Does Nintendo get too much credit for saving videogames?

[choirsoftheeye]

TalonMan said:

Words Of Wisdom said:

Nintendo is not the Holy Grail and it is not God.

The folks who make the video game industry great aren't the console manufacturers; it's the video game developers of which Nintendo is only one of, if one of the oldest/most successful ones.

Nintendo has done a lot of innovative things in the past but I don't think they have a monopoly on creativity. It's not as if only Nintendo can be creative and it's a mistake to think that. Though I will say that Sega, the way it was back in the Genesis/SNES era, felt far more creative than the entirety of the MS-xbox division and Sony put together.

I think very highly of Nintendo and its accomplishments, but one can't be objective while wearing a fanboy T-Shirt. It's sad so many people are wearing them...

While I agree that perhaps johnlucas' view is a bit overstated when he claims the entire industry would die without Nintendo, it certainly does bring up a valid consideration. Let's, for the moment, stick to hardware creativity because, even though it's the games that make or break a system, it's the hardware the games are run on that even gives them a chance. With that in mind, let's just narrow the focus to controllers (since they are the main I/O that all users are required to use) and who's doing what in this area.

Do I really need to break this down for you? Can you name even one thing that either MS or Sony added to the industry when it comes controllers? Whether it's Sony's SNES designed 'Dual Shock' or MS's Dreamcast/GCN style, I see nothing happening that makes me think either one of them would be capable of broadening the imagination of developers - I get the impression they'd be content with recylcing the same controller every generation albeit with faster hardware. And that's something that really could kill an industry...

 

 More significantly than Word's example, actually, is that the Dual Shock had two analog sticks.  It's not a revolution (or really something that took much innovation (drrrrr lets add another one!)), but in certain games that was a rather useful innovation.