Are there pictures, info on the Saturn 3D upgrade ?

You're talking about biased? seriously pal, you were the guy saying that the broadway was a quasi-G5, not a gekko, and not only it WAS a gekko but both CPUs are G3, not even G4. I dont really give a damn about the power or the obsolete tech, my problem is basically that is overpriced.

I've already shown the numbers, but apparently the fact you didnt look at them doesnt makes you biased, wheres the logic in that?

According to a report by Japan's Toyo Keizai Online, the Wii's production costs add up to a scant $158.30.

Graphic chip 29.60
CPU 13.00
DRAM 7.80
Optical disk drive 31.00
Power supply 11.30
Manufacturing cost 19.50
Cost total 158.30

So it carries almost $100 extra, probably a record profit for a SKU.

The irony is that according to Toys R Us the Wii should've been cut to $200 last spring, yet it didnt. I wonder if all the people killing each other for one has something to do with the fact that its still in short supply, and at $250.

Neither with the Wii or the Saturn you have been able to post some serious data to counter my point. Trolling the threads isnt the same...

But alas, becos I dared to explain with actual facts and information how the Wii wasnt "cheap" I , and everything else I wrote after that, is biased


PS: the only half reasonable response I've received is R&D. Heres the news buddy: component costs INCLUDE the damn R&D costs. You dont sell a chip and charge for the R&D separately.

 

oh not the Wii again, have mercy!

I don't think I ever said that when specs were confirmed and the console released - another example of how you use quotes out of context. Anyway, I think I ve burdened this thread already too much with this, and this is way off topic right now.

 

You brought the damn Wii into the conversation pal, if you cant take the heat stay out of the kitchen.

And you and some other user were saying that the broadway was actually based on a G5, not me.

Look, I dont want to continue with this crap about you-know-what becos we know how its going to end.

Lets just call it even.

 

even? I don't settle with even when I m right.

nevertheless, I have no will to keep this thread from its subject matter akin to the way its been going thanks to loose assumptions. Hence, the matter is over from my side, and no further replies will be issued unless deemed necessary.

 

Don't worry Barc0de this has been off topic for about 5 pages now and I don't think it's because of you.

I don't have so much of an issue with the rampant speculation and wishful scenarios presented in this topic simply because I do not have to read them. However I would ask Shadowlayer to please loosen up a bit and stop it with the pretensious bitch act. Just because some of us disagree with you does not make it necessary for you to go on some self righteous warpath. Stop calling everyone "buddy" and "pal", knock your tone down a few notches and just get on with the decent posting, speculative or not.

 

barc0de you still have to bring some proof instead of just evading the questions. The numbers are there, wheres your rebuttal?

And servicegames, what? everyone here has a license to be an ass except me? you guys arent exactly "nice" all the time...

 

No no, I think we all have the right to act like fools from time to time. You just seem to be taking Barc0des posts way to personally or something. Sure he was less than courteous with his posts, but I think enough is enough.

 

I was under the impression that merchants take approximately a 50% cut of the sale price of any given product. IE: at $400, Sega would have only made about $200 from the sale of a Saturn (and considering its laundry list of components, very little of that was profit). I'm probably wrong, so please correct me.

Link to the SVP emulator: http://notaz.gp2x.de/svp.php

On the original topic of the thread: I'm disappointed that the upgrade never got much farther than the conceptual stage. At the time, I had liked that Sega kept releasing upgrades for the Genesis (although I felt both the Sega CD and 32X were overpriced by $100 each). An upgrade to the Saturn (probably through the cartridge port) with an FPU and dedicated 3D GPU around xmas '97 would have been great. But the cost of that upgrade on top of the Saturn's price would have made it as affordable as the 3DO.

In the end, I think most like thing Sega could have done was sell the hardware at a loss. Sony did it just ONE generation later, and it wasn't under the pressure that Sega had been 6 years prior. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more surprised I am that it took the gaming industry so long to start selling it's hardware at a loss, given how "razor and blade" the market was to begin with. Especially since the hardware of the time that would have benefitted from it the most, the 3DO, could NOT be sold at a loss because the (multiple) manufacturers sold the systems themselves. I don't know why Sega of America didn't look at that trainwreck and think, "Thank god they couldn't sell the system for $300!" and then connect the dots.

Oh well, I'm going to stop typing before I lose track of what I'm talking about. :katamari:

 

x

 

I take it personally becos he keeps making a big deal out of it. The Wii is overpriced, so what? is not a scam, nobody is forcing anyone to buy it, and Nintendo said many time it used GC hardware, so you pay for what you see.

The only reason why I dont have a Wii yet is the same as PS3's: theres not enough games for it that I would like to play. Right now I can only think of Galaxy, NMH and Metroid........and thats it. With the PS3 all I care for is future games like GTAIV, MGS4, GT5 and LBP.

I know I'm right about the Wii, yet I offered to "call it even" to end this nonsense.

