Only a day ahead of Sony's PlayStation4 event in New York, I would like to briefly single out one aspect from the recently leaked controller images and comment on what to expect from the new console - and what may not be on the cards.
In my lengthy article below, I already noted why you should not expect the PS4 to be the hardware beast the PS3 was, due to Sony's shaky financial situation, costly new controller features and a desired low price tag.
Examining the leaked images of the PS4 controller prototype, I picked up on an aspect other commentators seem to have failed to notice. While other media outlets have dissected the controller only, I find the rest of the image much more interesting. Let us have a look, courtesy of Destructoid.
First of all, the authenticity of the image is corroborated by the Wii development kit resting on top of the PS4 hardware. But it is the PS4 development kit we should be focusing on. Notice how it is only a little bigger than the Wii kit. And then bear in mind the size of the first PS3 dev kits that were circulated prior to the current PlayStation's launch.
As you can see, the early PS3 dev kits were huge. In comparison, that PS4 kit is only a fraction of that size. This may be an indicator of the hardware being on the humble side, as I expect it to be.
And once again, I am absolutely convinced that neither Sony nor Microsoft will launch new consoles in 2013. If Sony announces a 2013 launch for the PS4 tomorrow, expect that date to be pushed back to 2014 at a later date.
EDIT Unsurprisingly, the English newspaper The Times reports that the new PlayStation is set to be cheaper than its predecessor.
Industry sources and leaked internal documents suggest that Sony is considering pricing the new device at about £300, more than £100 cheaper than the starting cost of its predecessor, the PlayStation 3.
In comparison, the Wii U premium bundle retails in the UK for around £290, just less than the price tag proposed for the new PlayStation. £300 convert to around $460 and €350.
Just days ago, the Wall Street Journal had reported that the new PlayStation would incorporate streaming technology, most likely in the wake of Sony's acquisition of Gaikai last year.
Sony Corp. is planning to offer technology to stream games to its next videogame console, people familiar with the company's plans say, alongside other enhancements to bolster its position in the market.
The new technology, to be unveiled Wednesday along with the new console, will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet, these people said. The streaming service, they added, is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console; the new device is also expected to play new games stored on optical discs.
The next PlayStation and Xbox are rearing their heads. But they will not launch until late 2014 and will not be the graphical beasts some expect them to be, I am sure. Firstly, let us consider all the various news and rumours surrounding those consoles. And let me start this article with what I know about the next Xbox.
Development kits for the next Xbox have been in the hands of at least one European developer for at least six months, I can exclusively reveal. The source is an employee within the studio and he states that the console's architecture will closely resemble that of a PC. This is not shocking news. We heard rumours about development kits for the new Xbox being in the hands of at least one studio back in May 2011. But it is interesting to hear that the console will likely be modelled around PC architecture.
Meanwhile, VG Leaks has published tech specs, which appear to corroborate my story. Digital Foundry offers more interpretation of this data (thanks to Joystiq). The commentators on all articles seem to agree that these specs are on the humble side, probably because Microsoft is looking to bundle some kind of Kinect hardware or a tablet controller, like Nintendo, and need to offset the additional costs for such peripherals. The specs list a Natural User Interface or NUI, which might be just that.
The PlayStation4 is rumoured to feature similar architecure. According to Eurogamer, Sony's new console will also feature an AMD CPU with eight cores. The article sums up the expected specs of both the new Xbox (Codename Durango) and PlayStation (Codename Orbis) by noting:
The AMD connection that defines both Durango and Orbis confirms that both consoles are much closer in design to gaming PCs than their predecessors, which may result in stronger ports to the computer format.
And Sony seems to want to do away with traditional controllers, as well. CVG reports that various sources have told them Sony is considering "biometric sensors on the grips and an LCD touch screen" for the new controller. All this comes at a hefty cost, of course.
Other rumours regarding the new Xbox and PlayStation concern possible launch dates and price tags. The consoles will launch in October and November 2013, respectively, and retail for between $350 and $400 in the US, Colin Sebastian believes. Sebastian is a market analyst with Baird Equity Research and has been covering the industry for many years.
I strongly disagree on the proposed launch dates. To my knowledge, no console has ever been revealed at an E3 and launched the same year. Microsoft and Sony also have a vested interest in dragging this generation out for as long as possible, because they are only just starting to earn some money with the 360 and PS3, respectively.
Also, Sony boss Kaz Hirai has been hinting at the fact that they want to be last this generation. I am convinced that you will not see either successor on store shelves until late 2014, at the earliest, in any territory.
