Nintendo Power Glove

Think the wii, ps eye, or kinect were the first motion controllers? In 1989 nintendo released the power glove. While it looked awesome as you can see in this commercial, it didnt work at all. I know because I got one that christmas. It was returned 2 weeks later. While it looked really cool, it just didnt work.

 

What happened to Nintendo? The WiiU’s failure thus far

President wont resign, stock takes major hit…this is the news today: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/17/nintendo-ceo-iwata-says-he-wont-resign

So what happened? Well the wii u is just not doing well. Why? Well there are a few reasons that I will break down here:

1. Poor Name. Seriously what were they thinking. Wii U? It makes no sense. It does NOT signify that this is a new console. In fact, I had to look it up to really try to figure it out. I thought maybe it was just an upgraded wii. Sure I get that Nintendo wanted to use the same household name ‘wii’ but even wii 2 would have been 10x better. Anything really would have.

2. Games. Where are the big blockbusters? When the n64 was released they had zelda and mario 64 at launch. That is how you launch a nintendo system. Nintendo knows this. Where is the new zelda? Where is mario kart? Where is Super Smash bros? They are coming out over a year after console launch. Bring back metroid, megaman, etc. These games will sell the console. But they needed to be there at launch and over holidays. Too late for Q4 of 2013.

3. Online play. Get with the program nintendo. I know its gotten much better than it was when wii first came online but its now 2014. Check out what MS/Sony/PC are doing with online multiplayer and multimedia and at least make yourself competitive with them.

4. Hardware upgrade. The wii u was not as powerful as old gen xbox 360/ps3. Really? I get wanting to keep prices down and we do not care that much about graphics but Nintendo really needs to step it up here.

Nintendo going digital with next gen console

Looks like Nintendo will be joining the club and offering their games online. While they currently have an online store for the wii, this will offer normal retail games that normally require a disk. This is a good move for us consumers for many reasons. It will:

– Provide us with cheaper games (maybe?). Packaging has to increase game cost so if there is not packaging one can assume games will decrease in price.

– Give us instant access to games when they are released

– Games may run faster on SSD drives rather than having to spin via dvd.

– A bad thing: no more used games

– A bad thing: Need for large hard drives which may cause us to buy more

Here is a link to an article on the topic

Next Generation Wii: Wii U will cost $300

Rumors speculate that the next generation Wii, called the Wii U will retail at $300. I think this is right on and Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing. Given the economy and the fact that these consoles are released every 4-5 years, they should not be costing us more than $300. I think Sony and Microsoft need to pay close attention to this. People are not going to pay $400+ dollars for their next consoles. I know I will not.

Here is a link to the article on IGN