Forbes: How Sony Should Respond to a Disruptive Attack (PS3 vs. Wii)

[Final-Fan]

TheSource said:
Movies are stagnant though. What is the last great innovative you have seen? I see dozens of movies but I can't think of a truly groundbreaking movie in the last few months. The mainstream movie industry is completely driven by proven sequels and liscences.

Nintendo's traditional games/semi-tradtional are selling higher than they have in a long while - whether on DS (New Super Mario Brothers), or Wii (Zelda should hit what 4 million worldwide? - 2nd or 3rd highest for any Zelda game). The case for semi-traditional games (Mario Party 8) selling better is even stronger. That means either a) The set of gamers you call Nintendo gamers is growing, or b) People who don't love/adore Nintendo on name alone are buying the name. I think it is mostly the second scenario.

Frankly it isn't that hard to appeal to old and new audiences. It happenes every generation. Sony sure as hell succeeded at it from 1997-2006. Nintendo did it from 1985-1996. If you want to stick to the old argument that old experiences are superior since people know what to do with them, go ahead, but look at movies - how many hardcore silent film afficianados are out there? I consider motion control a future industry standard much as sound has become for movies. What is debatable though is how quickly the standard materializes - movies saw a decade like transtion.

Ratatouille.

I think the movie analogy is a decent one, but I don't think that the silent/talkie example is a good one. I mean that was really a "zOMG we have to have this!" kind of thing, even if it did take a while for the industry to shift over completely. A better example might be B&W/color films. Color is much more versatile and obviously took over the market, but there are some good points to B&W as well, and it is still in use as recently as 2005 ("Good Night, and Good Luck.") as a stylistic choice. And then there's Pleasantville.

[edit: A better example still is CGI. Not every movie needs CGI, just like not every game benefits from motion controls. But they are both absolutely here to stay, and anyone who can't use CGI in movies or motion sensing in games is much more limited in the experience he is capable of giving to his audience -- depending on what he is trying to do.]

But the Forbes article is a transparent attempt to graft old ideas onto a market alien to the author.

Option #1 would be a lot tougher than the first time they copied Nintendo's new, innovative controller (Dual Shock). This one is not impossible, but very unlikely and difficult.

Option #2 is simply idiotic, as other users have said. This strategy would fail like the 32X. This option is the chief reason I am attacking this article.

Option #3 is alternately vague and highly unrealistic. The article seems to focus on putting new hardware on the market, and I highly doubt the author realizes how time-consuming, damaging, and costly that would be. The "new handheld" 'idea' is just hilarious.

The entire Forbes article is worthless because it focuses on Sony implementing a HARDWARE remedy when a SOFTWARE solution is the only practical one.

Overall, I think that Sony needs to play to their strengths, while taking cues from Nintendo as to what gamers want. By strengths I mean, yes, hardware capability, but also their PSN, the relatively large standard HDD, etc. I think that LittleBigPlanet is a sign that Sony may be doing just that. LBP is a very beautiful game with realistic graphics (albeit in a fantasylike setting) which is designed for people to share their creations online and play with others on PSN. The maps can be downloaded onto the HDD that EVERY PS3 has. A game like that will not be possible on XB360 until MS admits that Core is crippled and stops forcing games to be Core-compatible. (If they have already done this I am sorry, I am unaware of that.) Of course, MGS4 and FF13 won't hurt.