Nah, I disagree. Gen 7 was very long, but don't forget that PS360 were cutting edge when they entered the market.  On the other hand PS4 has been outdated day 1. PS4 and Xbone are nothing special, their specs are totally average, there is no way around it. This gen will be shorter and faster adoption rate makes it even easier to do. Instead of ridiculously expensive future-proof consoles, we get cheaper consoles with a shorter lifespan. This gen will easily be 2-3 years shorter, mark my words.

Don't use the PS2 example, it's unfair and you are clearly doing it wrong. When PS2 hit the market, it was what dreams were made of and it was the most powerful console on the market. It also came after PSX, which dominated the market and it has been on the market for 1-1.5 year before the more powerful GCN and Xbox were released, so it had a lot of time to build its position. On the other hand, NX is gonna enter a market where Xbone is already established, while PS4 is universally beloved and destined to repeat the PS2 success story. Sorry, but there is no place for a weaker console. It would be a second Wii U tragedy, nobody would care about it. People would compare the consoles and go "PS4 has a larger library, better graphics in upcoming multiplats and my friends already have one". Also the brand of Nintendo is nowhere near as strong as that of PlayStation and PS4 will possibly be as cheap as $299. So again, where is the selling point of such a console? UI? Give me a break. Such a console would have nothing to draw people's attention to. If they want Mario to be the only selling point, they can as well stick with the Wii U till the end of the gen.

That doesn't matter when they are making more money. As long as the systems are selling, Sony and Microsoft will continue making them, and they will sell for a long time because absolutely no one cares how they stack up to PCs. These consoles have a better chance of selling for longer, not less.

The PS2 was the weakest console on the market, what are you talking about? No body cares about having the strongest console, as long as they get all the same games and they run well, as proven by the objectively weaker PS2. It wouldn't be a second Wii U, because the NX won't be a generation weaker than its competition like the Wii U was.

The argument that Playstation is a stronger brand is highly debatable to the point of farcehood. Nintendo has objectively stronger brands in the form of its IP, and the Wii proved in recent history that Nintendo can brand products that out sell Playstation post PS2. Every Nintendo portable has outsold every playstation portable by a lightlyear. But Nintendo's brand is "nowhere near as strong?" Get out of here. At worse, they are equally as strong. At best, Nintendo clearly edges them out in actual brand power. Playstation couldn't dream of having a theme park, or a successful line of multimedia content based on their Playstation brand alone. Nintendo has been eating shit for years, and could wake up in 20 years to some of the most successful movies, TV shows, toys, and theme parks on the Nintendo name alone. Nintendo has been doing bad because they've been releasing crappy products, not because their brand is weak.

There's no way in hell the PS4 is reaching the 150m hights that PS2 did, so no, it won't be a PS2 success story. It'll be a PS1 success story, maybe 10m or 20m more than that (I'd bet on 115m personally), only with much better competition in the form of the XBO and likely the NX, both of which will absolutely sore past the pitiful 30m installed base that was the PS1's competition, the N64.

Like I said, I already knew people would scoff at the idea of a good UI selling a console platform massively. And I don't blame you. It's never been done on consoles. You probably can't wrap your head around what that even means. It's so abstract and alien. "Better menus will sell the NX? Bah-humbug!" Sounds silly. But that's exactly what sold the iphone, and that's what will sell the NX. A really good UI. Everything else was already being done well enough on the Blackberry and even the Sidekick before it. Then the iphone came in with it's fancy UI, OS, and firmware and birthed the smart phone. I'm not going to get mad that you can't understand it. You will when you see it. Like, immediately. In fact, I'm sure many will as early as when the membership program launches.

Don't know why you brought up Mario being the only selling point though. It's not. It's the platform. That's the selling point.

We'll see, I expect this gen to be shorter than last one, as I've said and I see no reason to change that opinion. The consoles sell fast, get outdated fast, get replaced fast. You expect Nintendo to release console every 2 years, yet think MS and Sony are going to stand pat for 8 years? You really need to think this through one more time.

PS2 was the most powerful console on the market when it was released. If you have any doubt, check when it was released (hint - 2000) and when GCN was released (hint - 2001/2002 depending or region) and when Xbox was released (hint - same year as GCN). It would be a second Wii U, because it would be so late to the party, that at this point in time nobody is gonna care about such inferior hardware, when they can get better hardware with better library and at an affordable price. After 3 years people who own PS4/Xbons are gonna ask themselves - why should I upgrade? They won't find a single reason. New customers will compare the consoles and NX will be by far the worst option, both in terms of libraries and quality of multiplat games. This is really very simple - NX wouldn't have any real selling point except for Nintendo games, hence another Wii U story.

