Misc. Info

July 12th, 1999

I'm starting to wonder it my one week vacation was only a dream. Oh well, on to business. While I was gone, NGO posted a blurb about the next Nintendo NOT playing DVD movies, contrary to previous reports. But, the "Dolphin" technology will. Panasonic will release units which will both play next gen Nintendo games and play DVD movies and CD music. This is MAJOR NEWS, folks! For the first time in history Nintendo will license its technology to another company. Of course, for the first time in history they have to! Let's break it down:

The Nintendo Situation:
The Nintendo 64 never sold as much as they had hoped or budgeted for while being developed.
Nintendo has seen its world domination crumble over the last three years.
Which was caused by a newcomer to the industry, Sony (humiliating).
Sony will again release their next generation console earlier than Nintendo.
Sony will again release superior hardware.

If you think about it, it's pretty clear that Nintendo only have one weapon in their fight against Sony: Price. (OK, two if you count Myamoto.) To sharpen the edges of this weapon, they'll do everything in their power to keep cost down. First to go, of course, are DVD and CD playback. Dollars are saved in license costs.

A wise decision indeed, since few people would buy a Nintendo to watch movies on. Even wiser then, to license the Dolphin technology to Matsushita (Panasonic). If you do want to watch movies and play games, you just buy a Panasonic box. Thus Nintendo have both bases covered, while keeping prices on their own unit down. Anything lower than $199 will be stunning, some believe it might even hit $99!!

Of course, this proves a major challenge for Sony. While their unit is technically capable of playing back DVD movies, they have not said yet whether it will or not. The Sony hardware will be more expensive to produce, thus they'll have a tougher time keeping the price down. (They might even struggle to get it down to $299!) Now, how many will be willing to pay $200 more for a system "that is not that much better than the one for $99"? They might then "have to" include DVD playback to partly justify the higher cost. (Thus contributing to an even higher cost....) Of course, then you have Sony Consumer Electronics, with its own $300 DVD player... How many will buy it with no gaming option? Tough questions to discuss at Sony. I personally think prices of the two units will be similar, with a max diff. of $100. Check this list to see which system I'll get....

Then add Toshiba to the mix, which have stated they will release a DVD player with NUON technology. This is technology made by the guys who were responsible for the ill fated Atari Jaguar. Now they're talking billions of instructions pr. second with several high profile developers signed up for it. (Including Jeff Minter!) Unfortunately, nothing has been shown since the press release ages ago. No word from Toshiba either.

Finally, add Sega to the mix, they've stated they will release a DVD add-on for the Dreamcast.

Yikes, suddenly you have four different gaming platforms all based on DVD. Or should we say, suddenly we have four brands of DVD players with different gaming capabilities, none which are compatible with eachother, all with capabilities above and beyond anything you can play today. All with the potential to sell more units than ever due to the exploding growth of the DVD market. Which brings me back to the beginning. This is why Panasonic is brought into the picture by Nintendo. "Here, get this unit instead, play games on it when your grand children come to visit!" Suddenly, a whole new market is available to Nintendo. (And every other player in the field.) Exciting times, indeed!

All in all this is good news for us consumers. More competition means cheaper hardware. It might hurt Sony a bit in the beginning with smaller profit margins than expected, but do we care? Noooooo! We want to play the PS2 NOW!!!!!

- Nils