George Harrison of Nintendo: Xbox 360 unprepared for console war, Wii still a glorified Game Cube
By Danny Mendez
George Harrison, SVP of Marketing and Corporate Communications for Nintendo, believes the Xbox 360 was rushed into production to beat out the PS3, causing the billion dollar failure rate of the Xbox 360 and slowing down Microsoft’s sales.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 beat Sony’s PS3 to the market in the next generation console war in 2006. Harrison this is the cause for Microsoft’s problems today.
“Two things. I think their desire to be first and have a year head start on PlayStation ? because at that point I think they were discounting us,” says Harrison in an interview with GameDaily Biz, “caused them to rush into this, and so this rush to be out there a year in advance really set them up for the hardware problems that they’re having now.”
As much as he likes to bag on his competitors, he has respect for the others in the business and respects Microsoft’s decision to admit their problem rather than cover it up further. ”But it’s a stunning admission; it’s more than a billion dollars! That’s huge on a business that already looses money for Microsoft. But I don’t think they had a choice but to own up to it.”
Although pointing out the faults of his competition is easy, he fails to point admit Nintendo’s own faults that may cut the kill the Wii’s success in in the next year or two. He considers it a strength that his console is simple and cheap.
“But we do believe in products like Madden Football, for example. There are a lot of people that love football that have been locked out of playing it because maybe it’s become too complicated over time ? the controller was too complicated. We’re hoping now with the Wii Remote control scheme and the family play mode where you don’t have to control every aspect of what’s going on, you can get in and play and enjoy yourself.”
The simple and cheap aspect will only last as long as the 360 and PS3 have their problems, but once those get sorted out, the Nintendo Wii will be no more than, as my friend once said pointing at his Wii in anger, “a piece of shit glorified Game Cube”.
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Stumble It!
Tips N4G
July 24th, 2007
That piece of shit gloried GameCube is doing better not just because it’s cheaper, but because it’s more enjoyable than the blowing up Xbox 2.0 and PlayStation Grill. One cannot live on the same set of sports games and first person shooters alone, Nintendo at least understands that.
Mario Party 8 is the best selling game around right now, it’s not exactly the kind of game either Microsoft nor Sony do, and yet HudsonSoft has been doing them for Nintendo for years. It’s the kind of game that doesn’t get done on other systems, and the couple times I’ve seen it tried on the Xbox it was a terrible looking, poor playing disc that quickly went out the window.
The Wii will continue on for another couple years, then the Wii-HD will come out, when it finally makes sense to have some HD. It’s already been hinted by several execs at Nintendo that the plan is to shift the Wii to a more DS-like development target, the way the Gameboy developed.
July 24th, 2007
Kenzie,
Wii, is for children. The only reason for it is zelda. HD is a necessity now. Stop kidding yourself. No real online competition=pathetic. The wii offers mosty brainless mimigames. We got our zelda, mario will come out along with metroid, and then nintendo will not release another good game till next generation. This is what they do. Third parties blow on nintendo. I used to love them though. I have just grown up now.
July 24th, 2007
The name is Nathaniel, the last name is Mac Kenzie, not Kenzie.
There are 7 games out right now that are mini-game based Brian, what’s so hard about looking at the actual games out there and counting?
Are you seriously this retarded? Wii has many games which are not at all targeted at children, and are not targeted at parties. We did get our Zelda, we are getting out Mario, we are getting are Metroid, we’re also getting our Mario Kart, our Smash Brothers and there’s even Super Mario Strikers. Plenty of good games which while not pushing for the most bumpmapping possible, are decent graphically at worse and rather impressive at best.
Wii is not for the brainless fratguys in their dorms drinking bear and playing the next inane first person shooter, but it is for anyone that wants a good fun game.
The first real generation of DS titles from third party developers were pretty lame, they lacked any originality and were often simply minor improvements for titles from the GBA or in some cases ports of N64 games. After that first wash of weak titles, the good ones came in, the Wii is just starting to see that second generation of titles coming this holiday season.
Titles like Call of Duty 3, Resident Evil 4, and many others are ports from other systems, rather than actual Wii games and their graphics lack because of it. But they were largely the first generation of third party titles, quickly pushed out because noone expected the Wii to sell so much better than the other systems. The Wii has almost equaled the Xbox 360 in less than a years time, by the two year mark for Microsoft, Nintendo will surpass it. This is making the Wii a significantly better target for game development.
