E3 2011

[MrEco]

Also saw this one

That's an uncanny resemblance to what actually happened.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Hmm. I wonder what Hitler has to say about all this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrsy1eioglk

[gtmtnbiker]

They'd probably still lose money on something like that.

Eh, I doubt it. Making room for it on the actual system? Sure, could be a pain. Selling a device that'd probably cost them $2 to manufacture for $20-30? That'd make a fair bit of money.

It just seems to me like the bigger reason they wouldn't include Gamecube compatibility is not that it'd be prohibitively hard/expensive to do...but more so that they could sell the titles over again.

I can see that you don't have an understanding of development costs to put feature X into a product. It's not just the manufacturing cost. You need to factor in the costs of board design, software development, testing/QA, marketing, tech support, documentation, etc.

Sometimes chips that were used are no longer available so you need to change your design or find an alternate source. Also, the possibility of people buying gamecube games to play on WiiU is pretty low. You can't really buy new Gamecube games anymore. Only the used market exists and it's a finite supply.

Yes, maybe Nintendo will put some Gamecube games on their shop channel one day. That will be cool and will earn new money for the company.

If you're a shareholder of Nintendo (it's a publicly traded company), you want them to make maximum revenue/profit. Putting in a money losing feature such as Gamecube compatbility (e.g, gamecube memory card slots, controller ports, hardware/software) does not make sense. Yeah, it would be great for us retro fans but not from a financial perspective.

One other thing to keep in mind is that companies evolve over time. Nintendo is not the same group of people for the past 10 years. People who worked on the gamecube functionality might not be there anymore. So you now have new people who need to figure out how it all worked before to implement it again. It's not easy. This happens at hardware/software companies all the time.

[noiseredux]

I guess I just feel like for some people BC is actually a selling point. For me it is. Think of it like this: some people buy DVD players that also play VHS. (Me.)

[gtmtnbiker]

I guess I just feel like for some people BC is actually a selling point. For me it is. Think of it like this: some people buy DVD players that also play VHS. (Me.)

One difference is that you can still buy new VHS/DVDs today. It's also a much bigger market of people worldwide than those who have Gamecube consoles.

[noiseredux]

I guess I just feel like for some people BC is actually a selling point. For me it is. Think of it like this: some people buy DVD players that also play VHS. (Me.)

One difference is that you can still buy new VHS/DVDs today. It's also a much bigger market of people worldwide than those who have Gamecube consoles.

you can still buy new VHS? Where? The point I was illustrating was that instead of buying a DVD player, I seek out and choose one that also plays VHS. The "BC" in this case is a major selling point to me. It's not like "oh cool extra feature," but rather why I chose the particular model. One box to play two formats.

[isiolia]

I can see that you don't have an understanding of development costs to put feature X into a product. It's not just the manufacturing cost. You need to factor in the costs of board design, software development, testing/QA, marketing, tech support, documentation, etc.

Sometimes chips that were used are no longer available so you need to change your design or find an alternate source. Also, the possibility of people buying gamecube games to play on WiiU is pretty low. You can't really buy new Gamecube games anymore. Only the used market exists and it's a finite supply.

I understand that it's more than the simple manufacturing cost. I also understand that Nintendo has a ton of associated costs already with building a new console. This would likely be what, a USB adapter, only necessary if you want to use the old peripherals/memory cards? Outside of that, it's software, which the system apparently already has support for if it can play Wii games.

I don't disagree that there'd be extra costs, etc...I just think that it's 90% there (or more) already, so why not?

you can still buy new VHS? Where?

New blank tapes are still made I think. No pre-recorded ones are.

[t0yrobo]

I guess I just feel like for some people BC is actually a selling point. For me it is. Think of it like this: some people buy DVD players that also play VHS. (Me.)

That's true for some people, but not very many. If it was a popular feature stores would carry more than one or two models with vhs. It's just not important to most people, and for the people that want one they can easily get a vhs player for dirt cheap.

It absolutely is a selling point, but supporting massively popular last gen system is going to be a bigger priority than a mildly popular system from the generation before that. Keeping with the comparison, you don't see many if any bluray/vhs players.

[noiseredux]

Keeping with the comparison, you don't see many if any bluray/vhs players.

no you don't, but Blu-Ray players play DVD's!

[AppleQueso]

Keeping with the comparison, you don't see many if any bluray/vhs players.

no you don't, but Blu-Ray players play DVD's!

A bit off topic, but you have no idea how many times I've heard employees at pawn shops and places like Wal-Mart insist that blu ray players don't play DVDs.

You'd think the fact that half of them ADVERTISE THE FACT THAT THEY UPSCALE DVDs would be a clue, but I guess not.