Jumpin said:
2006 is quite possibly Nintendo's most important year, despite peaking between 08/09. Wii and DS Lite launched, and they were on fire. It was the year when Nintendo stopped doing everything wrong, and started doing everything very very right. I think what was really great about the Wii and DS Lite were the incredibly sleek looks they had, while this seems like a very trivial thing on the surface, it's what made the console look sexy to a lot of people. Most gamers are fairly shallow in that way, they don't want an ugly Gamecube or ugly N64 cartridges (the N64 console itself was nice looking, but not the cartridges or controllers), they wanted hot looking DS Lite and Wiis. Also, a large reason why the PS3 was so much less successful than its predecessor wasn't just the price, it's that the console was kind of ugly. On top of that, both DS and Wii platforms, along with their sexiness, also offered new and very fresh experiences to the videogame market place. It was Nintendo at their finest, and unlike the similarly fresh NES launch, the Wii and DS Lite managed to have far greater penetration in Europe. NES was late getting off in Europe largely due to the fact that the Commodore generation was still going very strong until the end of the 80s. |
That is absolutely right. Design and ergonomy are everything in electronics. No one can deny being attracted to a sleek, modern and simple console, and that's why Switch is also very attractive in itself.
