies.

[skyfire2]

No, but seaching posts made months ago to keep a discussion does...

You are underage, and undersmart... If that word exists.

I have no idea where you're getting this from. Now please act like a adult and stop straying off topic.

[LimpingFish]

Dear Toilet Duck,

I am very happy with the quailty of your product, and wish you all the best in the future.

LimpingFish.

[EagerMind]

I thought people might be interested in these latest numbers from Gamasutra:

Nintendo profits up 72% off soaring sales of the DS. The most popular game? New Super Mario Bros.

Meanwhile, Sony profits down 94% due to the laptop battery recall and start-up costs for PS3. Additionally, PSP sales seem to be on the decline.

And Microsoft? Overall profits up, but the XBox360 division, which has had record sales, took a small loss - but less than previous years. Not too surprising though, as companies generally make a loss on the consoles and reap profits from software sales.

Not that I really follow the console wars, but it sure seems like Nintendo, which looked like it was down for the count, is making a resurgence. And Sony? Boy, how their star has fallen ....

[MrColossal]

I get a Wii discount at work and I get it before launch...

The games industry is magical!

[skyfire2]

I'm getting a Wii for free from some rich kid, I'll probably sell it on ebay though.

[Las Naranjas]

The plan has always been to loss lead on the console and reap profit on the games, but I'm not sure if that actually came to pass for either the PS1, PS2 or XBox. Sony has spent a long time trying to create a format which they have near monopoly in with initial loss leading, but they didn't reap a profit with betamax, or with minidisc, their original DVD encoding and it's not happening with the UMD. I wonder why they keep doing it.

Amusingly too, they bought Columbia as a trophy purchase, and now justify it as loss leading to gain the content so they can profit from other formats like Blurray and UMD which will....make a loss.

I'm not a Sony hater or anything, I just am intrigued by disfunctional organisations.

[Kweepa]

but the XBox360 division, which has had record sales, took a small loss - but less than previous years. Not too surprising though, as companies generally make a loss on the consoles and reap profits from software sales.

$95m. I guess that's a small loss by Microsoft standards. Versus $173m last time. So at that rate, perhaps they'll make a small profit for a year, in two years time, before the next round of consoles.
And record sales? Not quite. They have a "record attach rate of software and accessories". The attach rate is the number of units sold per console out there. But perhaps that includes cheap LiveArcade games.

Not that I really follow the console wars, but it sure seems like Nintendo, which looked like it was down for the count, is making a resurgence.

Who said Nintendo was down for the count? They've been consistently very profitable. They're not at war with Sony and Microsoft, as is clear from the Wii design.

I get a Wii discount at work and I get it before launch...

Huh, I didn't hear anything about that. Guaranteed before launch?

[MrColossal]

That's what the email said..

However it could be before lunch on launch day... Who knows!

[Kweepa]

Well, that's cool.
I work for Nintendo and we didn't get our Gamecubes until several days after the launch. Hopefully it'll be better this time.

[deadsuperhero]

Bah, I'm getting a PS3.
Next thing you know, Microsoft will start making cars and refridgerators.
And I'm never going to buy a system that sounds like "Wheeeee!"
Besides which, I've loved the Playstation and Playstation 2 for quite some time...

[MrColossal]

but you own a PC which is an acronym for POOPIE CACA!! HAHAHA THE NAME WII INSULTS ME PERSONALLY!!

[EagerMind]

The plan has always been to loss lead on the console and reap profit on the games, but I'm not sure if that actually came to pass for either the PS1, PS2 or XBox.

I think with Microsoft's cozy reserves (how many billions again?), the Xbox was never intended to make a profit, just establish themselves in the market. I think the 360 (and beyond) is where they hope for the payoff.

I'm not a Sony hater or anything, I just am intrigued by disfunctional organisations.

Actually, it seemed like they were pretty much on top of the world until the whole DRM rootkit debacle, and things have just spiralled out of control since then. I've personally decided to take pass on Sony in the future as a result of that whole incident (which, coincidentally, happened just after I purchased my Sony digital camera).

Who said Nintendo was down for the count? They've been consistently very profitable.

Well, like I said, I haven't really been following the whole console market (strictly a PC guy myself), but it seemed like Sony pretty much had the market sewn up until Xbox entered the picture and kind of shook things up a bit. It seems amazing to me that now they're going to be last to the market (and not just by a little bit) with their next-gen system, just killing their market share. That and some of the controversy behind the system, it will be interesting to see how successful it is.

Bah, I'm getting a PS3.

Just hope that Blu-ray wins the standards battle!

[m0ds]

Not Wii related, but it's nice to know the PS3 has even helped the homeless earn some cash... err..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6142576.stm

[Snake]

Let me get my first smart-ass comment of the day, out of the way:

SkyFire seems to be the next gen Squalman.

