Patent application for Wii Vitality Sensor shows the device can recognize breathing patterns

Oh please god Nintendo, just no. Stop and go back to making great games instead of shitty hardware add-ons.

You know, Nintendo could catch the others with their pants down if they tried.

Whilst Sony and MS swan about selling the stuff Nintendo did 4 years ago, they could shock everyone and come out with a proper beefy console with great games. The stuff they used to make back in the day.

@2 I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo announced a new console some time next year. The Wii doesn’t quite have the extensible lifespan the PS3 and 360 could manage.

@3 Very risky when PS3 and 360 sells well with its’s price and only now all publishers started to make decent games on the current gen consoles.
This can be like a Dreamcast. Sony and Microsoft can announce just a killer after the Nintendo console.

+ gaming is in the decline year after year.

I honestly think that we will see only PSP 2 at E3 2011 and 2012 will be no doubt a E3 where Nintendo will announce it’s new console. Not to mention that Nintendo will probably concentrate on the 3DS lineup.

@2,3 – I can’t believe you said that. I’ve been musing about that for a while. It’s mostly wishful thinking, because I have no reason to think that will happen (Dominating market lead means “Ain’t broke, don’t fix”) but that would really be the coup de grace from Nintendo.

A simple, new, cheap, HD console, 2-3 years ahead of all the others.

I strongly doubt it would be beefy though. Nintendos philosophy has pointed towards anything but that, but it’s likely to be user-friendly and more importantly developer-friendly, which is certainly something they’ve succeeded with in the past – With Gamecube they tried to change it up a bit, in all the wrong areas, and that went positively nowhere.

I gotta admit I’m a little impressed by what they’ve done. Am I becoming a Nintendo fanboy? Eep!

@4 Nobody killed the Dreamcast, it committed suicide. It was way ahead of its time, and certainly way ahead of the competition. It just had lacking developer support, and too many niche titles as a result. It didn’t stand a chance against Microsoft and especially Sony with its hands tied behind its back.

Americans buying a console that won’t get EAs Madden, NHL, NBA or baseball over one that does? Nope.

Wii Vitality Sensor wtf is that

This is loosely based around patents.

The patent placed for local multiplayer via 3DTVs and glasses (put on the glasses and get a 2D image of a whole 1 player or two player screen instead of a split screen) was confirmed on the Eurogamer EG podcast.

Tim Wilits for ID said he had been privy to a demo of the tech. Apparently whomever showed it off said you could theoretically have the wife watching tv whilst you played a game… ON THE SAME SCREEN!

Exciting!

The thing is, the Wii has sold so well that it’s already starting to reach saturation point. I think it’s only got about a year at most left before that happens.

Microsoft and Sony go on about their consoles long lifespan, but one thing they tend to fail to mention is how poorly these two consoles are selling compared to the previous generation.

The PS2 had easily surpassed the sales of the 360 and PS3 combined at this point in its run. The PS3 has only managed to sell about as well as the original Xbox did in the same span of time. So they really don’t have a choice but to extend their console’s lifespan, whether they want to or not.

fhergher

Michael O’Connor said:

The PS3 has only managed to sell about as well as the original Xbox did in the same span of time.

No. Not sure why you’d say that. In its short lifespan of 4 years, the Xbox didn’t even amass 25 million in sales, while in the same period of time the PS3 is knocking on 40 million’s door. 15 million is quite a difference. Unless you meant to say Xbox 360, in which case it would make slightly more sense, even though the PS3 would still be favored in pacing. Just wanted to point out the inaccuracy.

Spaced Oddity is right about the sales, although I don’t see why Sony would be happy to go from 140 million sales as the supreme market leader, to 40 million sales at the back of the class. I think they stand a decent shot at the 360 with Move though. The Wii killing potential remains to be seen.

@8 I would love for Nintendo to do it. I really, really would. That would have all the worlds fanboys crying in synchronicity. It’s amazing how little airtime Nintendo gets in the whole fanboy war, when they’re actually the ones to beat.

I’m not sure the slowdown means saturation point, though. The PS2 stopped at 140 million, and the Wii is at 70 million according to my amazing skill at Wikipedia intelligence gathering. Of course the PS2 was so much more powerful in it’s games line-up compared to any console this generation, but a historic anomaly? I don’t buy it.

I think the cube got 15-20 mil, the awesome dreamcast an undeserved 10 mil, and the xbox 20′ish. That would make (very) roughly 190 million console users for the last generation.

With the PS3 and the 360 hovering around 40 million, and the Wii at 70, that would make 150 today, again, according to the completely open document that is Wikipedia.

Where’d they go? Based on that, I think Nintendo would be better off with a brazen price reduction, rather than a brand new console. Those people have to be out there, somewhere, not buying stuff.