Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida believes that the next generation gaming console war will kick off with the launch of the next Xbox and Wii systems. The release of the PlayStation 4 could take some time once again to make it to market.
“Looking from the outside, it was Microsoft that released the first of this generation of consoles. Naturally, in my opinion, Microsoft will make the first move," Yoshida told Develop.
“Or, because Nintendo’s approach was not to upgrade much on its basic hardware – Wii doesn’t even support HD resolution – so they might be the first to move," he added.
This discussion could prompt consumers into readying themselves for the next generation, as the current one is already in year five. The big three in manufacturing have done what they can to minimize discussion at this point, but eventually the need will arise to give gamers the ‘next big thing.’
“Probably the watch should be on these companies, in my opinion. Because PS3 was later than Xbox, and is more powerful, so it has a longer lifespan,” said Yoshida.
7 Comments
July 9, 2010
Interesting. Whether or not its true, its good gamesmanship. Sony would definitely be well-served by having people think the current 360 has a more limited shelf-life than the PS3.
It does seem weird, though, since XB360 JUST got a cost-reduction re-design, more than a year after the PS3 facelift. That isn't the sort of thing you'd do close to a new platform launch, ideally.
Let the mind-games begin!
July 9, 2010
Damn, all these reasonable& modest comments from Yoshida are actually making me dislike Sony a little less.... wonders never cease
July 9, 2010
“Or, because Nintendo’s approach was not to upgrade much on its basic hardware – Wii doesn’t even support HD resolution – so they might be the first to move," he added.
Nintendo will move last foolish Yoshida. If anything HD isn't important as far as this gen goes as firsty party and few 3rd party nintendo exclusives keep wii afloat. As a owner of a wii and ps3 I gotta say... Knowing Nintendo they would miost likely just add 3D to the successor and not even do a significant or if little graphical update (best ya can hope for is 576p lol). either way I'm fien with my wii console as it is. Only thing spot on as far as yoshida goes is that Microsoft will make the first move. at this point tthey have to now. Xbox 360 is showing its age and the infamous RRoD or now the RLBOD isnt doing the 360 or 360s any favors.
July 11, 2010
Nintendo has already said that HD resolution will be one of the standard features of the Wii's successor, but that it will not be the primary "hook" of the system. Iwata said years ago to look at the design of the DS to perceive the strategy in developing the Wii (before the hardware was revealed). People took that too literally by forecasting that the Wii controller (or Revolution controller as it was referred to at the time) would have a touch screen and maybe a microphone on it. What he meant was that they were going to integrate tech that hadn't previously been used for games as core features of the system, and that they would do the same thing with the Revolution controller, only not necessarily the same tech. Instead of touch screens, it had an infrared camera and built-in accelerometers.
This philosophy harkens back to the 1970s when Gunpei Yokoi realized he could use a solar cell to create an accurate aiming lazer gun toy rather than it's normal purpose of, well, collecting solar energy. The components were cheap, and being used in an unintended way to create an innovative yet affordable gift for children. The Game & Watch systems that preceded the Gameboy were inspired by a train ride Yokoi was on when he noticed a salaryman playing with a calculator. He decided to use the same type of screens in the Game & Watch series, and because the calculator wars of the time had brought down screen costs to a commodity level, Nintendo was able to sell these products to a large audience because they were affordable. Even the DS touch screen idea was inspired, unsurprisingly, by a PDA that Miyamoto had in the early 2000s. Nintendo's hardware philosophy (although they hate the term "corporate philosophy") is to produce innovative and interesting experiences by using inexpensive and unconventional components in their systems. The N64, and to a lesser extent the GameCube, were a big departure from this trend, and not by coincidence they were Nintendo's two worst performing home consoles in the global marketplace. They spent so much money on the CPU and GPU of the N64 that they couldn't afford to include a sound chip as well, like the SNES had. As a result, N64 audio was almost always inferior sounding to the Playstation's games, and siphoned away CPU resources that could have been used on physics or higher framerates.
My final point is that I believe we should again look to the 3DS design, in a conceptual way rather than a literal way, to get an idea of the priorities and ideas Nintendo has in store for their next system. Will they include 3D? It depends on the market penetration of 3Dtv's by the time they need to release the system to market. I think 3DS shows that Nintendo isn't necessarily looking at making a system that is as far behind it's competitors technically as the Wii is too the 360 and PS3. The 3DS is somewhat of a beast, especially for a system that will presumably have pretty impressive battery life. The fact they're finally using a graphics chip with built-in pixel shaders makes it MUCH easier for 3rd parties to mimic some of the impressive textural effects of the next gen systems, without requiring as much processing power since the screen resolution is so much lower. Just look at the realtime trailer of Resident Evil: Revelations for proof. It practically looks just like RE5! I don't believe their next system will be a technical match for it's next-gen competitors, but I expect the gap to be much smaller than before. Not only will Nintendo produce a more powerful system than one would assume from looking at the Wii, but I believe Sony and Microsoft have learned from Nintendo's success that they don't necessarily have to keep making consoles that are so powerful that they have to subsidize the cost of the systems and take losses for years. Nintendo has said that they only went with such cheap hardware for the Wii to aid in reducing power usage, keeping the system very compact without overheating, and because if it was a flop they wouldn't lose as much money since they didn't spend a ton of R&D on a higher spec system. Luckily the Wii was a bigger success than even they could have hoped, taking them from third place back to first in just a couple years. I'll also predict that they will use a solid state drive for internal storage rather than flash memory if they are cheap enough by the time of the system's imminent release. Nintendo never included a harddrive in Cube or Wii because of cost and the fact that the moving parts in the harddrive would eventually break down, hurting Nintendo's stellar reputation for extremely durable hardware. A solid state drive has none of these problems, except potentially cost. I believe they'll stick with IBM and ATI (AMD) again for processors to maintain backwards compatibility with Wii software, if not Cube as well. That's about all I'm willing to venture at this point. Sorry for the rant, congrats on anyone who read through the ravings of a guy who has too much free time on his hands.
July 12, 2010
Ha, no problem. Like the passion Mitch... though I admit seeing the wall of text did cause my eyes to glass over. ;)
July 12, 2010
Personally, I don't think that Nintendo will make a Wii 2. All it really needs are upgrades like MotionPlus and the virtual consoal or whatever. For all I know, though, a Wii 2 has already been announced, but I don't think they can improve on it much.
September 24, 2010
If I was Nintendo i would not show my card again like they did with the wii that way Sony wont have an oppurtunity to copy them again...
They added six axis AFTER nintendo revealed the Wii Remote, I think it was genius that they Unveiled the console with no Controller it left everyone wondering what it would be and how it would work. Sonys approach to all their "innovations" is multiply two..
Shoulder buttons SNES 2/ PSone Controller 4
Analog Stick N64 1, Dual analog 2
Rumble motor N64 1, Dualshock 2
Wirless motion controller Wii 1, PS MOVE 2
But its Innvation right?
Nintendo Should wait till at least one of the two companies makes their move first, The only way i would go first is if the sales Dropped dramtically and the hardware was more than ready with alot of publishers support for launch..