Yeah, and Sony's had one for over a decade but now that Nintendo is making headway it's suddenly bad? Get over yourself. I could just as easily make the argument that the PS1 killed hardcore gaming because it's main target was the casual market. There are planty of deep, involving games on the GC and there are/will be on the Wii.

Sony had a dominant position ,but not a monopoly .For you to have a monopoly you must have some conditions as being able to block the competitors entry in the market or charge them additional costos ,have exclusive access to some resources thorough gubernamental laws or pure rareness of those resources etc .Microsoft has monopoly in PC because with their dominant SO they can block others guys entering the arena or charge they costs to make their software compatible with Windows .Plus they are creating a cartel with the graphics card and Intel processor fabricants .Nintendo had a monopoly in the 8 bit and early 16 bit era through its exclusivity contracts ....if you developed for the Nes or Super Nes you accepted by contract not developing for the other consoles around .Monopoly .Sony hasnt got monopoly ,they cant block the entry of others in the market nor charge them additional costs or block for them the access to some resources .They just have a dominant position thats alla .If you knew about economy you would know that .If you have monopoly you cant be beaten ,Sony can be beaten and the current situation is showing it . As for the hardcore argument ......the DS doesnt have hardcore games .The Wii wont have them .The Cube had ,but less than the PS2 .The new success of Nintendo is precisely going after the casual .And dont lie yourself ,Iwata said explicitly they were going after the casual crowd and said selling their console to the hardcore would be like selling make-up for males http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3833&Itemid=2 ...yes they will throw here and there one bone to the hardcore ...but this is not our business .Many of you are very happy predicting Sony fail ,some to see Nintendo win others to see Microsoft take the monopoly ...I think if any of those things materializes you would be for a bad surprise .

What our current hardcore games are will never go away as long as the current "hardcore" market still has an interest in them, but it is likely that they may take a back seat to other games ... As your girlfriend, mother, daughter, sister, father and grand parents all become interested in videogames (on some level) games that interest them will likely be able to draw attention away from games that interest you ... Think of it like Music ... Currently Pop, Hip-Hop and Rap are remarkably popular in the mainstream but that doesn't make Rock and Metal go away does it? Will country ever be popular in the mainstream? Do people stop making country albums?

Here you have it .There will be still FF or Devil May Cry or Lost Planet ,but if it sells 1/10 of the game for daughters ,sisters ,fathers and grand parents it becomes its own niche games or sector of games.Lurking around the Top 50 or Top 100 at best .And people laughing in forums about how Baby Training beat the new Halo or FF by ten to one .Make no mistake ,if this happen the shift of most developers will be to create casual games that sell 2 million between all the casuals ,daughters ,sisters ,fathers and grandparents and not expensive and deep games that sell 250-300k units .Its the las of capitalism .Yes ,there will be a niche for hardcore somewhere but why do we have to have a niche in a industry that was our own ? And if you see this scenario very far away (at least the most sold game was Crackdown and the hardcore games seem still to do well in Occident ) look at what has happened in Japan ,where the casual games of the DS have had total control over the charts last year and have managed to eclipse many great games on other consoles ....the triumph of the casuals in a big degree is the beggining of the end for the traditional gamer market .Our own companies of hardcore games will soon understand that creating complex games spending millions to sell 1 million is useless when they can create cheapo casual games and sell millions to all the casuals out there .

I think that more than Nintendo the missed would be Miyamoto .As the greatest game designer in active its his work what makes Nintendo games "special " .Once Miyamoto is retired I doubt we will see something very distinctive in Nintendo .In any case even if they failed somehow they could always turn into a third party .

If you think Country and Rock are niche markets compared to Pop, Rap and Hip-Hop don't look at sales charts ...

I'll try to look for the interview, but awhile back Iwata and Miyamoto talked about how Nintendo had several amazing developers who would be very well known if it wasn't for Miyamoto's popularity; IIRC these developers where the ones who were producing a large portion of the games that have been so successful on the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.

Again, I could just as easily say PS1 killed hardcore gaming. This was an argument thrown around allot back in the mid 90's and quite a bit of it has proven true. 2d games are virtually non-existant, shmups are a nich just like fighters and "true" RPG's are no more. The market changes, just as peoples taste change and this is something that can't be helped, but on the upside the remaining "true" RPG's, Shumps, ect are very "hardcore". Of course sll of this can be traced back to the rise of the PS1, it's emphasis on 3d and Sony's goal of selling games to the most people - something Nintendo decides to call the casual market. Make no mistake about it, Sony want's to appeal to the "casuals" as much as possible and it's how their previous systems sold well. Remember Crash Bandicoot? That was far from a "hardcore" title and something meant to sell to the masses. Or look at the PS2's library for some modern proof. Madden and the like, as well as tons of kiddie games(yes, more than nitnendo) just goes to show how the PS2 is built on the casual market. In my mind you're logic is fataly flawed, not to mention lacking in evidence. With casual titles and a large market share will come many niche games becuase that will become a viable market on a system with a large install base. Don't believe me then just look at you're beloved PS2 and PS1, systems that sold 100mil by appealing to the casuals. BTW, if we are to take monopoly in the strictist sense of the term then what has Nintendo done recently that's monoploistic? Why bring up monopoly at all if you arn't going to explicitly state how Nintendo will be a worse marketleader than Sony, especially if you dont back anything up.

Playstation 1 emphasis on 3d ??!! Dont let the retrohystory fool you .....it wasnt Sony who released a console with a controller specialiced in 3d and who neglected 2d ..... You dont know what you are talking about ,there are tons of 2d fighting games and shot them ups in the PSone (Darius V ,R-Type Leo ,R-Types ,Viewpoint ,Gundam ,tons more ) .It was the N64 who had none of these . I have backed everything I said .Nintendo was monopolistic then ,not now .Microsoft is monopolistic then and now .SOny hasnt been monopolistic ever . I am not a PS2 user .By the way ,I thing PS1 and PS2 expanded the market but letting hardcore gaming at the center stage .I dont see Nintendo systems doing this right now .

Sony not monopolistic? What do you call UMD, BETA, Memory Stick, etc? Those are deliberate attempts to monopolize formats by Sony.