The titles which developers bring to bear are the ones that dictate what a system is for, if the only third party titles are immature, childish titles, sure, it’s a system for children. You don’t dictate it, not even with your purchases, the masses do. And the masses love Mario Party 8. They also love RE4:Wii, they’re probably going to love the upcoming Final Fantasy game too.
July 24th, 2007
Piece of shit for poop drinking loser!
Playstation 3 bring global domination second to none! True victory!!
July 24th, 2007
1080p is a gimmick. Does Motorstorm run at 1080p? Does Killzone? No, the best looking games are 720p. Only low-action, low poly games have 1080p support.
Wii rules.
July 24th, 2007
Fryfat you are a psycho, how many diffrent web sites do you post on trashing the PS3? You really are a pathetic POS.
July 24th, 2007
Gee what is the res fr the Wii? 420? Thats all it will ever be. The graphics on the Wii look terrible on Large HD flat screens, wich is what the majority of people are starting to buy now, and soon thats all that will be available is HD flat screens. Then so much for the Wii.
Here is a list of all the PS3 games that run 1080P
All Pro Football 2K7
Blast Factor
Calling All Cars
College Hoops 2K7
The Darkness
Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer
FlOw
Full Auto 2 Battlines
Harry Potter
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
MLB The Show
NBA `07
NBA 2K7
Ninja Gaiden Sigma
Pirates of the Carribean
Street Home Court
Super Stardust HD
Transformers The Movie
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection
Virtua Tennis 3
July 24th, 2007
IMO
Wii has opened up to casual gamers & is merging FPSs & Gun Con games. The only problem with Wii so far is no online gaming.
360 was bound to fail. All of that crap they got to go through to get Xbox games to be Backwards Compatible. Those chips in the controllers to make sure 3rd party control makers would give MS money. And they made appearance more important than performance so it crashes a lot. The only way I’d get a 360 is if it didn’t crash, Had Steel Battalion (LOC) BC, &/or had a new SB game.
I’ll praise Sony for PS1, PS2, & God Of War. But I have nothing nice to say about PSP & PS3.
In my mind Xbox 360 & PS3 are already obsolete. Not because of Wii, but because I’m more interested in NeuroControllers by NeuroSky & Emotiv.
July 24th, 2007
HD Is not the TV that everyone is buying. HD won’t be mainstream for another 3-5 years at least. The PS3 will not be the dominant console until it reaches the price point of $250 or less.
July 24th, 2007
Microsoft will never fail for one reason alone: Halo. If it wasn’t for Halo, even the original Xbox wouldn’t have lasted very long. Even now, the main reason to choose a 360 is for Halo. Othwerise, Sony would be dominating the more serious realm and Nintendo (like it is) would be dominating the more kiddie and party oriented realm. And maybe, just maybe, if the Xboz would have never came into existence, the Dreamcast would’ve lived a fuller life.
July 24th, 2007
Sorry, Microsoft will also never fail cause it has more than enough money to back any failures.
July 24th, 2007
Microsoft cannot fail.
Lots of money + best console + halo + gears + fable = best selling console
The Wii is barely a fad, and Nintendo hasn’t had a decent game for people over 10 since Goldeneye, and they don’t even have Rare anymore. And Sony had 2 gens in a row, but this gen they are impossibly outmatched.
July 24th, 2007
IMO –
The Wii is not going to stand the test of time, because once the price cuts start happening with PS3 and the 360 the playing field will even out.
To the post that HD TV is not mainstream is just nonsense, have you not stepped foot into a Circuit City, Best Buy, even Wal-Mart! How many old tube style TV’s do you see for sale any more – hardly any! HD is the mainstream.
This is early in the horserace MS has had a lot of bad publicity of late, but how soon we forget all of Sony’s problems after their BS price cut that they are going to pull after the units are sold. Xbox 360 is going to have a three year warranty, which is huge! They are going to work the problems out. If you can honestly tell me that MS doesn’t have the best game lineup compared to the other two - Halo 3, Bioshock, GTA, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, do you really need any more?
The Wii is less expensive because that they couldn’t find a way to justify charging you $350. for a thinned out Gamecube. This is why they haven’t had any problems with the hardware – Nothing is really new!!!!!!!! The problem that they had was with the Wiimote (the only new part).
PS3 and the Xbox 360 will last because of the technology and because the games look good now, and they are going to look even better a year from now. That has always driven people to buy systems. Innovation only can sell a system for so long, after the innovation you need the games to keep people attracted to the system. The truth is that I think that Nintendo will be the obsolete system a year from now, after the novelty wears off, those same gamers will still be turning back to their PS3’s or Xbox 360’s.