Sebastian further expects both consoles to comprise off-the-shelf components rather than custom-made ones, which will allow retail prices to be lower than expected and learning curves for developers to be flatter. Here, I absolutely agree. With the PlayStation Vita, Sony already went down that road.
The downside will be a lack in graphics power, I believe. Games may look better at the beginning of the launch cycle, because developers will already be familiar with the hardware. But this also means that games will not look significantly better when the console is nearing the end of its life cycle.
In fact, do not expect the new PlayStation and Xbox hardware to be a huge step up from the Wii U, at all. Since both Sony and Microsoft are clearly intending to bring cosoles with more complex controllers to market, they will have to make compromises when it comes to the raw hardware power of the machine itself. A biometric controller and a next generation version of Kinect cost a lot of money and neither company wants to price themselves out of the market again with a $600 console. A target price of no more than $400 seems realistic to me.
Bear in mind that both Sony and Microsoft are not doing too well financially. Sony has just agreed to sell their US headquarters a few months after having their credit rating slashed to junk status by rating agency Fitch.
Microsoft is doing a little better but has just posted that quarterly earnings for the Xbox division were down eleven percent from the same quarter last year. Operating income from this division is actually up a little from last year, but it is clear that the Xbox division is not significantly contributing to Microsoft profits in any meaningful way. Remember that I had a close look at the Xbox division's profitability in mid-2007 and from 2002 up until then, the division had generated total losses of around six billion Dollar.
One analyst even predicted that Microsoft might sell off its Entertainment and Devices division, which includes the Xbox branch, to corporations like Sony or Barnes & Noble. Microsoft's priority, the analyst noted, was to save the Windows operating system and they would be prepared to sacrifice any other enterprise necessary.
Yet few people seem to understand what the combination of the two manufacturer's cost-consciousness, costly controller designs and a desired low price tag mean for hardware power. Some developers have started producing games that run in the new resolution 4K (approximately four times bigger than 1080), expecting that those consoles will be able to deliver that at a decent framerate. In my mind, it is almost impossible that we will see such a leap in visual fidelity in this generation.
As far as costs are concerned, bear in mind that the Wii U hardware is only an incremental step up from 360 and PS3 because the tablet controller does not come cheap. Yet Nintendo still needed to sell the Wii U at a loss, a risky strategy Nintendo has avoided for the past generations. Sony and Microsoft face the same problems and then some, as noted above. And they have less financial muscle than Nintendo at this time. I guess we will all have to accept that the Wii U is a next-gen console, after all.
EDIT Sony has invited industry professionals to an event on February 20th at 6pm EST. Sony Computer Entertainment America teases the "meeting" with the tagline "see the future" both via its blog and its Twitter account. The main event page features an email registration form and a cool teaser video ending in the infamous ´triangle circle cross square´ button logos.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe features the same teaser website in each respective language. Surprisingly, however, SCEI's Japanese website features no teaser. You would expect them to be the first. It is a given, though, that Sony wants to tease the PlayStation4 at the event. At any rate, I will stick by my prediction that Sony's new home console will not launch before late 2014.
So now we know all about the Wii U. Nintendo announced the price, launch date and other details. And, last Friday, I had my third and longest hands-on session with the console yet. Here is a little video clip I produced at the event (in German), if you are interested. And here is a German podcast about the Wii U which had invited me.
At first, I was fairly skeptical about the Wii U. After last week’s event, though, I feel a little more confident with a few reservations remaining. Here’s why.
Gameplay > graphics, a winning formula?
When I played the console first at a post-E3 event in Cologne, the graphics were clearly underwhelming and, to a large extent, they still are. I can promise that you will not see a game that will immediately convince you that this is a step up from the current generation, graphically. While the next Xbox and the next PlayStation may have a similar problem, this is a real concern for Nintendo. Obviously, titles coming out after the launch window will look better. But a title like ´Super Mario Bros.´ with its simplistic design style is hardly the best vehicle to show off HD graphics. And Nintendo made the big mistake of developing all first party titles for the launch window in 720p resolution only, for whatever reason.
Some third party games, like ´Skylanders: Giants´, do not look much better than their Wii predecessors. And others, like ´ZombiU´, are a mix of great graphics (when the player is using the tablet like a torch) to some plain awful textures that would have been an insult on the Gamecube (take a closer look at a piano inside a big lobby when you play the game).
Of course, some games look great. My absolute favourite is ´Rayman Legends´, which is a stunner with wonderfully layered two-dimensional backgrounds scrolling fast at a rock-solid framerate, dozens and dozens of enemies on-screen and beautifully rendered particle effects. But, in general, the first wave of games will not wow anyone. Nintendo has clearly invested as little in the graphics hardware as possible to keep the price down without having to subsidise. But, Nintendo would have you believe once again, graphics are not everything.
