Squilliam said:
The Wii didn't sneak past anything. That gunman walked in the front door and blew everyone else away. Nintendo had this generation won before they fired their first shot. It was Sony and Microsoft who brought the knives, but Nintendo changed the rules and brought the gun to a knife fight. |
Damn well put. Iwata kept telling everybody exactly what they were doing but everyone knew poor little Nintendo was "Game Over" and treated it all as a big joke, funny name, no HD, they've gotta be kidding.
Even when they revealed the Wiimote everybody still took it as a joke. Go back and read the magazines of the day if you want a good insight into hubris and blindness.
Interestingly, one Sony executive did "get it". He apparently picked up the Wiimote and actually blurted out to a reporter something like, "if they actually have this little son of a bitch working, they just ate our lunch!"
As Squilliam says, it was already over, the people that had just been shot through the heart just didn't realize it for a few more months.
What can Sony and Microsoft do now against Nintendo who is making money like they printed it. Whose stock is still at 300% over launch day, even after the crash, Is worth more (capitalization) than Sony. And only has a payroll of < 5,000 workers to carry instead of Sony's 160,0000 and the Microsoft Army. Nintendo is spending money on R&D at the rate 5-8 billion yen/yr and have an uncommited cash reserve of something between 12 -20 Billion US$.
In comparison Sony is essentially broke and in survival mode and MS probably has more cash BUT not that they will sink into video games.
If MS moves aggresively towards casual they will just drive the hardcore back to Sony. I doubt that MS has the first clue how to begin to compete with a lean, innovative fast moving company that can completely reinvent itself as required.
It's hard to imagine two culture's more opposite than Iwata's "keep it simple, make it reliable" and the "push it out the door now"philosophy that lead directly to RRD.