Nowadays everyone seems concerned with graphics... graphics, graphics, graphics.

Yup, that's what it always seemed like to me. Especially with the younger generation, "Ah, man! Those graphics suck!" - from what I've experienced with most kids is that they judge right away by what the game looks like. This shouldn't matter. They should at least give it a try. I always say that the simplest games are the most addictive fun.
The biggest thing I want to say about consol graphics abroad, I'm sick of the companies constantly trying to make the graphics "better". Isn't it good enough? To me, all the games look the same. How many more fuckin pixels do you really need? I mean, come on, it's getting goddamned rediculous. Yes, graphics help with atmosphere and make the game pretty, but graphics don't make the game. We've all had this conversation before about Adventure Games.

Subtopic
Honestly, I never have and never will see the reason to have 800x600 resolution in AGS, unless someone is making a free-roaming 3D game - which goes against what AGS was originaly meant for. And when they do, some jack-ass will suggest a higher resolution - before you know it... ah blargh, I need to stop.
My point of my subtopic is, from what I've seen in the past in the GiP forum, some creators are using these higher resolutions for simple graphics that work perfectly well in low-res - in turn waisting space (on screen) and gaining unessesary/unwanted file size. Anyone see my point here?
End Subtopic

What's this "casual gamer" label people are applying to the Wii. How the hell does THAT work?

From what I can understand after watching the video,Ã,  there were a lot of games like ping-pong, tennis, baseball, stuff like that. I'm guessing that's the casual gamer. Someone who sits down with their family, or whoever, and plays something they all can enjoy - like a family sitting down at the dinning room table to play Scrabble. At the same time this brings back the nostalgic 2player (or more) option - instead of just 2 kids playing a shoot 'em up together from sun-rise till dinner time. PONG, BABY! w00t!! That got me going with the wii, was watching groups of people of all ages, sitting down and playing with one another (sounds sexual...). Seems like almost all the games I've seen for years now have been for one player only. If they're for more than one player, then they're either fighting games or first-person shooters - this is from what I'VE noticed, so before someone jumps on my ass, just let it be known that I realize those are not the only games for 2p or more.

Sure the graphics are cool, but so what? We'll get the same sequels, the same licenced rubbish, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil...The same games wearing new pants.

Perfectly said. The graphics can keep getting better all they want (until they look like reality) but unless there are innovations with the gameplay and story, games will just continue to be pretty much the same thing over and over.

I'm a Nintendo fan from way back. I'd love to see a rerelease of the NES. A lot of classics were made for that system (Mario, Metal Gear, Contra, Zelda). Instead of making NES classics for the GameBoy systems, rerelease the console. I guess one problem I can see is the whole graphics thing getting in the way - what younger kid is gonna wanna play those crappy looking games, and why buy the system when you can download emulators and ROMs for free?
Cool idea to daydream about though. I loved downloading NES roms and being taken back inÃ,  time - but it wasn't the same until I learned that you could burn these roms to a cd and play them on your DC. That was the best. I'd love to find and NES controller that plugs into the DC... any help there? I also heard you can make one too.


--Snake

[Kweepa]

I'd love to see a rerelease of the NES. A lot of classics were made for that system (Mario, Metal Gear, Contra, Zelda). Instead of making NES classics for the GameBoy systems, rerelease the console.

It sounds like you don't know about the virtual console on the Wii:
- it has NES, SNES, N64, Megadrive (!) and TurboGrafx (!!) emulation
- you can buy a "classic" controller (that resembles the NES/SNES controller
- Nintendo sell old games for download

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Console_(Wii)

[Snake]

Wow, that's sweet! I'm going to look more into that....
Thanks, Steve!


--Snake

[R4L]

I was showing my friends my GFW magazine, and Infamous Adventure's King's Quest II was in there, and they kept telling me how bad it is...

For the first time I disagreed with them. I argued about it for hours. That game is great, a hell of a lot better than I've seen, and thats counting what I see on the Wal-Mart shelf. I can't believe gaming is like this... I wish we were still in the 8-bit era where the best thing you could play was a Nintendo.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

t sounds like you don't know about the virtual console on the Wii:
- it has NES, SNES, N64, Megadrive (!) and TurboGrafx (!!) emulation
- you can buy a "classic" controller (that resembles the NES/SNES controller
- Nintendo sell old games for download

Surely this isn't exciting when both the ps2 and xbox already have multiple consoles emulated on them (megadrive, n64, snes, genesis, tg16, master system, gameboy/gbc/advance, MAME), not to mention the GP32X handheld which supports MAME, SCUMMVM and a GBA emu not to mention others?  And lets not forget that pc emulators for these have been around for years and you can buy a NES copy USB gamepad for cheap!