July 24th, 2007
jimi: Rare doesn’t exist anymore, you noticed how good the games coming out of Rare were after Microsoft Game Studios bought them? Anyone worth mentioning left the studio after they got bought out.
You don’t notice how well the Nintendo games sell jimi? You have to go to the 12th game to find a non-Nintendo game in the best sellers this month.
The Legend of Zelda: Twighlight Princess and Windwaker have both been exceptionally good games, what you’re looking for is a first person shooter - which comes out this year via Metroid Prime 3.
July 24th, 2007
WHT TH FRIG: No, the mainstream is what people do and have, and significantly less than half the market have HD TVs, most people have their old TVs and are happy with them. In fact, I have a 20 year old TV I still play my GameCube on. It really doesn’t matter what the stores are cramming down people’s throats, or what manufacturers are cramming down stores’ thoats, it only matters what people actually have and use, the answer is not HD.
And if you only wish to bullshit and slander the Wii’s hardware, the least you could do is come close to describing it’s actual hardware instead of pretending it’s a GameCube.
July 24th, 2007
“The simple and cheap aspect will only last as long as the 360 and PS3 have their problems, but once those get sorted out, the Nintendo Wii will be no more than, as my friend once said pointing at his Wii in anger, “a piece of shit glorified Game Cube”.”
By now, we all know that there was no “friend”. Sour grapes much?
July 24th, 2007
I, could care less about HDTV. In fact I could settle for PS1 graphics. Only things I think really matter in games are Gameplay & Story. If I did have any money for a HDTV I would end up spending it on my PC so I can Play Halo 2.
July 25th, 2007
I find the same conversations among all these boards. By a show, how many of you Xbox fans or PS2 fans ever thought of your PS2 or Xbox as a “piece of shit” while you were playing them?
The reason I ask this, is because the Wii is more powerful than either of those systems. I’ve heard things from developers of the game Spore that commented that “the wii is 2 gamecubes duct taped together”. Honestly, as an industry professional, this kind of talk is entirely UNprofessional.
Really, I don’t understand why everyone is so shocked about the Wii outdoing the 360 and PS3. Just look back to the last generation. The PS2 was techically the weakest of the batch, with the gamecube taking second place, and the xbox being the best. Yet, it was the PS2 that dominated the market. It’s simply history repeating. Yet, the issue with the Wii having limited graphics is due to a lack of a proper engine to utilize its full processing ability. Once harnessed, the Wii will be able to put out some impressive graphics. Remember, that even IF the Wii is a “repackaged gamecube” that it will at least be able to output gamecube level graphics, and for the most part, everyone was pretty content with those type of graphics a year ago.
On the HDTV argument, there is such a small owner base of HDTVs that its really not a factor, and wont be until people’s CRT tvs die and cant buy new CRTs. Ive had my 32 inch CRT for about 15 years now, and it still works perfectly. Why fix it if it aint broke? A lot of tv owners out there are like me, having crt tvs that work fine and really have better things to spend their money on than to replace their working tv with a new one. So, until all those CRTs bite the dust and cannot be repaired anymore, HDTV is going to have to wait to be mainstream. Sure, its a great feature for those who have them, but you guys are a small minority on the issue.
I’m surprised no one mentions this, but with dvd player packages with surround sound costing about $100, I wonder why no one has complained about Nintendo not supporting Dolby Digital. They didn’t do it last gen, and you would have think they’d have added it this gen. Or how about the lack of ability to change/upgrade the wireless network card, since N networking is around the corner, offering faster connection speeds than a lan cable. There ARE flaws to the Wii design, but you guys bicker over the insignificant ones as opposed to those that will affect the majority of consumers.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. No one gets paid to play the “winning” console. Just get the system/systems you want, the games you want, and be happy with it. The GTA fan and the Zelda fan will NEVER meet eye to eye, so just agree to disagree and move on.
Randy Wilson
Team Lead
Broken Attitude Studios
July 25th, 2007
Wow. This is just a really poorly written and biased article.
July 25th, 2007
I had a wii long enough to play most of the wii sports and my 5 year old boy was allready asking to play 360. I couldn’t believe it.. I said the hell with it and returned what I thought was a junk pile, at least for the money. I wasn’t impressed at all with the wii.
July 25th, 2007
First of all, Danny Mendez should be sent back to a banana republic until he stops trying to place fanboy bait on his articles. A “friend” told him the Wii is a piece of sh*t Gamecube? Pffft! C’mon, amigo. You said it… so OWN IT. Don’t be a p*ssy.