I'm gonna repeat this, PlayStation is a more powerful brand than Nintendo. I'm not talking about brands like Mario or Pokemon, cause these are already separate brands or even companies in case of Pokemon. Trust me, there are millions of people, maybe even the majority of people, that have no idea that Mario or Pokemon are in any way connected to Nintendo. Hell, many people who are well aware of Mario and Pokemon, enjoy both, have no idea that there is such a thing as Nintendo (I mainly talk about females here). The brands that belong to them are great, but the brand of Nintendo itself really isn't that strong. I am 100% sure that in my country Gameboy is a more powerful brand than Nintendo. PlayStation? It's in a different league.

And seriously, don't use Wii as an example of anything. That console is such an odd one, such a lightning-in-a-bottle-type story, that it can't be used to prove anything. It was a one in a million type of success that Nintendo is so far incapable of coming close to repeating and I refuse to accept it as a strong argument for anything. They had one chance and they nailed it. Kudos, but it's back to reality now.

I'm not saying PS4 will reach 150 mil, mainly because the gen will be short, but it will track close to PS2. I think it's ahead of PS2 as of now?

Ok. Please tell me then, what is this UI supposed to introduce to be so revolutionary? And at the same time please explain to me why should I believe that a company that's still in stone age when in comes to UI and user experience (still no account system...) is suddenly supposed to jump ahead of a software giant like MS or Sony, which is already capable of streaming any single game to pretty much any device connected to the Internet? I mean, Nintendo has fallen behind so badly during the Wii era, that they still haven't reached the PS360 level in many key aspects. How are they supposed to make a leap worth of few generations? And why isn't Sony already one step ahead of what you're suggesting with PS Now?

Smartphone was a revolution and it came after the revolutionary Ipod. I honestly doubt that Nintendo has a revolution coming. And by the way, you are starting to sound like our good ol' friend GeorgeLucas (I think that was his nick name?)

We have to wait till NX releases, I hope for Nintendo's sake that it turns out to be capable of playing every single multiplat at 1080p/60fps and that it's a regular console. But I have a strange gut feeling, that they'll go crazy with it again... If they do, at least I hope I'll like it like I did with the Wii, cause I really need Mario Kart in my life

Pretty sure MS is already hiring hardware engineers for the next XBox. So that "no XBox" fantasy can probably die right now. Would've been nice for Nintendo since they haven't done well with the core audience since MS arrived and basically just assumed the no.2 role right from Halo launch. 

Before that Nintendo wasn't doing great with that crowd but at least with things like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, NBA Courtside, 1080, Star Wars games, etc. they were some what relevant. After Nintendo allowed themselves to get beat by even the original XBox, it went all downhill, Nintendo basically got locked out of that audience entirely and so today when the casuals bailed out on Nintendo, you have a pretty predictable situation of no one but Nintendo fans being interested in a Nintendo home console. 

You've simply handed over too much of your audience to the likes of Sony/MS on one end, and then Apple/Google (casuals) on the other end without putting up a fight for either one. 

Lmao, who ever said there would be no hardware? I've been saying the next Xbox hardware would basically be a PC-console, akin to what Steam is trying to do with their Steam Machines. Of course they'd call that hardware Xbox. Why wouldn't they?

There's absolutely nothing stopping Nintendo getting a significant part of either audience back, especially the mainstream western "core" audience.

There are several things stopping them. Most notably the fact that Sony and MS aren't stupid and won't just give Nintendo that audience back. 

If it was so easy to get that audience back Nintendo would have at some point in the last 20 years gotten around to doing it. 

Nintendo would fundamentally have to change their company in much more dramatic ways than what most of their fanbase thinks because they are out of touch with today's teenager/young college male. 

Nintendo gonna money hat exclusives and DLC? Nope. Nintendo gonna market on the NFL on Sundays? Nope. How about FIFA for Europe or NHL for Canada? Nope and nope. Will Nintendo tone down all the Disney-character properties in favor of making more violent action game IPs like Uncharted, God of War, Gears of War, Halo, etc. Nope. Nintendo going to dramatically reinvest in Western big money (and big risk) studio ventures, the way Sony has who has basically scaled back their Japanese development to almost nada? Nope. 

Sony/MS know what they're doing with that audience, for Nintendo to seriously compete in a lot of ways would mean altering the company in ways that would be way out of their comfort zone. 

Talk to the kid who's buying a PS4/XB1 instead of a Wii U. You will see when you talk to enough of that audience ... Nintendo is not even in the conversation. Some of them maaaaybe bought a Wii as a party machine thing to play with the girlfriend, but never as a replacement for their 360 or PS3. And now that that fad is over, Nintendo's basically just right back to selling consoles only to the same group of Nintendo fans. 

