Nintendo bows out of next-gen console stuff

http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6089101.html

I just don’t know.

And thus, the end of Nintendo as a console hardware producer.

Whoa, that came out of left field. Of course there will be many that will back track and try to say they expected this to happen and it’s a “good thing”.

“good thing”

I don’t see how having a new system ready by 2005/2006 to once again directly compete with at least one system launch of another company (probably two this time) would have been a clever idea. Especially since one of them is going to be the PS3.

Hmmm… that’s a surprise but maybe not such a bad thing. Sony’s next console isn’t even definite for 2006 at this point. Maybe Nintendo knows something we don’t about their strategy? If say, PSP doesn’t make a 2004 release worldwide but rather only in Japan, Sony isn’t likely to want to have PSP in 2005 in the US and the PS3 in 2006. That’s a lot of money to lose.

Nintendo have proven many times that they can support a system by themselves if necessary. They can easily sell their games for their system til 2007 if that’s the case. Maybe developers are also saying they’d like to see the pace of console progression get back to where it was before the end of last gen. Playstation went five years before PS2 hit the market here in the US. SNES and Genesis had six or more year lives as well.

They’re probably thinking that there won’t be a huge increase in graphics quality if Microsoft releases in 2005. Even 2006 isn’t going to offer huge changes. This will also put them in a different time table from Microsoft and with similar hardware suppliers, that will mean a different product altogether if it does work out.

With the economy the way it is, people may be glad to buy $49.99 Gamecubes in 2005 while MS launches Xbox.

Pretty much guarantees a Zelda update and a second Mario game on this gen. I’m ok with that.

–Dave

It makes sense. Always remember your bread and butter (Gameboy).

I won’t necessarily backtrack, but this isn’t particularly surprising. All the discussions around here have been about one thing: who’ll be out first, MS or Sony? Nintendo wasn’t even a part of the conversation. With Xbox2 kits rolling out soon, and Sony making what looks to be a killer handheld, Nintendo’s impressive holiday sales figures can’t conceal the misguided “connectivity” strategy, the lack of an online vision, and the relatively flat third-party sales. Of course, if they want to make more royalty concessions and continue to pay some publishers to support the Gamecube, then sure, there will be games coming out for NGC for a while. But in the current ramp-up for next-gen engine, tools, procedures, and network handling, the debate we’ve been having around our campfire is whether the future will belong to Sony or Microsoft.

Hopefully Nintendo will bounce back; a healthy console price war makes third party stock prices go up.

This can only mean one thing:

I don’t care what news comes out of there first soon, there’s no way I’m visiting the Gaming Age Forums for AT LEAST three weeks. :wink:

-Kitsune

Well, Nintendo’s said publicly that they don’t think flashy graphics and sound is what makes a game worth playing, and now they’re putting their money where their mouth is.

Sony got the PS2 into homes first and foremost – once that was established, only then did the game developers follow, and only later did it become a success. They got them into homes with two things: Backwards compatibility, and a DVD player. At the time, particularly in Japan, DVD players were more expensive than PS2’s. Here a PS2 cost the same as a DVD player, and had the added benefit of playing both the entire PS1 library of games plus the newfangled PS2 games. Even though there were precious few of the latter, it was the best bargain for most. I remember reading reports during the first year or so of PS2 development that because of all of the people who bought them as cheap DVD players, their game sales were initially abysmal, and not good enough to cover the costs of PS2 development. At the beginning, the Sony PS2 was having trouble! People forget that.

Market conditions have changed. Now, everyone has a DVD player just about. Sony and Microsoft BOTH stand to lose the upcoming “console war” if they don’t correctly guess what’s going to get them into people’s homes.

But most importantly, no console manufacturer ever went out of business by failing to release a console. Case in point: Infinium’s still around, aren’t they? ;)

Nintendo has officially denied this report, and now so can I. :-)

same newspaper, 3 years ago :o

Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Tuesday that Sega will stop production of the Dreamcast game console by the end of March to focus on developing and marketing game software for other companies’ devices.

A Sega representative in San Francisco denied the report, saying plans for the device are “huge and long term.”

Is this your new calling card?

You need to go copy paste it on some more forums :)

DaveC- Well, you definitely win the most eeriely accurate prediction of responses. There’s nothing more pathetic than a fanboy being reduced to “maybe there’s something they know we don’t”.

Somehow I suspect you guys wouldn’t be talking about a Microsoft announcement along the same lines. And the XBox would stand a much better chance of lasting, thanks to it’s online functionality+HD+more power.

Anyway, no way Nintendo tries to carry the Gamecube as a real contender through to 2007, diminishing returns of technology aren’t remotely that good. They’ll have to release titles for other systems(a la Sega), or completely give up on the mainstream. I think it’ll be the latter, and I think it’s pretty cagey of them, they can sell it as a budget/kid’s console pretty easily. That’s certainly the direction they’ve been going since the late 90s. Let Microsoft and Sony fight over the adult market. It’s not buying a $50 GC instead of a $300 PS3/Xbox2, it’s buying a $50 GC for your kids so they don’t hog your system. With the PSP ending a decade of no serious competition for the Game Boy, finding a a new market to dominate is smart. Nintendo, quite simply, has trouble in a competitive market. Their skill(and this is not meant to be insulting, it’s a really useful skill) is exploiting markets other people don’t try to sell to.

That’s all assuming this is true, but it does make sense. We have heard much less about “N5” than PS3/XBox2.

The PSP is not serious competition for the GBA. You aren’t going to give a PSP to an eight year old.

Hmm. If Ninty isn’t doing a home console next gen, why wouldn’t they simply team up with MS and let MS do the hardware? Maybe badge engineer the Japanese version with the Nintendo name, or the MS/Ninty name, or whatever. Hell, it seems like MS would pay them not to play…

Or maybe this has happened, and the announcement just isn’t coming yet.

It soulds like a lot of folks are mis-reading the news here.

Nintendo isn’t saying that they’re not releasing another home console. They’re also not saying that they won’t be releasing a next-generation console. They also did not say that they have stopped working on a new console; they are still working on one.

What they’re saying is that they’re not going to slug it out with MS and Sony in the next two years when those two folks release their next-gen stuff. Instead, they’re going to let those two slug it out, enjoy the carnage, and probably come out with their new one in '07, when MS/Sony are probably in the middle of their next-gen hardware’s lifetimes.

Whether this is Yet Another Death Knell for Nintendo, or Yet Another Brilliant Move by Nintendo, time will tell. So apologists will apologize and haters will hate, but reality doesn’t answer to either side – reality doesn’t even answer to itself.

What? Nintendo didn’t build the Gameboy Advance?

What? Nintendo didn’t build the Gameboy Advance?[/quote]
Oops, terminology screw-up. IMHO, GBA = “Handheld,” while GCN, PS2, XBOX = “Consoles.”

You’re a cagey fellow Mr. Wong. Methinks you know something we all don’t. :)

–Dave

I really don’t think she would have gone on record saying that they were officially still in the console race, unless they really were. So while the Japanese Economics Newspaper (yay japanese class) can say whatever they want, I’m not entirely convinced.

How awesome would it be if all the console companies formed blazing sword together and used their best features… think of a PS2 gaming library with Xbox Live and Nintendo peripherals… shiver me timbers!