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"Ditch the Gamecube Nintendo (43% drop in profit)"

I know some of you will point out the fact that, in spite of the loss compared to last year's earnings, Nintendo has still accrued a profit to the tune of $600,000,000. While that is a large sum of money it needs to be realized that the amount of that profit is not too far from being HALF of their previous year's profits. That means that Nintendo has that much money LESS to put into things like research and development for things like new games and new systems. Also, game companies are less likely to put their time and money into a company that posts losses as massive as 43%. If this trend continues, it could have some nasty repercussions. People could lose their jobs (I feel sure some heads have already rolled after the news of a profit loss this significant), for one thing. And companies will not want to invest in another company that will not post a meaningful profit for their efforts. So yeah, Nintendo still posted a profit. But when that profit is in the shadow of a previous year that was 43% HIGHER, then the 'profit' tends to lose significance. Just some things to consider.

The Gamecube is costing Nintendo big and sagging sales are a large part of their problem, ditch the deadwood before it's to late.

I've got wood just thinking about it.

Wow! Macintosh! You're so manly!
Can I touch your RAM?

*swoon*

Macintosh wrote:
> I have 1.5Gb of Ram installed on this computer. Anyone got more? And
> I can expand it to 8Gb of Ram. Anyone do more than 8Gb Ram?

You got two 64bit G5's then I gather?

Macintosh wrote:
> Developers often say that PS2 and PSP "are a dream to design
> for".

and equal amounts say it's rubbish

Go figure.

Oh, and if you had 8GB of RAM, you would be wasting about 7GB of it, because you just DONT NEED IT.

You're just fishing for replies, right?

*21st forumite ignored*

Developers often say that PS2 and PSP "are a dream to design for".

lcarus wrote:
> You can never have too much memory.

I have 1.5Gb of Ram installed on this computer. Anyone got more? And I can expand it to 8Gb of Ram. Anyone do more than 8Gb Ram?

Gwizz wrote:

> On this memory subject, how can you say its not important when any
> developer will tell you thet often the biggest problem when trying to
> bring there ideas to life is the memory, and that the fastest way to
> get better performance is to stick more memory in! Nintendo are not
> outside this rule, as has been shown with the gamecube.

Capcom just commented on the creation of Resi 4 on the PS2 by saying that the PS2 has less in built memory making it harder to develop the game.

Strafio wrote:
> But there's an optimum amount, right?
>
> There's a point where the benefits of that little extra memory don't
> outwiegh the hassle of putting it in, like space, compatability,
> battery eatage and price.

For the DS, yes. There is no need for huge worlds when most of the games will be 2d/simple 3D, and developers at least can focus on something having been given the specs. But it's common when making games to suggest, "Oh, wouldn't it be great if...?" or when there are problems allocating memory space, when that little bit extra would save a lot of fiddling, less technical sacrificing and a much smoother development period.

Speaking in more general terms, there will always be a need for greater memory - games or otherwise. Real time, advanced AI just isn't close without at least a 30GHz processor and gigs of fast access RAM.

gamesfreak wrote:
> lcarus wrote:
> You can never have too much memory.
>
> LIES.
>
> Depending on the size of your address bus/word size you
> can have a maximum amount of memory

But that would be restricted by the motherboard, whereas I was referring to from a developer's POV.