My many thoughts throughout today:
Not all of the rumours surrounding the successor to the Wii can be accurate and I suspect only one or two nuggets are the real deal, things like "developers have had dev kits for months" or "the system will be capable of displaying HD graphics."
Where is there no updated news? Why haven't news sites spoken to sources to clarify what is true and what is false? Why do different sources have differing opinions on the power of the hardware?
I really hope Nintendo clarifies what the hell is going on soon and doesn't leave the unveiling to E3.. When I say that, I mean that if this thing does have a display somewhere on the controller, that Nintendo will mention that at their Financial Briefing when they announce the console officially, not just say "we'll be showing our new console at E3." I don't want a full reveal, because I love the surprise of E3, but they need to sort out the fact from fiction a little bit.
Looking at the DS/Wii strategy, and comparing it to the 3DS, it is possible to see a shift. I think Nintendo going after the core market is absolutely true. To do that, they'll need a noticeable differential in power, a strong software line-up comprising of third party support in the form of both multiplats and exclusive content and also obviously strong first party content. They'll also need a much better online system than what they have now and Reggie expressed how he admired Microsoft in the way they had developed and established XBOX LIVE which certainly bodes well for an improvement, hopefully a big one.
The other thing is that people ARE willing to buy consoles at over $300. Nintendo have looked at the launch of the Wii, they priced the 3DS at $250 to ensure demand was met and also because they know that they'll be in the market with this device for 6 years or more. Wii sold hugely for two years at $250 but it's sales slowed very quickly after that (yes it's still selling above PS2 levels at the same point in each respective lifecycle but it's safer to sell steadily than having huge mountains and valleys). Nintendo launching at $349 would make sense because Nintendo don't want shortages, want to make money at launch, want to ensure they have adequate room to move on price, want to create the impression that this system is worth more than any other game system and finally because of inflation.
I personally expect Nintendo to be targeting a launch price of $349 with a healthy margin on that. So the hardware itself could cost Nintendo around $220, before considering the controller, cables, packaging etc which would bring it up to around $250 and give Nintendo around $65 profit off of every system sold (assuming a 10% retailer margin).
My question in relation to this is what could Nintendo put together for around $220 in terms of tech by late 2012?
The reason I ask is because I expect Microsoft and Sony to be looking at systems with around $400 worth of tech launching a year later which to me feels like what? A tripling of tech? Correct me if I'm wrong but if Moore's law alludes to a doubling of power every two years, then it'd be 1.5 times the power in 2013 but they'd be able to buy two times that because of the extra budget.
If that's right then Nintendo's next system could potentially be a PS2 to Microsoft and Sony's XBOX.
Anyway that's a lot to read through and I don't expect many to do that so if you've gotten to this point, thanks for your time