Nintendos next generation, not a console, still a winner.

[HappySqurriel]

alephnull said:

HappySqurriel said:

Personally, I think Nintendo would try to win the next generation by advancing the way games are played in a way that Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t think of or don’t seem to see the potential in. One of my thoughts on this is that Nintendo worked on improving the way that our actions in the real world were translated into the digital/videogame world by introducing (decent) motion controls; in the upcoming generation, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo focused on improving how the digital/videogame world interacted with the real world.

 

Underlying this whole discussion is one's view of how innovation actually happens. When something goes well, people have every incentive to claim they knew things would work out as they did all along. The more you look into these types of claims though (in my experience), the less true they seem.

Yes and no ...

I don’t think anyone inside or outside of Nintendo knew how successful the Nintendo DS or Wii were going to be, but I think they saw the potential in taking a different approach from Sony/Microsoft in terms of how it impacted gaming and how it impacted their business. After you have a direction to move towards, in this case improving the interaction between individuals and the games they’re playing, it isn’t that difficult to continue improving; especially if (like Nintendo) you have the resources to do pure R&D in this direction internally, and have access to the R&D being done at universities around the world. Part of the reason I see Nintendo moving in the direction I suggested is that it is becoming a hot area of research in HCI (human computer interaction).