Following his controversial interview with CNN earlier in the week, Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has suggested that Sony will need to offer more than just upgraded visuals with the next PlayStation console.
Chatting with CNET, the outspoken executive brushed aside claims that the recently released Wii U will be obsolete once the PlayStation 4 ships, stating that the platform will need to find its own innovation in order to compete.
“In the end, our competitors need to react to what we’re doing in the marketplace, and need to figure out what their innovation will be,” he told the website. “It’s likely that faster processors and pretty pictures won’t be enough to motivate consumers. They need to react to what we’ve done, and we need to continue innovating with the Wii U and we will.”
We can understand where the spokesperson’s coming from, but the insinuation that innovation relies on gimmicks is flawed. Franchises such as Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted have proven that core technology can facilitate new experiences alone, as neither series was possible on previous generation hardware.
Sony has been meddling with biometric controller patents over the past couple of years, but we doubt they’ll make their way into the PS4. We'll find out for certain sometime in 2013, when the next generation console is rumoured to arrive.
[source news.cnet.com]
Comments 13
He's right. Although I don't think the Microsoft/Sony fanboy bile that will be sprouted will be justified. All three companies need to react off each others successes and failures, which is just common sense, and all Reggie is saying.
I agree Sony needs more then just graphics to compeate
Seems like all 3 companies are poised to provide an option for a tablet like controller. But Nintendo has the advantage in that devs know everyone actually has the controller.
Innovation is all well and good, but really it just side steps the issue. What actually happens to the Wii U when the PS4 and next Xbox release? If both of those consoles are more powerful (which of course they will be) then the Wii U will soon become starved of third party ports due to hardware limitations. It's a legitimate concern that Nintendo refuses to recognise.
It all points to the Wii U going the way of the Wii - third party content will be extremely light once next gen rolls around.
Of course, something I didn't mention in the article but has just come to me is Gaikai. It's going to be interesting to see how Sony incorporates streaming technology into its next system.
I agree that wii u will likely be the odd man out for many 3rd party blockbusters down the line, but I bet they'll cultivate relationships for some pretty sweet exclusives like monster hunter for example. And I'm hoping for an indie digital explosion on the eshop.
@ShogunRok
The Wii had virtually no third party support as well and still managed to be the market leader.
maybe react by laughing at Nintendo? I know they haven't done to bad with Wii, but since the n64 days, Nintendo just hasn't been that great, except there first party games.
“It’s likely that faster processors and pretty pictures won’t be enough to motivate consumers."
Yes they will. And always have done. Millions upon millions of PC gamers spend illions on upgrading their systems for this alone. Ninty can try and deflect the fact that WiiU's CPU is underpowered, and the system obviously has it's own strengths- but they're banking on another Wii story for WiiU- and I'm not sure that will happen. I was certainly never motivated to buy a Wii- it's best selling point for me was that it played GameCube games, so I didn't need one.
The best thing Sony could do for PS4 (for me) is to build it with an architechture that doesn't put developers off, take time to unlock the potential of and creates better parity for multiformat titles. The recent Skyrim issues are my highlight for that issue.
Today, I really couldn't care less about Nintendo's approach to gaming, a shame, the NES was a childhood staple, as was the SNES - N64 was only good for a small handful of games, but the GameCube was a great machine.
Ninty now seems to treat 'gamers' with contempt in favour of the family niche that they carved with Wii.
i like better processor and graphics. especially processor.
playing an open world game with more possibilities and vastness will be much better than a mere tablet.
so nintendo's new strategy is to push competitors to make mistakes ? yeah right
bring the ps4 with power and we will see how nintendo will react.
@Gamer83 Didn't really end up being the same market though, did it? The Wii essentially created the offshoot of 'casual' gamers.
@Samholy Even before I saw WiiU game I knew it wasn't a wii with a tablet.... Seriously it's not a wii with a tablet and the only game I have is Nintendo land ATM
Sony & MS's 'reaction' can be seen as a proactive one.
They're building their own second screen interfaces already, Vita and Surface. Then next year they'll release two machines far more powerful than the WiiU and hold on to their market share, possibly picking up a few more who may have tired of Nintendo's niche.
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