I'm afraid is not like that, the console business always carried a small profit per unit sold, and was considerably dependant on alternative source of income, like games (software) accesories (controllers, etc...) and merchandising.

But since the last generation consoles have become deficitary for at least half of their lifetime, needing tons of funding to boot.

Therefore it isnt weird at all than 15 years ago everybody wanted to jump into the console bandwagon, while today even the big players are looking for alternative paths, like making more PC games and supporting common development enviroments for other devices like cellphones.

Well the STI was able to pull some tricks with the 68000, tricks that in the past where considered impossible like zooming and rotation.

Technopop did some clever programming with Zero Tolerance, and I know most programmers used the old Amiga HAM trick to get more on-screen colors.

Plus, if they can make Phantom Hourglass run on a console without FPU like the DS, I'm sure something can be done with the Genesis stock hardware.

 

I actually agree with you completely on the whole Wii thing. That's not to say I'll never own one, but it'll be a while. I just have a problem with buying recycled tech at a premium price point. I like to make my purchases a bit more deliberately these days and buy things that tend to hold their value a bit better... Although the status of the current Wii market may be making a fool out of me.

*edit
Made some stupid typos due to this cursed trippy theraflu. Fixed now
​

 

What do you mean with *typo*?

 

Oops. I've been taking this pesky flu medicine and it's knocking me on my ass. I've explained in the edit above.
​

 

Nintendo said in 2005 that the Wii was meant to continue the path of the GC, of being a cheap second console for people that bought a X360 or PS3.

The fact that it was going to be $50 less by spring 2007 shows the plan was the same even after the sucessful launch.

But it became a fad, and people kept buying it without a complaint, so Nintendo did what any other company would, and cancelled the price cuts.

My theory is that some people feel like they were scammed, so they choose to deny the facts. The problem is that Nintendo will not change their policy unless people complaint about it and stop buying the Wii.

Meanwhile, others like BenHeck agree that its a fad, and go all the way and compare it to the 2600 which was also a fad, used old tech and had a handful of good games against a buttload of crappy ones.

But I dont believe the Wii will crash the industry, is just not THAT popular.

Anyway, be careful with that medicine, you know what happened in that southpark episode, right?;-)

 

That list is missing the packing and stuff (cheap, though. Guess it falls under manufacturing), Wii Sports (cheap), Nunchuk (Cheap?) and Wii Remote (Not so cheap).
Remove Wii Sports for Japan, though. Also add transportation/shipping.
Not that it ads up to a whole lot pr. individual unit, but it's still a couple of additional streams forming the whole flowing river.

Also, I guess the "Price cut"-card would've been played IF the demand was falling and the other systems posed more of a threat in price and sales. I guess Christmas 2008 might be a lively one.


Anyway, what exactly DO WE KNOW about this possible 3D upgrade for the Saturn?


Also, about the Saturn Shenmue stuff...
(sorry for dragging this thing in. If it wasn't already. I just skimmed through the pages real quick)
Do we even know if that thing ran on retail hardware or under some funky devvy "target render" setup? (Which has become an evil trend in the industry)

 

The thing is that it was never meant to compete. Read any memo from Nintendo at the time and they say over and over how the Wii is meant to be a second console.

IMO the fact that now Nintendo is aiming directly against the X360 and PS3 poses an even bigger threat since if the hype around the wiimote goes down the Wii will be left with a power deficit that clearly shows, and a game catalog thats dwarfed by those of X360 and PS3.

And lets be honest: games are the real reason behind the sucess or failure of a console. Just look how all the hype behind the PSP couldnt do anything against the big number of games for the DS.


Anyway, about the Saturn addon, I get the feeling that it never went too far, so I doubt there was any working hardware at all. I believe they tealised the brand was already ruined, and that launching an addon was a mistake of 32X proportions, so they decided to focus their remaining resources in a brand new console.

The Shenmue demo doesnt looks unrealistic, and I think that had SEGA wanted to show something that was really impresive (and impossible to pull on real hardware) they would have shown a CG like Sony did with FFVIII.

 

"The Shenmue demo doesnt looks unrealistic, and I think that had SEGA wanted to show something that was really impresive (and impossible to pull on real hardware) they would have shown a CG like Sony did with FFVIII."

yes.

 

There are many things on most generations of 3D consoles that "doesn't look unrealistic" (In terms of hardware capabilities). Yet, if you compare the final product to the initial test footage and such, you can see textures taking a hit, polycount having gone down, framerate instability, the higher resolution and light/particle effects being gone and so on. (And you also sometimes see things go the other way, but usually then the initial footage wasn't that impressive to begin with)

 

Wait I'm losing your point here, you're talking about the Saturn Shenmue vs the Dreamcast one? or just how stuff that isnt in the alpha appears in beta and later versions?

 

Well if you look at that shenmue demo it is running at a very low framerate.