What is only the more convincing, is the idea of asymmetrical gameplay. There are plenty of mini-games in NintendoLand, where one player has a bird’s eye view of a map and is on the run, with other players having only a third person’s view chasing him. Asymmetrical gameplay can just as well relate to mature games. ´ZombiU´ also makes innovative use of this feature, where one player becomes the Zombiemaster and can spawn various types of zombies on a map and another is the survivor who has to defeat them and capture the flag. This aspect of the Wii U is clearly the strongest argument to buy one and I expect Nintendo to market the console accordingly.
The idea of one privileged player within a group is reminiscent of a number of board and family games as well as pen and paper roleplaying games and the Wii U might enable those ideas to finally be incorporated into console gaming. This strength only relates to local multiplayer, of course. But it was local multiplayer that became the Wii’s killer app. The bottom line is that Nintendo is clearly making the point with the Wii U that gameplay outweighs graphics power.
Pricing and SKU strategy
Discussions about gameplay and graphics aside, I consider pricing the most important issue. A great console with great games can easily be priced out of the market and become a flop. Vice versa, a mediocre console can sell well at a budget price. Remember that the original GameBoy won against two far superior competitors, the Atari Lynx and the Sega GameGear, only on account of being cheaper and having a longer battery life. At any rate, the Wii U is fairly competitive in terms of its price tag. In 2006, the Wii launched at €250 / $250. The Wii U adds 50 bucks to that for the basic model and twice that for the premium bundle. It is more than I would have hoped for and a cheaper price tag would have practically guaranteed success, but neither the next PlayStation nor the next Xbox will be able to match that, for sure.
What I consider a huge mistake, though, is the strategy of selling two different models, so-called Stock Keeping Units or SKUs. Nintendo has never before opted for such a strategy and even frowned upon Microsoft and Sony for doing so, if I remember correctly, calling such a move confusing to consumers. The PlayStation3 launched with two SKUs in each territory which added up to at least five distinct models being available worldwide at the same time. From launching in 2006 up until now, Sony apparently released six different SKUs in North America alone.
In the case of the Xbox360, the original Core bundle was only ever meant to establish a low starting price for marketing purposes. It made no sense to buy it, since it came with no hard drive and no memory card, the latter cost at least $35, reducing the price gap to the premium bundle by more than a third. The basic Wii U bundle makes a little more sense, but only a little. No game is included which is a cost of around $70 / €70, which already exceeds the price difference between the basic and premium bundles. So, here too, Nintendo simply wanted to tout the Wii starting at 299, even though the vast majority will be opting for the premium bundle. Consumers which are less tech-savvy may even be confused. They cannot simply buy THE Wii U, but will have to choose which one they want. This, I am sure, is a question that can only put some of these people off.
Excuse me, which gen is this?
The media reception has been pretty good, though. With the Wii U, Nintendo received some fairly positive reception in the mainstream press. And it is clear that Nintendo insisted on the Wii U being the first next-gen console, since this crops up in many articles. Of course, some critics have already denied the Wii U the next-gen status. But it all boils down to definition. Remember that both Will Wright and American McGee called the Wii the only next-gen system for its innovation.
I personally define the generations the only way that makes sense, by mere count. Completely irrespective of what the console has to offer, this will be Nintendo’s sixth home console and it ushers in the eighth console generation. They could choose to bring no more than a calculator to maket. If they call it a home console, it is a successor to the current model and constitutes the next generation. It really is as simple as that. Who would have considered calling the PlayStation2 last-gen because it lacked the power of GameCube and Xbox?
Late to the party: competition not before 2014
And as far as competition within this new generation is concerned, Nintendo will not have any before late 2014. I am sure that Microsoft or Sony both cannot bring a console to market in 2013. Nor do they want to. They have lost billions with their current consoles. They will not want to burn any more money, before the current consoles have even started to earn them any profit, for a change. So the timing might play out well for Nintendo. The Wii U might not get any new competitors for two years, giving them a solid headstart. Being first worked for Microsoft this generation, at least for a few years. It might work for Nintendo now. In terms of pre-orders, the console was sold out in the US at Toys R Us, Best Buy and Target, only days after becoming available, according to Joystiq.
These figures are a pretty good sign, albeit an early one. The only downside to this strategy is that when the competitors do come out, they can be expected to be far more powerful, creating a similar situation as in this generation. The Wii U will not get any cross-platform titles, because it will not have the power to compete with the new PlayStation and new Xbox. It will have to get exclusives or nothing. By then, Nintendo hopes, the Wii U will already be a huge success, though.
