Wii 2 Unlikely For 2011, Maybe In 2012 303
An anonymous reader writes "As discussed on Slashdot earlier this year, the lack of a next-generation Wii may be hurting Nintendo. That doesn't seem to concern the company's US chief, Reggie Fils-Aime, who said this week that a Wii 2 might not appear until 2012. He wants to sell a few million more consoles before a successor is launched. So, no Wii 2 for 2010 or 2011 — meanwhile, the PS3 and Xbox consoles get motion control support and other content enhancements. What does that mean for the success of Nintendo's gaming console business? Has the innovator been out-innovated due to a sluggish product roadmap?"
I suspect he may be misleading the public (Score:5, Informative)
Nintendo has been raking in a metric buttload of cash off of the Wii.
Remember the fact that the Wii *hardware* made a profit from day 1, while the PS3 and the 360 sold at a loss for many many years.
What have they been doing with all that cash? R&D of course. Do you actually think Nintendo is just sitting around on their hands? They are not stupid.
In all likelihood they are just laughing their butts off at Sony and Microsoft pushing over themselves playing catch-up, meanwhile sitting on some revolutionary new console that will be surprise announced in the summer to come out next Xmas.
Re:Limited markets... (Score:3, Informative)
Kinnect is a $150 ... not the two hundred as you claim. And you can always pick one up used from ebay if you like. And I'm guessing the majority of Kinnect purchasers already own the XBox. That said, having recently played the Kinnect I will say that I was underwhelmed. I found the lag to be bothersome and the games I played were forgettable. The voice navigation just sucked often requiring us to pick up the controller to actually do what we wanted to do. I will say it was a blast watching the kids play it. They loved it so it may turn out to be a a fun family thing down the line but for now, I'm sticking to Rock Band for my group activities.
This most disturbing thing about the Kinnect is the data mining potential as noted by a MS exec [engadget.com]. Seriously ... if I had one, I would keep it unplugged when I wasn't playing a game.
Re:I don't expect Nintendo to recover.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Limited markets... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I suspect he may be misleading the public (Score:5, Informative)
I can't tell if you are serious or sarcastic, but for the record:
Iwata makes $770K ($2.1M with possible bonuses). Miyamoto earns under $700K ($1.4M with possible bonuses). The other 4 top guys earn around $500K ($1.2M to $1.6M with bonuses). Those incomes are tiny, both when compared to other companies in their industry, and considering the billions in profit the company makes ($2.43 billion last year, $2.99 billion the year before, and those are actual profits, not just revenue).
Re:Revolution (Score:5, Informative)
Arcades. The Wii was a direct outgrowth of similar devices in arcades.
Another example: iPhone was never revolutionary, we always had a lot of multitouch phones with a full browser, easy to install apps, and features that even mere mortals can figure out (which ones??).
Huh? Who said we had multitouch phones? All you have to do is add that to your list to suddenly exclude all other phones, while at the same time implying that none of these other phones have the other characteristics you have on your list. Apple did not invent smartphones.
Re:Limited markets... (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah, that's from a 3rd party seller on amazon. Amazon itself is out of stock, so they don't show their price. The MSRP is actually $149.99, and that's what the major retailers (Amazon, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, etc) have been selling it for (with some of them offering occasional discounts below that price) when they actually have them in stock.
Re:Informal poll. (Score:1, Informative)
Another good way to end up with mod points other than participating in the discussion(s) in a positive manner would be to meta-moderate. I did some meta-modding about 3x a week for about a month and now I have more mod points than I can give out in the time they give me. 15 at a time? 5 wasn't quite enough to go through more than one or two interesting threads, but 15 is ridiculous.