Beyond that there isn't room in the industry for three companies doing basically the same thing. Never has been, never will be. Wii is the only outlier and that's only because they went out of their way to target a completely different audience. Which was a smart play, too bad they screwed up with that audience too. 

I don't need to think anything through. Nintendo will be able to have a new system out every two years because it will have no negative impact on their platform or their audience. It would be absolutely ludacris to do that on platforms like the PS4 and XBO that are so tied to their hardware. If the PS5 and XB2 came out tomorrow, you just fucked over 30m consumers who can't play your next game. When the NX does the same thing, that won't happen, because the platform is completely independant of the hardware. They could release a new hardware skew every day for a year and they'd all be able to play the same game, just at different setting. The PS360 were outdated for years before they got replaced, and were still selling well into the current generation. Nobody cares if they're outdated if devs are still making games for them, which they will, because they'll have no other significant alternative. No one but PC gamers, who will forever be cursed to have their games limited to what consoles far weaker than them can do.

The Wii U was the most poweful console on the market when it released, so if that's what you're getting at, that's a moot point. The 360 was the most powerful console on the market when it released, and then the much weaker Wii destroyed it. Being stronger has absolutely nothing do do with the PS2 selling. If anything, being a cheap DVD player is what sold it. Can't even take your "don't count the Wii" weaseling seriously. Your example works outside of the twenty cases when they don't, but those can't count.

The NX isn't targeted at current PS4 and XBO owners to upgrade. It's targeted at the other 100m who won't have upgraded yet. And most won't care that it's a little weaker, just like all the XBO owners who don't care that the XBO is weaker. It'll be powerful enough to get multiplats, and it'll have the boosted library of first party games. And, well and above all that, it'll have the system selling "smart console" platform ecosystem. People will have plenty of reason to jump onto NX.

I'm gonna repeat it again, very debatable. You can't handwave away Nintendo's IP like they aren't part of their brand. They are. That's like saying Disney isn't a powerful brand if you don't count Marvel and Star Wars and Pirates and Cinderella and Mickey Mouse and The Lion King and... That's stupid. Pokemon isn't a "separate brand." Nintendo owns Pokemon. They own the IP. They own the copyrights for all the species. They own TPC. The only thing they don't own is Gamefreak. The absolutely ridiculous idea that there's even a significant minority of people who don't know that Pokemon or Mario are Nintendo is grounds to end this discussion right here, because now you're flat out making shit up. Gameboy is Nintendo. You're literally making shit up to push your point. Again, Playstation could absolutely never, in its current state, hope to do with it's brand the kinds of thing Nintendo can do with its brand right now, at its lowest point in its history as a gaming publisher. In fact, Playstation, in its highest point in the PS2 era, couldn't hope to do any more than a tiny fraction of what Nintendo can do with its brand right now at its lowest point as a console manufacturer. Playstation World doing better than Nintendo World? Give me a break. An Uncharted movie doing better than a Mario movie? Or a Pokemon movie? Even a lower tier franchise like a Metroid movie? Yeah, right. But I'm sure a Sony line of figurines would absolutely destroy Amiibo. I'm so sure.

I've already explained why it's so revolutionary. Like I said, I don't blame you for not understanding something you've never seen before when you're reading it on an online forum. But on your point of how they're stuck in the stone age with their current UI and OS, they've never tried before. No one in the console space has. No one, especially not Nintendo, has ever tried to change a console platform like this before. But now they want to. Asking how they'll be able to do it when they've never done it before is like asking, pre-Wii era, how they'll be the poineers of motion gaming when motion gaming on the GCN sucks. It's silly. They never even attempted to have a modern, forward thinking OS. Now they are. They've never attempted to have a modern online infrastructure. Now they are. That's why they payed $100m to have a controlling stake in a company who's entire MO is doing this kind of stuff.

Sony will get there. Streaming isn't there yet and PS Now's library will take years upon years before it becomes large enough to be a competing factor. But it will get there, and that's what they'll eventually replace the PS4 with when it does. But that's for another topic. Sony likely didn't go the smart console route because they hadn't thought of it. Or because, given their poor performance with other smart devices they actually tried with, didn't see it as a neccesary risk given how poorly those did. And they were right, obviously, since the competition didn't try it, and the PS4 is selling like a titan. Doesn't mean it can't be done, though, lol. The Blackberry was the Blackberry until there was the iphone. PS Now and this aren't the same thing at all. If anything, PS Now/Gamespy would be nothing more than apps contributing to the bigger idea of a smart console, like Netflix or Spotify on a smart phone.

Your opinion on whether or not it is a revolution is absolutely you own and valid, but Nintendo absolutely is sure that this thing is a revolution. There's no questioning that. Nintendo is 100% confident that this concept will utterly redefine what it means to be a video game console, which is exactly what Apple did when it redefined what it means to be a cellphone with the iPhone.

