I'm sorry, but "Rolstoppable" is it? I've never laughed so hard at a post in all my life. There are alot of good posts in this thread, but saying consumers will pay any price for a "valued product" is ludacrous. I will NEVER pay over 265$ for a home console period. I have a ps3, i love it. i love gaming. There is not one hobby i have that i love more than gaming, but as a consumer i know i can't live outside my means. And the 3ds not valued? No. It simply entering a time mobile gaming is at a divide. Mobile gaming is cool and all, but the people going out to buy a 3ds or a vita are on one end of the spectrum where they are sitting in a room, at home, playing a portable device. At the other end of the spectrum there are people like me who are only interested in mobile gaming if there standing in a line at the post office. When the ds first came out, it was about the only thing you could find to satisfy both needs, and yes it did have the wow factor of dual screens. But now? iPads, phones, netbooks, etc. There is a plethora of multifunctional portable device for us in columb B. So yeah, in review, The coolest stuff on earth still has a sales limit to mass consumers, and some of the most "valued" items in production may not appeal to a large scale of consumers. Quick question to think about. Could Ninendo made more profit on the 3ds if they had started at a 300$ pricepoint? Myself? i'm not real sure, but what do you think? How much would it have affected opening sales?

Here's actually a better question to ask, given what the man who's name cannot be said mentioned earlier.

"Could the 3ds have sold in the same trend as the DS at profit without stereoscopic 3D? If not, and you argue games were lacking, what games did the DS have compared to the 3DS that were so much more marketable?"

"What games really made the DS a success in year 1? (Apparently games are what sold the DS, not the touch controls)"

Malstrom's posts are generally very interesting but he is focusing too much on the "3D obsession" of Nintendo. Yes, putting 3D into the 3DS didn't help the system. It was a mistake. But it was not put in because Nintendo is "obsessed" over 3D. Miyamoto? Maybe. But not Nintendo as a whole.

Malstrom had one great post right after e3 2010 in which he said Nintendo was using 3D in the context of disruption. That one post was a bulls-eye because that was exactly Nintendo's intention (it still didn't work out but that's not the point). But after that Malstrom went bonkers over Nintendo's "sick, sick 3D obsession" and wrote dozens of bullshit articles on something that doesn't exist.

Malstrom: "3D was put into 3DS because Nintendo likes 3D".
Fact: It was put into the 3DS because Nintendo thought it was disruptive. Just like Malstrom after e3.

Malstrom: "Nintendo doesn't want 2D Mario to succeed. It only wants 3D Mario because it's obsessed over 3D."
Fact: We got 2D Mario in 2009 (with a special red package), a full featured collection in 2010 (yes, it was full-featured and packed with bonus stuff) we will get 2D Mario in 2012 and in 2013. Mario also spawned a slew of 2D platformers on Nintendo systems. Releasing too many different Mario games is pretty stupid - but Nintendo being obsessed over 3D is not the cause. I think Nintendo got the message now: the market wants 2D Mario.

Malstrom: "The Wii U tablet is Nintendo's way of ramming 3D down our throats because they want to put a 3D screen in there."
Fact: The Wii U tablet is obviously a Nintendo DS for the living room with some extras. If they wanted to put a 3D screen in their - why haven't they done so? "Because it is expensive" is not the right answer. If Nintendo was obsessed over 3D they'd put it in there anyway. If being obsessed over something doesn't stop Nintendo from acting wisely (in a business sense) they can be obsessed over whatever they want.

Malstrom: "Nintendo announcing 3D for the successor of the Wii U proves their 3D obsession."
Fact: It proves nothing. Sony is advertising their games running in 3D since 2010. Malstrom being wrong will become pretty obvious once the Nextbox and PS4 are announced. What do you think they'll concentrate on? Exactly, 3D output - we've had the "HD" marketing already. So we'll have two companies advertising their 3D like crazy... and Nintendo saying "3D is not ready yet for the mass market". All Nintendo did was announce 3D output for a console that will be released in the year 2018! When the Wii was released Nintendo publicly stated: "The successor of the Wii will feature 3D output!" OMG! Nintendo being obsessed over HD in 2006 confirmed?!?

