windbane said:
Nintendo wasn't propping anyone up the last 10 years. Sony carried and expanded the market, not Nintendo. Personally, I think it would be awesome if Nintendo was a software company, or at least partnered with a hardware company. Of course, it would be my dream for them to combine with Sony. Even if that never happens, their strength has always been the software, not the hardware. They tried to depend on their first party games to sell their consoles the last 10 years and they found out it didn't work. Despite having some of the best games ever made every generation, they still need third party support and hardware power. They have gotten some third party support back, but we'll see if they have the hardware to last because there are a ton of games that the Wii won't get. |
You THINK they weren't propping this industry up. Yes Sony WAS expanding the market which is part of why they won but it's not the whole story. You really need to check out gaming history, man. Even when Nintendo's "losing" they still influence a great deal of what goes on with the competitors. I can just point out controllers for the most obvious example. EVERYONE follows them. EVERYONE. Sony was the golden boy, Nintendo was the quiet whiz behind the scene keeping things running. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Sony can't profit like Nintendo. They really don't know this business that well yet.
It's like steroids. As long as the enhancement drugs are in the body you get all the glory while the journeyman just puts in his steady good effort unsung. But those drugs will eventually corrupt the body and wear off with scandal following. The journeyman who diligently put in the work steps up to his rightful place and gets his due glory. I call the money Sony & Microsoft pump into their systems to keep them afloat "Green Steroids".
They're not successful so much because they're good. They're successful because they're rich. It's just financial brute force. Nintendo is the one who said load times were bad long ago and worked to keep game start up time low as a company rule. They don't NEED a bunch of hard drive storage to start their games because they've figured out how to manage load times better on their systems. They stuck with cartridges for a host of reasons (less easy to tear up than discs, quick start up times, fears of piracy). Problem was the cost of that in comparison to CD's. They paid the price for sticking to their principles. They said cartridge based systems were dead. Ha! Before XBox 1 came along they were still partial cartridge systems. How do they think you can save data to come back to play later? Memory CARD??? CARD-TRIDGE??? Sony made a mistake making a disc-based system for a portable. It made the system more fragile which is the LAST thing a portable needed to be.
DS still runs on what? Cartridges. More efficient smaller space-saving cartridges. Gamecube went to disc because of the public but Nintendo STILL managed to keep load times nearly nonexistent on their system. ESPECIALLY if it came from the company itself.
Would we REALLY have wireless controllers right now on consoles if Nintendo didn't come out with the Wavebird and finally make wireless controllers viable? The latest Sims is influenced by freakin' Animal Crossing! Not just hardware but Nintendo's software influences how other companies make their games.
Believe it buddy. Nintendo IS this industry not just a part of it. They will ALWAYS be the home team while the competition are the visitors. I guarantee you 15, 20 years down the line when maybe Microsoft and/or Sony have quit the gaming biz Nintendo will still be here to take on the next comers still preedominantely shaping the way this industry develops and behaves. When they took over from Atari they rewrote the game business bible in their own image. Sometimes a competitor can get the best of them for a time but in the end they will always come out on top because they wrote the playbook. You're seeing that now with DS & Wii. Even GBA. Folks thought it was MS's turn to be top dog because of "the Atari era, the Nintendo era, the Sony era, and now the Microsoft era" since it would seem equilateral and fair. If 3rd party never fell out with Nintendo there never woulda BEEN a Sony era and that was Nintendo's fault in the first place. They paid for it and now payment is in full.
Without their mighty funds could either of those guys have even broken into the business to challenge Nintendo? Sega was the only one of the old school to take it to Nintendo and the success went to their head causing the 32X/Sega CD/Saturn/double the price fiascoes. The other guys HAD to be rich and play losslead just to be able to get started in this business. And it's STILL not working quite as well as Microsoft hoped.
You'll see by the end of this generation. Even when they are not "in control" they are still in control. Others have some power here to influence company direction (I just talked about Microsoft changing launch patterns in a recent thread) but none like Nintendo. I realize I sound like a broken record sometimes when I talk about 'em but it's only the truth.
John Lucas
(someone pointed out Rare. Nintendo's control freakiness influenced how Rare put out their games. They influence their 2nd party developers as well and Goldeneye 007 & Perfect Dark influenced FPS's games. Rare hasn't been Rare since they left for Microsoft though they are trying to get back to their old selves. Yes I'm aware that the Stamper Bros. & the original braintrust behind Rare left long ago. In the N64 days Nintendo & Rare were almost like 2 halves 'dark & light' of the same entity for awhile)
Words from the Official VGChartz Idiot
WE ARE THE NATION...OF DOMINATION!