George Lucas or whatever wasn't even remotely as critical of Nintendo as I am, if he was at all. I have overwhelmingly more bad things to say about them than good. I'm not saying this stuff because I'm some crazed fan - I'm saying it because it's blatantly obvious. And I've been saying the exactly the same kinds of things with Sony and PS Now and Microsoft with Window 10. They are the future of traditional platform gaming, and all three will be massively successful. Playstation is going to make a killing of PS Now absolutely eliminating the need to sell physical consoles anymore, Microsoft have enough brand power to make Steam obsolete with their Windows 10 XBL platform while still appealing to what used to be the traditional console gamer with Steam Machine-like hardware that will actually be successful, and the NX is going propel itself as one of the most foreward thinking consoles ever made. The only reason I bring up the NX more is because, unlike the other two, this thing is coming out next year.

There's no way it's going to be a regular console. That "gut feeling" you have is the countless articles and patents literally confirming that it will not be a regular console. Also, I'm not saying that it won't be more powerful than the PS4. I just am like 80% sure it won't be, because it definitely doesn't need to be, and Nintendo will likely be very happy with the prospects of being "affordable" for the launch NX rather than being more powerful. It'll be "crazy" in that it'll have stuff like a digital only platform and the home console will retain the second screen and the whole firmware focus thing. It just won't be "crazy" in the "you control the game with your feel" kind of way.

But there's absolutely 100% no way in holy hell it's playing every multiplat in 1080p 60fps, not even if it's twice as powerful as the PS4. Put that dream to rest. This isn't PC land.

Sony and Microsoft don't have a choice. This isn't kindergarten. You don't share installed base. They don't own customers. They have nothing to give. If Nintendo have compelling hardware that appeals to that audience, there's literally nothing they can do about that audience choosing to go to Nintendo. It has nothing to do with being "stupid" or "letting" Nintendo get anything.

I hope you aren't honestly trying to imply that the reason Nintendo lost so much of their audience isn't because Nintendo have done a shit job with consoles over the past 20 years, but because big-bad Sony and Microsoft stole the audience and won't give it back.

They already do moneyhat exclusives. Their marketing efforts worked fine with the Wii, so insinuating that they couldn't possibly figure out a way to market the NX either is hilariously incorrect. Who ever said they'd need to tone down anything in order to support a more diverse library of new western appealing IP? Not me. Disney sure didn't need to.

Nintendo is all about operating outside of their comfort zone. They just made a $100m investment explicitly to operate outside their comfort zone. I see no reason outside of your own personal unreasonable doubt why Nintendo couldn't or wouldn't invest well in any of the things you mentioned, or why we shouldn't believe that they could already doing it right now behind the scenes.

That kid is buying those systems over the Wii U because they are better systems with less problems with more games that the Wii U will never get. Comparing that and saying the NX can't succeed because "Nintendo's bad console didn't appeal to anyone" is silly. If Nintendo makes good hardware with a large enough library of games, those people will buy it. There's no magical Nintendo curse that makes it impossible for Nintendo to sell console hardware to the mainstream audience. There is absolutely room for three consoles. Nintendo releasing hardware duds isn't proof of the opposite. It's merely proof that Nintendo has, in the past, released weird ass hardware duds.

So basically Nintendo is going to release a console that is going to have

- 12-20 games at launch (at best) versus 2000+ for the PS4/XB1

- A system that uses the same "LCD screen on controller" that failed miserably to move any consoles this generation.

- Is going to be 3 years late, and even better yet, still be less powerful than the PS4/XB1 which could be as cheap as $250-$300 with another round of price cuts next fall.


This is going to be a magic winning formula for Nintendo? Haha, count me as big time skeptic of that.

That is an extremely underwhelming sales proposition to anyone who isn't a died in the wool Nintendo fan.

I don't think the console is really going to do that well, and I don't think Nintendo really expects it to. We've seen the hardware splits for the GBA versus GCN and Wii U versus 3DS ... even Nintendo fans don't buy Nintendo consoles overwhelmingly.

The numbers don't lie. Unless they have a new gimmick that attracts a new audience like the Wiimote did, then what unification really is is Nintendo wisely protecting themselves from a segregated game library that forces half of their better games on to a platform that has no chance at mass market adoption.

Need to get those Splatoons and Bayonetta 2s and Xenoblade Xs and Mario Kart 8s of the world on the portable side, Nintendo no longer has the luxury of keeping them segregated away from 80% of their own audience. 

No, because that isn't anywhere close to an accurate portrayal of what the NX will be, with the 20 launch games thing especially being flat out wrong. The eshop will guarantee it will launch with hundreds. But of course, you already know how wrong this whole post is. No need to beat a dead horse.