14 DAY TRIAL // In an interview with eWeek, the president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, Robbie Bach, talks about Nintendo's next-gen console (if we can call it that) and how it presents competition, or doesn't, for Microsoft on the gaming market. The sole advantage that Nintendo's Wii presents over other console is, as everyone could guess in an instant, controls.
The question: "So, is Nintendo disrupting things for you, or were you surprised to see them?"
Bach's answer: "I'm actually not-the product has gotten more broad-base acclaim that I would have expected. It's a very nice product, but it actually has a relatively specific audience and a fairly specific appeal, frankly, based on one feature, which is the controller itself. And the rest of the product is actually not a great product-no disrespect, but ? the video graphics on it aren't very strong; the box itself is kind of underpowered; it doesn't play DVDs; there are a lot of down-line components [that] aren't actually that interesting."
So basically, Nintendo's Wii doesn't show off that many features. The fact that it doesn't play DVDs isn't such an issue I'm sure, however, when it comes to games it doesn't do that great of a job either. Nintendo's "audience" can't play Wii Sports forever (which is basically the only game making good use of the Wiimote if you ask me):
"In the casual space they're going to do very well," Robbie Bach continues, "because the controller is pretty intuitive and the game experience is pretty simple, and Nintendo can produce a lot of those simple game experiences themselves.
The challenge they have is that third parties aren't going to make much money on this platform because Nintendo is going to make all that money, and their ability to compete with something like a Halo or produce an experience like Madden on their system is going to be tough. They don't have the graphics horsepower that even Xbox 1 had. So it makes sort of the comparison set a little bit difficult."
Robbie Bach isn't letting us in on any secret, as these aspects have been surrounding Nintendo's console for quite some time. However, the only question remaining unanswered here is: Does Nintendo give a damn? They've made their numbers with both Wii and DS, heck they've even set their own sales bar higher for the handheld, so is there a problem here? No. If Microsoft's president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division is right, the future is looking awfully bright for the Xbox 360.