So yeah, the one with the 3D obsession is Malstrom. (And if you waste years of your adult life ranting over 3D it probably is quite a "sick, sick" form of it.) And I'm pretty sad about it because he was really good at explaining the concept of disruptive products.

Malstrom ain't no Nintendo fan, that single fact made a lot of Nintendo fans angry, when they realized he doesn't belong to their church.

Personally, haven't read Malstrom for a long time for the simple reason, he said everything he could.

But he was very useful for me at the time, way better than a dozen of 'gaming journalists'. I just don't have a habbit to treat whoever writes smth I consider noteworthy as oracles or prophets. Though it's true, his track record is good :D

Ah, I do remember this. Wonder what has happened he reconsidered his opinion?

Malstrom wants a return to the "good old days" of pong and tetris.
He let's this bias cloud his judgment over and over and over.

He forgets that without the cutting edge graphics and well designed characters, gaming was a pit of failing companies, terrible games, and wasted money. This disarray confused customers and contributed to the collapse. That is, until Nintendo stepped in and started making quality game after quality game.

What Malstrom fails to realize is that the industry NEEDS rehashes and re-imaginings and formulaic titles and episodic content and sequels because that is what reassures the market. Look how quickly Wii failed without strong titles. It was a sea of shit games (not all Nintendo's fault, but their third party dealings are very obstructive) and the market reacted just the way it did in the first collapse.

He's against UGC games. Said so for a long time...since around the LBP times, and said "the market doesn't want UGC (user generated content)". Then years later, after everyone online played the alpha of minecraft, suddenly Malstrom does a 180. Oh wait, I mean I LOVE the UGC in Minecraft. He pretended like he found a diamond in the rough, when all it took to see the brilliance of minecraft was to read 4chan and see the massive excitement and ugc being created.

Such a visionary, this Malstrom guy.

And if he's said that Wii U will fail. He's got another thing coming. Malstrom has a complete lack of vision, imo. Nintendo can do some really exciting things with this technology, and can give them a really good platform of expansion as well.

If you've read him more carefully (though it's hard to miss even if you try), there's no contradiction. He praised Minecraft for an absolutely different reason, certainly not UGC, he made that point quite clear several times. And despite how wrong he might be sometimes, he's absolutely right here. Nobody f*cking plays Minecraft for stupid UGC, though even less people play LBP for the same thing :D I played Minecraft to death and never ever bothered with Creative mode. Though that's exactly the kind of Minecraft-related content people usually post on Youtube, yet doesn't mean that's what most people find most fun in Minecraft.

You never built anything? Just wandered around doing nothing?

And I knew someone was going to come in and give me his "excuse" for liking the game. Of course his article awas carefully worded to avoid contradiction. That's what Malstrom does.

You don't know the endless endless constructions people were making in minecraft and posting on chan. There were threads after threads after threads with new content over and over and over. Modding, creating, sharing. If you play Minecraft without building things, you're missing half the game, and all your left with is a pretty shitty game, so don't go trying to tell me you played it to death without getting a little creative with your supplies.

Playing on creative mode is not something that justifies your point. It's an excuse.

EDIT: You also forget that it took him nearly a year to talk about how minecraft is going to be such a huge success, long after it was incredibly obvious how popular it was.

It is exactly your defense of what I posted above. He writes carefully to avoid contradicting himself. He makes it seem like 3d was a great disruptor and that Nintendo went overboard, when in reality he just clearly didn't know what he was talking about. It was an obvious cop out.

Well, I dig a hole and then spend my first night in it listening for scary mobs wandering around :D then BAM... dozen or two hours later the hole transformed into a freaking fortress with docks, mob traps, farm, trees, tower, gun slots, automatic turrets, cannons and glass rooftop.

But if I wanted to build some fancy-shmancy castle just for the reason "here, look, people, here's on what I waste my time" I'd never bothered with Survival. Why? Why build smth for the single reason to build when creatures annoys you, when you don't have endless supply of cubes like in Creative etc. Just do it in Creative and don't bother with Survival, weirdo, while all normal people play Survival :D

So that's you who missed all the fun ;) The true Minecraft is the one when Survival was introduced.

P.S.: Though there're quite a lot videos on youtube when people play it a-la nomad, i.e. they never rest on a  single place twice. Pretty cool, too.