Earlier today, Nintendo previewed its new Wii U at the E3 conference. The Wii U is a new console with a tablet-like device that serves as a controller and second display device. Like a number of other Nintendo events, today's Wii U announcement was deliberately positioned as a technology preview rather than a formal product announcement. The Wii U won't ship until 2012, and it may be significantly different by the time it ships. However, Nintendo is encouraging developers to start writing games and applications for the Wii U, so that when it ships, there will be a significant third-party library to support it.
I'm not a fan of early announcements, but when it comes to new platforms, technology previews make a lot of sense. They introduce developers, the press and potential customers to new product concepts, and they build interest and support for the formal product release. They buy time for their vendors--Nintendo said "2012", which gives them almost 18 months. They're clearly prototypes, and they give vendors the time they need to gather feedback and make changes before they go to market.
Compare this approach with what Google did with Google TV and its Android 3.0 tablets. Last year's Google TV announcement was clearly premature; the resulting products from Sony and Logitech were too expensive and too hard to use for most consumers. There was no reason for Google and its partners to rush Google TV out for last year's holiday season. Had they positioned the announcement at last year's I/O Conference as a technology preview, with a product release scheduled for some time in 2011, they would have had the opportunity to get developers involved, get much more usability feedback and resolve objections from television and cable networks before they went to market.
Much the same thing happened earlier this year with Android 3.0 and Motorola's Xoom. Google and Motorola were determined to beat Apple's iPad 2 to market, so they rushed out both Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and the Xoom. Third-party developers had almost no time to develop tablet-aware Android apps before the Xoom shipped, and the first version of the Xoom was much too expensive: $799 (U.S.) without a data plan, or $599 with a two-year contract. In addition, Motorola promoted the Xoom's LTE broadband compatibility, but the initial model shipped with 3G CDMA, and Motorola still hasn't released the LTE capability.
Honeycomb was rough around the edges, with almost no tablet-specific apps, and the Xoom was too expensive. It was a replay of the Google TV launch. Even though there are many more Android tablets coming this year, it looks like there won't be a big market for them until 2012 at the earliest.
If Google had given a technology preview of Google TV last year for release in 2011, and if they had previewed Honeycomb with "reference platform" tablets early this year for release in time for the holiday season, it would have given developers time to build a base of compatible apps, and hardware vendors time to build devices that took full advantage of the operating system while meeting customers' price expectations. In hindsight, it wouldn't have hurt Google and Motorola at all to ship after the iPad 2; in fact, they would have shipped better products at lower prices.
The lesson is that if you're working on platforms, not just products and services that are compatible with existing platforms, technology previews are a much better option than prematurely releasing final products.
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nintendo. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Thursday, June 17, 2010
It may require a new generation of game consoles to do true 3D
The first reviews of Sony's 3D games for the PlayStation 3 are coming in from E3. Keep in mind that the games being shown are alpha or even pre-alpha, so the experiences that reviewers are having could improve by the time the games are released. Nevertheless, reviewers are complaining that the resolution of 3D games is significantly lower than that of the same games in 2D mode. In addition, the requirement to use 3D glasses both decreases contrast and makes everything look darker; this is especially a problem with adventure and first-person shooter games that already fairly dark to begin with. The combination of these two problems makes some games much less enjoyable in 3D.
The reason that the resolution of 3D games is significantly lower than the same games in 2D is that the game console has to render images twice as fast in 3D than in 2D. Even the vaunted Cell processor in the PlayStation 3 doesn't have the horsepower to double its rendering speed for complex images, so game designers have to render lower-resolution images for 3D and hope that the 3D effect compensates.
It may take a new generation of game consoles to provide 3D games that look as good as today's 2D games. Nintendo is hinting that the successor to the Wii will be built for 3D from the ground up, and Sony's likely to find that it will take a PlayStation 4 to truly do 3D justice. Dual GPUs are likely to be needed in order to render graphics equal to the best of today's 2D games for 3D.
The reason that the resolution of 3D games is significantly lower than the same games in 2D is that the game console has to render images twice as fast in 3D than in 2D. Even the vaunted Cell processor in the PlayStation 3 doesn't have the horsepower to double its rendering speed for complex images, so game designers have to render lower-resolution images for 3D and hope that the 3D effect compensates.
It may take a new generation of game consoles to provide 3D games that look as good as today's 2D games. Nintendo is hinting that the successor to the Wii will be built for 3D from the ground up, and Sony's likely to find that it will take a PlayStation 4 to truly do 3D justice. Dual GPUs are likely to be needed in order to render graphics equal to the best of today's 2D games for 3D.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
E3: Thoughts on Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony
Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have now all had their press events at E3. Let me preface this by saying that I'm at best a casual gamer, and I track the game console market only where it intersects with online video or other areas of interest. Therefore, I'm going to focus mainly on technology, not titles.
In my opinion, perhaps the most important product shown by the three companies was Nintendo's 3DS, both because it's a new platform and it displays 3D without requiring separate glasses. Nintendo dominates the handheld game console market, and the 3DS will help to maintain Nintendo's lead. What was disappointing, however, was that Nintendo announced neither a ship date nor a price for the 3DS.
Microsoft's Kinect (the new name for Project Natal) will serve as a strong mid-life "kicker" for the Xbox 360 platform. Kinect has a price ($150 in the U.S.), a release date (November 4th) and a collection of 14 games that will take advantage of the Kinect technology. Kinect and similar products could lead to controller-free remote controls and user interfaces for a variety of devices in the living room.
