Nintendo's failings started a generation before the N64, with the SNES. Specifically, they made the SNES to compete with the Genesis. And that was the beginning of their fall from the lofty position they'd made for themselves with the NES. Like so many companies, their response to the first truly effective assault on their market share was to make a system to claim that market share back by fighting the same battle as their competitors, instead of making their competitors irrelevant with another blue ocean strategy.
While this worked alright, the main reason why was because their competitors were either small-time like themselves (as in the case of Sega), or not interested/capable of fully conquering the market in spite of their size (as with NEC). When Sony entered the picture, however, that all changed. In a red ocean of directly competing products, the one with the most money can buy themselves the most success, and that's exactly what Sony did. Nothing short of breaking out of the market of direct competition could have helped Nintendo during the years of 1995 to 2006, as a result.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
