celine said:
I don't want to respond to all, too long. BTW can you cite me a big budget game for Wii that isn't made by Nintendo ? Publishers haven't get the balls to risk on Wii yet ( a correct behaviour in the old context but a wrong one in the new context, this is why Disruption is interesting ). I am not clear on budgets. The only ones we will know for sure is when games like Fatal Frame and Conduit come out. I never specifically mentioned budget. I meant developers put good effort and made good games that the Wii was originally advertising as its strength (innovative games like Boom Blox and Blastworks and Zak and Wiki) but in the end, found no more market than the less worthy developers who knew how to market to the non-gamers. Passing to your second paragraph well I hope it wasn't mean to be taken seriously, I pass directly to the "McDonald part" so I explain what I wanted to say. Yeah it was a joke mostly. Maybe a bad one :( Everybody can do a better and more tasteful hamburger than McDonald but what McDonald is so skillifull is to do a great quantity of hamburger at a cheap price. Yes I have never disagreed with this point. I believe that when a company can sell alot of product while others in the same industry can't is because they do something right and this is what I mean with "sales don't lie". And what I really meant was that sales don't lie but they hardly tell everything. Too many variables into what sells. Something selling can be from a various number of factors and quality or value is not a mandatory requirement. I also clearly am of the position that Nintendo is doing things right in the business sense(for now) but not necessarily doing good for gamers. In your post you cite often that more raw power is the next right step. The problem is that this is the wrong answer. The VG industry is an entertainment-driven one NOT technolog-driven. What means most is if you can entertain many customers. I think you've misunderstood me. I never said that raw power is the next right step, otherwise it would be PC gaming thats dominating. Its proper advancements. The Wii-mote to me, seems somewhat half baked. Motion + might change this but as soon as the Wii released and I got my hands on Zelda, I realized this was not what I was hyped for. 360 and PS3 has the ability to appease many customers and now 360 is also cheaper. Its just that the Wii is advertised as a non-gamer system yet the others are not advertised so. My father has no issues playing games like Geometry Wars, Streets of Rage, Castle Crashers, Burnout and even GTA4. These games clearly have their own advantages towards the casual market but is mostly advertised to core gamers. The 360 and PS3 are surpassed by the Wii in this sense because the Wii has a clear marketing gimmick and sells its system as tailored for the non-gamer and at a lower price point. We must not forget that the cost is also half of the Wii's success. At 400 dollars at launch, the Wii would not see the sales its seeing now. I say this because the market was ready to be disrupted, the graphic is becoming/has become a commodity to many persons. A smart move in this situation is doing something that surprise the customers, not doing more of the same. Disruption is a Nintendo marketing gimmick and things that analysts use to generalize a situation in a detailed way(yes I know it sounds contradictory..) as to make themselves seem more credible and in control. The truth is, this ignores so much of the realities of this generation and the motivations behind each company. MS is not after the casual market first and foremost. Its after the Media-PC market and they would much prefer to set themselves up as the premier digital distributor and provider of online gaming over say, having a very affordable Xbox that does what the Wii does and makes tons of money on hardware sales. Even if the Xbox did come out with the exact same plan as Nintendo, they would not be ensured success either as they do not have the brand power of Nintendo when it comes to casual games. MS is simply spending tons of money to build a foundation for something much bigger and we all know what this is. The PS3 was also radically different. It launched at an INSANE price, and its STILL catching up to the 360 with barely any games to support it... If Sony was to release the console earlier, sealed its exclusives and not included Bluray so as to launch at a reasonable price between $300-400, I am 80% confident that it would have beaten the Wii and the Xbox would be dead last in terms of third party support and sales. Instead, they opted to win the format war by forcing Bluray on gamers. Only time will tell of Bluray's victory was the right choice in the long run. Obviously every person has its tastes and can like or dislike the paradigm shift brought by Nintendo. But what is every day more harder to say is that Nintendo's way is the wrong one. It isn't any harder to say Nintendo's way is wrong than saying MS's way is wrong(in the OS market) or McDonalds way is wrong. Many people say McDonalds is evil because of its success. Many people say MS becomes complacent with its success. There isn't an exception for Nintendos dominance in the console market of casual gamers. Nintendo has captured a new market of gamers which is why they are successful. They use marketing terms like "legs"(such an irrelevant issue) and disruption(as if all companies have the same goal) to appear more in control than they are. As far as I can see, the Wii's success is pretty short term. Casual gamers are not loyal and are really untested waters. They would have to seriously have to offer something incredible next generation in order to stave off the standardization of motion controls. |
