| Sky Render said: It's funny that every single innovation you listed is only about making things "more" and "bigger", and not about making them "different". To wit: online gaming - Expansion of offline multiplayer gaming. optical storage media - Makes space for games bigger. local hard disk media - Makes space for games bigger. wireless controllers - Makes it possible to play anywhere, which is good; but Nintendo pioneered this too with the WaveBird. motion controllers - Truly innovate, but again, Nintendo pioneered this. usb interface - Expansion of interface options. wireless communication - I assume you mean WiFi, which is again just an expansion of offline multiplayer gaming. hi-def - Improves visual quality. Let's look at the innovations by Nintendo which you didn't touch on, shall we? d-pad - Makes it possible to play video games in a two-handed controller format comfortably, unlike joysticks, and expands gameplay options as a result. analog - Allows for easier movement in 3-dimensional space, heightening the realm of control options significantly. rumble - Adds vibration for additional gameplay immersion. camera eye controller - Allows for pointer interface interaction, further expanding gameplay options. Notice a trend here? All of Nintendo's innovation either adds new elements entirely to gameplay options or adds to the immersion factor. |
Well, I wanted to just expand upon your points ...
Microsoft and Sony are both very good at evolutionary improvements, but these improvements tend to be very obvious because you're (essentially) taking technology that already exists and is being used for a similar purpose in another market and taking advantage of it. Optical media had been used for gaming purposes for years before companies like Sega or SNK decided to include it in add-ons for their gaming systems (see. Dragon's Lair), and online gaming had been toyed with on the NES and Sega Genesis with limited success and caught on in the PC market more than 5 years before Sega and Microsoft made it a core feature of their systems.
Nintendo is very good at revolutionary improvements, in particular to revolutionary improvements when it comes to user-interfaces. There is a reson for this that many people never seem to get ... Nintendo always has considered themself a software company and their hardware is designed to fit the needs of the software they're trying to build. If you get it in your mind that you want to build an amazingly simple user interface where a person can play a videogame using no more than 2 buttons you're probably going to seek out hardware to accomplish this task; when you find a direct pointing interface and motion controlls, and you see how these make gaming easier to approach and more intuitive you're going to base your controller on these technologies. You can imagine how someone created the "Vision" of Wii Fit and the balance board started to become an idea to fit the development needs ...
Sony is a hardware company, and they will always see a console in terms of the technologies "under the hood" and the user interface will only be a consideration for how to get people to use the "Real" system. Microsoft is a services company and they will always see the console in terms of the services it provides and the user-interface and console hardware is only a consideration for how to get people to use the "Real" system. Nintendo is a software company and the User Interface is the system.
