Couldn't agree more...

It seems that Nintendo is poised to repeat the mistakes that caused them to slip from first to last just two short generations ago. Only now the stakes are much higher and the potential for disaster much greater. And with Reggie's affirmation that a new Nintendo console wouldn't arrive until 15 million more Wiis are sold, it seems that the old Nintendo hubris is rearing its ugly head again.

The one reason consoles will stay around is consistancy. I haven't been a PC gamer beyond older classic games for one reason; playing a hardcore game means upgrading every year. With consoles, publishers have a platform they have to stick with. A game has to work or risk losing an audience.

I did a piece some time ago (I'd link, but the site's since died and has been pulled from the web, along with two years of my clips, uggh) about this whole situation.  In my opinion, I think Nintendo may not innovate in terms of controls like we'd expect them to for the next console generation.  In my piece, I mentioned that I could see a new controller coming about that combines the Wii Remote and MotionPlus (like they did, and I'm sure we all saw coming) in one device.  Then, I'd anticipate that this controller would carry over as the primary controller for the next console.

This keeps cost low, keeps people carrying their Wii Remotes over to the next system (cross-compatiblity!), but still encouraged to upgrade to newer peripherals, which would likely exist.  It would definitely draw more comparisons between Nintendo and Apple as well, as there would undoubtedly be some price-tiering going on.

I keep going back to the same thing as Rus, though, I'm not 100% convinced that Nintendo has the foresight to understand just how much tech. innovation is necessary to keep them in the game.  But I think we also neglect how powerful their audience and following really is.  IE: they'll be just fine.

It's also worth noting that they added support to expandable SD/SDHC storage some time ago, to allow for more than the 512 MB, albeit somewhat limited.

I think we need to wait until the end of the year to see how big digital content is at the moment. I just can't imagine digital beating out physical games for the holidays. Parents don't want to put wrapped gift cards under the tree or download a game for their kids on Christmas Eve.

I also can't imagine physical consoles going away either. Digital appeals to people like us, but in Nintendo's case, their new money makers WANT game-focused console supporting local multiplayer in their living rooms, not digital, all-in-one machines. Nintendo's problem is its developers don't want to make games that make money (ie, 2D Mario, Zelda, etc.) despite their proven success.

Dude, this is a pretty good anlysis of the situation. I am sure Nintendo isn't completely unaware of their situation but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't change anything up too drastically for their next generation.

I think you overstate the decline of physical media and the acceptance of digital-only content. We've only seen video games significantly increase in memory size, yet we haven't seen reliable broadband connections spread as quickly. Much of the world won't have access to a download-only system merely because they won't have the necessary Internet connection.

I think you're alluding to OnLive with "a Blackberry-sized dongle plugged into your television," but again, the bottleneck here is connectivity. Physical media will continue to be the cheapest method of distribution for worldwide markets until we see the necessary infrastructure built. Not to mention that it's much faster to purchase a 50GB Blu-ray game from a local store than to wait hours (and likely [i]much[/i] longer) for the same content to download.

Furthermore, we give up significant consumer rights (the ability to lend, sell, or give away games) by moving to digital. Most of the world isn't so...stringent with copyright law as in the U.S., which again means that we'll see physical media thrive in other regions.

As Rob said, one of the things that might limit this (or hold it for a little longer) is bandwidth. I know that in the US and a lot of other places, you guys haver much better plans for internet, but there are other places where we have mediocre plans for a very high cost.

For example, I live in Mexico, and for 2M I pay around... 50 dlls a month, and it is like the premium consumer plan, so with the increasing size of the games, we would have to leave downloading the games for hours (and possibly days). Another example is that Microsoft just released the Zune Marketplace over here, and for the average bandwidth that we have here, it doesnt even allow you to try to stream the HD movies, just download them to see them after they are downloaded.

So, in a lot of countries, this might apply, but with the focus of a "global market" that we have been hearing for a while, if they do this, they will segment the market even more...

Mike: Oh, Nintendo fans will go wherever Nintendo does, but some guestimates put the Wii's casual market at a minimum 50% of the install base. If they can't carry those numbers over to the next console, that's a big chunk of business to lose, and it will seriously effect them on several financial fronts.

Chas: Last I checked, electronic gifting just isn't as used as often in nearly every industry, but yeah, it'll be interesting to see how strongly their gifting promotions are and how well they do. I'll guess it won't overtake, but will gain ground on retail numbers this year. And I Nintendo's developers' problem is that hardcore Nintendo fans buy a Nintendo to play Mario/Zelda/etc., not Mario/Zelda/etc. clones or MadWorld, Red Steel, etc.

Rob: not just the broadband, but a significant amount of the population buying into the hardware to support that connectivity and that media. But as a PC guy, you know how fast the tech iterates, and it's fair to guess those iterations are adopted faster in the gamer market. As for speed...well, five years ago, I spent hours trying to see a half-hour TV show online. Now I wait ten seconds for a feature-length movie to stream. Five years from now? Ten years? Twenty?

Nobody on XBLA seems too worried about the consumer rights you mention (though they are entirely valid). As for piracy...I'd expect DRM to get more insidious and one-use-only content download safeguards to get more clever.

Rus, the ability to connect is only half the issue -- the other is available bandwidth. I'm lucky to have FIOS through my area, so download speeds are no issue for me. But most of the rest of the world deals with significantly slower Internet speeds [i]and[/i] data caps. I feel that you're viewing this issue through a North American lens.

I don't think that we're going to see high-bandwidth Internet access become ubiquitous enough [i]worldwide[/i] to supplant physical media any time soon. Any console manufacture who moves digital only at this point will significantly limit that system's audience. Just look at the PSP Go.

Regarding DRM, that'd exactly why you won't see American-styled digital media thrive in other regions. I'll wager that most of the rest of the world is unlikely to submit to the more  insidious and clever "safeguards." They'll likely just opt out. I know I would (see: Ubisoft's always-on DRM solution).