Nintendo confirms launching new console in 2012, playable at E3
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
All of which suggests one thing.
Nintendo licensed Direct3D.
This will probably run OpenCL like the 3DS does.
I would hope so when competing against consoles that were released 6 years earlier. I'm curious to see how they will implement a "large touch-screen" on the controller, since it calls to mind radically different designs than Wii controllers.
The Wii pointer worked because it had the right shape to be held in a hand and pointed. If this new leaked picture is the actual controller, how are you supposed to hold it in one hand and point? Or are you going to use two hands now?
In Crystal Chronicles each player had their own menu, a secret competitive challenge (in an otherwise cooperative game), and a unique view of the area (one gets a map, one gets a dot for every monster, one gets a dot for every chest, one gets information on monster attributes).
Four Swords also used the GBA screen, but it was basically just so you could go in a dungeon and wander off without splitting the screen on the TV or making you stay together.
There were probably more games that used GBAs for private screens or other multiplayer gameplay, but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.
http://www.cultofmac.com/how-apple-almost-got-microsofts-kin...
Nintendo is still strongly focussed on making an inclusive family environment, and I can't imagine how each person having a separate screen would help that. Those controllers are almost as big as the Wii itself. You're not going to give that controller to your grandmother as you all sit on the sofa at Christmas. Also, the controller invades on the 3DS's territory a little too much.
It's good news if they do make the most developer-friendly console though, considering their current consoles have the most developer-unfriendly dev process. Hopefully that will extend to their 3rd party developer relations too.
That said, this seems like a pretty smart move on Nintendo's part. They get to release hardware thats not the most expensive/fastest available, but still beats the current market, and gets to live at the top of the performance chart for at least a few years.
The PS3 was announced about 18 months before availabiltiy, so we actually should be pretty close to an announcement.
In short, I think the 10 year horizon might actually be too short.
But forget all that, you want to make money off of a Farmville clone.
Sounds like a gimmick to this guy. I have a feeling Microsoft and Sony are giddy as hell because Nintendo is about to drop the ball.
(Just lets not mention the virtual boy...)
There's no public information about how much of that was N64 profit and how much was Gameboy, but at least based on a private Nikkei investigation they said, "This success is attributed to the performance of the N64 and Game Boy, as well as its compatible software."
I couldn't find anything concrete about the Gamecube with a quick search [edit: Gamecube was also clearly profitable; see below link], but I just saw vague information that the Gamecube was profitable but less profitable than any other system up to that point.
Either way, it's common knowledge that Nintnedo sells all of its systems at a profit, so even only selling 20 million Gamecubes, it's unlikely it resulted in a loss, especially after you figure in the ridiculously high first-party software sales.
[1] http://ign64.ign.com/articles/062/062086p1.html
Edit: Here's some concrete information on Gamecube profits.
"GameCube sales leap doubles Nintendo Q2 profits."
From: [2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/30/nintendo_q2_results/
That's just in the American market, too. In equally important Japanese market, you have to throw Gree and DeNA in there too.
iOS, Android, and Facebook don't compete with Wii on that count at all. MS and Sony have made efforts at this, but still, the Wii is the most genuinely social gaming system.
They've paid a token effort to online gaming and digital distribution, but every platform they've released since the NES has focused on playing with others in the same room.
For instance, what if the four controllers can essentially function as light tablet computers networked centrally to the console?
I've gotten used to dismissing people who dismiss Nintendo's next things as mere gimmicks. "It's a toy" is often the hardest criticism: well so what, we're talking about video games not deadly weapons.
Also sounds like now you will be able to buy DS and Gameboy games from the marketplace as well.
Though the leak says no 3D now, looks like a classic Nintendo move where in 2 years an upgraded 3D screen controller will be out at ~80 bucks each.
Have you watched kids (or maybe even yourself) play a game? Writhing around in your seat, leaning with your virtual character's movements, leaning forward at those particularly tense moments... it all makes for a tough sell when you need to view your 3D screen at a particular angle in order to see anything but a blurry mess.
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/34263/Nintendo_Confirms_Wii_S...