The Seventh Generation: A Civil War, or a Schism?

[Kenny]

noname2200 said:

JGarret said:
"And I'll be quite surprised if this era ends as acrimoniously as it began."

noname, but if it does end as it began, what are the advantages and disadvantages for ___________ (fill in the blank, it could be Nintendo, the industry as a whole, etc..)?

To be honest, I haven't given that enough thought. I'm confident this particular divide will (mostly) heal by the time the generation ends. We went through something eerily similar with the DS just a few years ago, for instance (check out articles and forums from 2004-5, for instance), and that's pretty much worked itself out.

Moreover, my reading of the situation is that the hostility directed towards the console newcomers is right around Step 4 in the healing process right now: all but the most devout developer, for instance, at least gives accessibility and the expanded audience lip service (see, e.g., CliffyB's comments about Gears of War 2, and how he hoped it would also hold some appeal for the expanded audience). By contrast, many of those same developers were dismissive, if not outright hostile, towards the new values back in 2006 (classic examples: the duct-tape speech, "non-gamers").

If you're still interested in hearing my thoughts, I'll be happy to give them, but let me tell you upfront that I haven't thought this through all the way.

But lip service is all it is.  They have to find some way to appease their own stockholders, but actions speak louder than words, and there's been no indication that any action is being taken.  Consider, for example, Valve's repeated comments on developing for the Wii, with the first dating back to January 2007.  So far, the score is still PS3 1, Wii nothing as far as their games are concerned.