Besides, anybody that puts the Wii down saying that it’s basically a GameCube 2.0, is actually putting to shame their own consoles of choice. Because if a GameCube 2.0 with a Wiimote is capable of outselling the PS3 and Lunchbox360 for the past six months, that alone should make them bite a pillow and cry all night in shame.
And HDTV’s are only in 17% of US homes at the moment. Much less in homes over the world. So HD doesn’t even play a factor during this console generation. And that explains why people just ditch the HD thing and go and get themselves a Wii or a PS2. Presently the best consoles on the market.
The 360 and PS3? That’s expensive garbage for people who like to pretend they’re very anal and very hardcore.
July 25th, 2007
Sorry it was those enchiladas and gazpachos.
July 25th, 2007
I like pussies, but cocks drive me wild.
July 25th, 2007
I like cocks up my ass and down my mouth, too.
July 25th, 2007
I don’t even think Microsoft will make another console. They have lost billions of dollars on the Xbox and billions more on the 360, it just doesn’t make good business sense to continue making consoles.
The main reason the Wii is successful and will continue to be successful because of the innovative, simple interface. It appeals to everyone. It’s a brilliant idea by Nintendo. If Microsoft and Sony do make another console, you can bet it will have motion controllers similiar to the Wiimote.
July 25th, 2007
Anybody can make up statistics to prove their point. 77% of people know this.
July 25th, 2007
To RWilson: I never thought my Xbox was a “piece of shit”. I never owned a PS2, but I have respect for it.
The graphic lovers only seemed to come more out of the wood work because now Sony doesn’t have the weakest console when it comes to graphics. If you told Sony Fans that N64 & GC had better graphics than PS1 & PS2 they’d most likley complain about about that.
July 25th, 2007
Global sales for all Tvs will grow from 170 million in 2003 to 196 million in 2008, as consumers begin to replace their analog sets. This represents approximately $61 billion in 2003, growing to $86 billion in 2008. -IDC
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/satellite-biz-04zzzg.html
Your 20 yr old set is outdated - stop returning bottles for your next game and get a job.
Just A bunch of angry Wii-Men!!!
July 26th, 2007
Predictions aren’t based on fact. MP3 Players have not yet replaced CDs & Downloadable movies have not replaced DVDs. My TV was made in the late 90s. That’s good enough for me. Even if that prediction was true no one in their right mind would buy a new TV because of peer pressure.
July 26th, 2007
I don’t get the anger towards the Wii. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. Call it a kid’s console and live with that.
Most gamers I know owned multiple last gen consoles (xbox,ps2,gc), its just that the new consoles are too pricey to own them all.
We love the Wii at my house, and we still love our PS2, our DSs, our PCs. We’ll wait on the PS3 and XBox360, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never get them.
Also nice to note that the Wii is the only console that is not being sold at a loss.
July 30th, 2007
Oh, come on! Look at your headline:
George Harrison of Nintendo: Xbox 360 unprepared for console war, Wii still a glorified Game Cube
The way you have it spelled out from reading the head, you’re saying Nintendo’s Harrison is the one calling the Wii a glorified Game Cube.
The article was interesting, and really I don’t care one way or the other about the Wii… but using your “friend” as an anonymous source to support your opinion that the Wii’s days are numbered? That’s sludgy journalism at best. Whether I agree with you or not is irrelevant. Let’s say for argument’s sake that I _do_ agree with you, and I want to forward the link to your article to someone I know. What are they going to read?
“See? Wii sucks. Because my friend sent me an article that says some guy’s friend once said it’s a piece of shit glorified game cube.”
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze. Are you in junior high?
August 22nd, 2007
okie doke the truth people.
the wii has expanded the gaming audiance and is basically the ipod of the gaming world. Maybe the gamecube was a kiddy console, but clearly as the Wii is dominating sales it must be appealing to alot more than just kids.
in reality the truth is the 360 and ps3 are niche consoles aimed at boys/teenagers/young adults with not much in there lives but a big tv and lots of spair time to play repetitive FPS’s.
microsoft innovated very little and did rush out a console. as for the person that said it would never die out due to halo. this is very sad as a console needs more than one must have game, and so far even halo hasnt helped it make a profit.
Microsoft themselves have praided the Wii and are also now going to target the casual gaming market. again showing little innovation. theres only so much money you can plough into top end graphics cards before you at some point realise you need to look beyond the few geeks on gaming websites and big hdtvs and try and make a profit by targetting the larger demographic.
also if you were any kind of gamer you’d realise now the wii is nominating that there is a massive list of good looking hardcore games coming to wii. and if you were any kind of gamer ud buy 1.