Sony announced pricing and availability for PlayStation Move, Sony's take on the Wiimote. The Move will be available in the U.S. on September 19th for $49.99, or as part of a bundle with one Move, a PlayStation Eye (one Eye is needed per PlayStation 3 in order to use Move controllers) and a copy of the PlayStation Move Sports Champions game, for $99.99.
This generation of game consoles is beginning to look a bit old, and both Microsoft and Sony are trying to inject life into their platforms with new controllers. Nintendo apparently feels that Microsoft and Sony are only now beginning to catch up with the Wii, and is focusing its attention on the 3DS and more Wii games. In any event, there weren't any overwhelming announcements from any of the three console makers.
In my opinion, perhaps the most important product shown by the three companies was Nintendo's 3DS, both because it's a new platform and it displays 3D without requiring separate glasses. Nintendo dominates the handheld game console market, and the 3DS will help to maintain Nintendo's lead. What was disappointing, however, was that Nintendo announced neither a ship date nor a price for the 3DS.
Microsoft's Kinect (the new name for Project Natal) will serve as a strong mid-life "kicker" for the Xbox 360 platform. Kinect has a price ($150 in the U.S.), a release date (November 4th) and a collection of 14 games that will take advantage of the Kinect technology. Kinect and similar products could lead to controller-free remote controls and user interfaces for a variety of devices in the living room.
Sony announced pricing and availability for PlayStation Move, Sony's take on the Wiimote. The Move will be available in the U.S. on September 19th for $49.99, or as part of a bundle with one Move, a PlayStation Eye (one Eye is needed per PlayStation 3 in order to use Move controllers) and a copy of the PlayStation Move Sports Champions game, for $99.99.
This generation of game consoles is beginning to look a bit old, and both Microsoft and Sony are trying to inject life into their platforms with new controllers. Nintendo apparently feels that Microsoft and Sony are only now beginning to catch up with the Wii, and is focusing its attention on the 3DS and more Wii games. In any event, there weren't any overwhelming announcements from any of the three console makers.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
More on Playstation 3...
Paul Sweeting of Video Business Magazine has some interesting insights into Sony's recent announcement of layoffs at Sony Computer Entertainment, the division responsible for the Playstation 3. He chalks the layoffs up to a fundamental misreading of the market by Sony, and suggests that Sony has two choices:
For option 2, Sweeting suggests that Sony may have to replace the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 with a DVD drive in order to get the cost down enough for Sony to compete with Microsoft and Nintendo.
After reading some of the cost breakdowns for the PS3, I think that deleting the Blu-Ray drive alone isn't going to do the trick--they're going to have to radically remove features in order to compete on price. From one of my posts from last year, the manufacturing cost of the PS3 was estimated to be $900. Even assuming that deleting the Blu-Ray drive and replacing it with a DVD drive saves Sony $300, they still have very little room to move on price.
One of the key sales points for the PS3 when it was priced last year was that at $599, it was still at least $400 cheaper than the least-expensive Blu-Ray player, so it was a "bargain." Well, scratch that advantage--Sony's latest Blu-Ray player will sell for $499 later this year, and several other companies (Panasonic, Samsung, LG, etc.) are also shipping Blu-Ray players and will have to be at least as competitive on price.
So, where does Sony go with the PS3? Really, the only option is more and better games. Right now, the only thing that will dramatically increase sales, even if they lower the price, is a better assortment of games--titles that are so much better on the PS3 that hardcore gamers can't afford to play them on anything else. Unless Sony can fix its game shortage soon, the PS3 risks becoming this game console generation's Gamecube--the third player in a market that can at best support 2 1/2.
- Position the PS3 as an advanced digital media center for the living room that just happens to play games (which is pretty much what Ken Kutaragi said last year when he announced the PS3's pricing), or
- Dramatically lower the price of the PS3 to compete more effectively with the Xbox 36o and Wii.
For option 2, Sweeting suggests that Sony may have to replace the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 with a DVD drive in order to get the cost down enough for Sony to compete with Microsoft and Nintendo.
After reading some of the cost breakdowns for the PS3, I think that deleting the Blu-Ray drive alone isn't going to do the trick--they're going to have to radically remove features in order to compete on price. From one of my posts from last year, the manufacturing cost of the PS3 was estimated to be $900. Even assuming that deleting the Blu-Ray drive and replacing it with a DVD drive saves Sony $300, they still have very little room to move on price.
One of the key sales points for the PS3 when it was priced last year was that at $599, it was still at least $400 cheaper than the least-expensive Blu-Ray player, so it was a "bargain." Well, scratch that advantage--Sony's latest Blu-Ray player will sell for $499 later this year, and several other companies (Panasonic, Samsung, LG, etc.) are also shipping Blu-Ray players and will have to be at least as competitive on price.
So, where does Sony go with the PS3? Really, the only option is more and better games. Right now, the only thing that will dramatically increase sales, even if they lower the price, is a better assortment of games--titles that are so much better on the PS3 that hardcore gamers can't afford to play them on anything else. Unless Sony can fix its game shortage soon, the PS3 risks becoming this game console generation's Gamecube--the third player in a market that can at best support 2 1/2.
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