Software: great third party support and Nintendo on a buying spree
The Wii U will have 23 launch titles in North America, which is a decent amount. And the third party support for Wii U is phenomenal in Nintendo terms. With ´ZombiU´, ´Rayman Legends´, ´Bayonetta 2´ and the new ´Monster Hunter´, there are some pretty nifty second and third party exclusives. But the Wii U gets also multi-platform titles like ´Darksiders 2´, ´Assassin’s Creed 3´, ´Call of Duty: Black Ops 2´ and ´Mass Effect 3´ at launch or within a launch window. However, I foresee a possible problem related to that. With the Wii, precisely those games never made it, for lack of hardware power. And that may have been an asset rather than a liability. Now that any PS3 and 360 game can be ported over, will the Wii U get enough third party exclusives? The Wii didn’t get ´Resident Evil 5´, but it got two exclusive rail-shooters in the series that were both great fun and made fill use of the unique hardware. Will the Wii U realy flourish as a console that will also have the next Resident Evil, like the other consoles, but will most likely go without an exclusive installment in the franchise? I have my doubts. With such original hardware, the Wii U relies on exclusives making good use of it. If there are not enough of these titles, there simply is no reason to buy a Wii U over a PS3 or 360. ´ZombiU´ is an extremely clever idea, because it incorporates the tablet screen distracting from the television into its gameplay and thus vindicates this hardware setup. But with cross-platform games, the tablet functionality may only have been hastily tacked on and offer a real distraction from the main screen. Then, the tablet would turn back from an asset into a liability.
While that is a valid concern for third party relations, Forbes is noting that Nintendo has changed its strategy and is widening its portfolio of first and second party studios. After recent acquisitions, both the ´Xenosaga´ and ´Fatal Frame´ franchises (the latter also being known as ´Project Zero´) now belong to Nintendo. Also, the ´Dragon Quest´ series is now, apparently, exclusive to Nintendo consoles.
Although the exclusivity deal on ´Bayonetta 2´ caused quite a negative backlash, people may hopefully realise that Nintendo saved the game from being cancelled and in doing so probably saved the developer Platinum Games in the process. The game will not become a huge seller for Nintendo, but they still chose to step in and save what undoubtedly is a hardcore game. This sends a clear signal to the industry and to gamers where this company is heading.
On top of that, Ubisoft, Capcom and Namco Bandai are “gravitating towards Nintendo”, the Forbes article notes and mentions the rumours of Nintendo wanting to buy back Rare in order to gain access to the ´Banjo Kazooie´ franchise. And let us not forget that Nintendo still owns the two best-selling videogame series of all time. So, software-wise, Nintendo is certainly doing well.
Don’t call it a gaming console: Meet Nintendo’s multimedia home entertainment system
Funnily enough, the Wii U seems to have the potential to become a better multimedia hub than Xbox360 and PS3. While Nintendo has always remained focused on their consoles being gaming devices first and foremost, the Wii U could beat Sony’s Microsoft’s efforts in multimedia functionality hands-down. The main reason is the TVii service, announced for North America. With it, users can compile all the different television content sources they have access to, ranging from their cable provider to services like Hulu, Netflix or YouTube.
Coupled with the built-in second screen, which is the biggest buzzword in television right now and a market still almost completely untapped, this may become the hottest feature of the console. If this feature will be available in other territories including similar deals with local content providers, the Wii U will definitely be a success. This is the killer app your television and computer have been waiting for. And while the content deals may not be exclusive, the competition will not be able to offer a similar service until 2014, if I am right.
Final thoughts
The media reception has been largely positive, both in the general and special interest magazines. And the week after the launch announcements, Nintendo shares rose five percent in one day. Within days, online preorders for both models were sold out with most retailers in the US. But all this is no guarantee of success. The biggest problems Nintendo might face is that of communicating the Wii U’s appeal. With the Wii, it was simple: Here is the controller. It looks like a television remote, so it is familiar. Here is Wii Sports and here is tennis. You know what to do. The Wii U, with its emphasis on asymmetric gameplay, is far more complicated and, as such, the gameplay experience nowhere near as self-explanatory. So, more than ever, good marketing will be the key to making the Wii U a success. Here, Nintendo needs to invest some, before they can earn some.
There are many aspects about the Wii U that make me quite optimistic. There are some that are highly questionable. But, all in all, I will say that I am cautiously optimistic about the console’s ability to become a hit and win the race for market domination once again. I am very interested in what you think, though, so please share your thoughts in the comments.
