Somehow it seems that Nintendo has understood some basic truth about
computing: It's not processing power that sells. Consider this:

  Xbox 360: Triple-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM.
  Units sold: 30 million.

  PS3: A 3.2 GHz Cell microprocessor, which consists of one PowerPC-based
core and six SPE cores, 256 MB of RAM.
  Units sold: 22 million.

  Nintendo Wii: A single-core CPU at 729 MHz, 88 MB of RAM.
  Units sold: 50 million.


  PlayStation Portable: 333 MHz CPU, 32 MB of RAM (plus 2 MB of GPU RAM).
  Units sold: 50 million.

  Nintendo DS: A 67 MHz main CPU and a 33 MHz coprocessor, 4 MB of RAM.
  Units sold: 100 million.


  On a different note, North-American release of:

NES: 1985 (1986 in Canada)
SNES: 1991
N64: 1996
GameCube: 2001
Wii: 2006

  Do we see a pattern here?-)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Somehow it seems that Nintendo has understood some basic truth about
> computing: It's not processing power that sells.

Depends who you're selling to.

A basic thruth might be that it's what you can do with the device that 
sells - and for "typical" uses, more processing power usually means you 
can do more stuff. But not always...

> Consider this:
> 
>   Xbox 360: Triple-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 30 million.
> 
>   PS3: A 3.2 GHz Cell microprocessor, which consists of one PowerPC-based
> core and six SPE cores, 256 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 22 million.
> 
>   Nintendo Wii: A single-core CPU at 729 MHz, 88 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 50 million.
> 
> 
>   PlayStation Portable: 333 MHz CPU, 32 MB of RAM (plus 2 MB of GPU RAM).
>   Units sold: 50 million.
> 
>   Nintendo DS: A 67 MHz main CPU and a 33 MHz coprocessor, 4 MB of RAM.
>   Units sold: 100 million.

I would suggest cost might be a factor too. ;-)

A Fiat Punto is a rubbish car, but they sell way more of those than 
(say) the Ferrari Enzo. [The Enzo might also be rubbish, I don't know...]

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I would suggest cost might be a factor too. ;-)

> A Fiat Punto is a rubbish car, but they sell way more of those than 
> (say) the Ferrari Enzo. [The Enzo might also be rubbish, I don't know...]

  Except that the PSP and the DS cost about the same. I haven't followed
the pricing of the other consoles, though.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> I would suggest cost might be a factor too. ;-)
> 
>> A Fiat Punto is a rubbish car, but they sell way more of those than 
>> (say) the Ferrari Enzo. [The Enzo might also be rubbish, I don't know...]
> 
>   Except that the PSP and the DS cost about the same. I haven't followed
> the pricing of the other consoles, though.

Hmm, interesting.

Of course, being consoles, game availability is probably a big deal 
too... [I haven't followed this either.] A console with no games is a 
very expensive paper weight.

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>  Except that the PSP and the DS cost about the same.

I would imagine the 2nd screen in the DS cancels out with the higher spec 
CPU and memory in the PSP, which is why they are about the same price.

> I haven't followed
> the pricing of the other consoles, though.

Well when I got my consoles, the Wii was 250 euro and the PS3 was 400 euro. 
Now it seems the Wii is 235 and the PS3 is 370 euro.

I think one of the reasons the Wii has done so well is because it was aimed 
at people who wouldn't normally buy a console.  I don't think the Wii has 
taken much business away from the PS3 or XBOX, they just exploited a new 
market, a market where the people don't care about CPU specs at all, and 
Nintendo knew this.

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Warp wrote:
>   Except that the PSP and the DS cost about the same. I haven't followed
> the pricing of the other consoles, though.

Are you talking retail price, or construction cost? A lot of these game 
consoles are very locked down because you don't pay the full price of the 
console up front. Same with phones, in the USA at least. A $500 phone is $50 
if you sign up for a 2-year contract.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> they just exploited a new 
> market, a market where the people don't care about CPU specs at all, and 
> Nintendo knew this.

  The graphical quality difference of games in the Nintendo consoles and
the others is quite large, but this might also be something which that
market doesn't care too much about. They want to play fun games, not games
which look awesome but which are often quite hard.

  For example, Wii graphics look like this:

http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/711/711723/the-legend-of-zelda-twilight-princess-wii-version-20060607043210052_640w.jpg

while xbox 360 graphics look like this:

http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2006/331/936112_20061128_screen001.jpg

  DS graphics look like this:

http://nintendo-ds.allack.co.uk/Images/Buy_Mario_Kart_DS_6.jpg

while PSP graphics look like this:

http://freepspdemos.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/ridge-racer-21.jpg
http://www.shacknews.com/images/generated/478e9944ec7e6_featured_without_text_silenthill.jpg

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Features don't sell.  Benefits do.

Henry Ford made so much money, not because he sold cars that could go X 
miles an hour, or Y miles on one gallon, but because he toured the 
country talking about how great being able to drive was.  He basically 
sold the idea of a mobile society, and contrasted sitting at home 
without a neighbor for 10 miles, with being able to visit family and 
friends anytime you want.

The PS3 is getting killed by the 360 in sales (and probably won't catch 
up before the next generation XBox comes along) partly because Sony 
focused on technical points, ie features, whereas MS actually focused on 
the entire user experience (ironic, isn't it?).  That doesn't just 
include one or two launch titles, but having games available in many 
genres, with the 360 also acting as a great media extender (I used it as 
one before I started using an LCD TV as my main computer monitor).

-- 
Chambers

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Chambers wrote:
> partly because Sony 
> focused on technical points, ie features, whereas MS actually focused on 
> the entire user experience (ironic, isn't it?). 

What's ironic about it? Sony has always focussed on features and MS has 
always focussed on the user experience. That's why technical people don't 
like MS products.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New wrote:
> Chambers wrote:
>> partly because Sony focused on technical points, ie features, whereas 
>> MS actually focused on the entire user experience (ironic, isn't it?). 
> 
> What's ironic about it? Sony has always focussed on features and MS has 
> always focussed on the user experience. That's why technical people 
> don't like MS products.

Not ironic that they focused on it, but ironic that they got it so right.

Of course, that's just some of my latent MS bashing sneaking to the 
surface again.  I've been pretty good about treating them objectively 
lately, but every now and then I still aim a barb in their direction :)

-- 
Chambers

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