Against the Industry (Malstrom)

[Khuutra]

mrstickball said:

Lets see:

• Lack of financial incentives for 3rd parties to come to systems causes less products on the platform 
• Proprietary memory formats (DS carts, Wii disks) allow for more control over manufacturing process, stymying competition and innovation in media (which allows Nintendo more control and revenue over the system, since they control it)
• Excessive profits on hardware means greater costs to consumers
• Lack of price drops on consoles to keep pace with comparables.

That's among other things. The key to the statement is that Nintendo is fantastic at maintaining strong profit margins. However, such a thing comes at cost to the consumer in some of the aforementioned things. It's not 'good' or 'bad' persay, as Nintendo absolutely has to do it, or else face bankruptcy. I think, in some cases, they could handle it better, but such an argument may come at a cost in another area.

Maintaining profit margins is not the same as screwing consumers. None of those four points are actually negatives toward consumers - Nintendo creates a value proposition and people buy it. They do not try to force anything down people's throats, certainly not in the sense that Maelstrom is talking about.

Nothing that you name has hurt consumers. They do not try to take software rights away, they aren't among the companies leading the crusade against the used games market, and they are not among the companies that actively try to turn their developers into celebrities (Miyamoto's status, at this point, can't be helped, and still is not leveraged).

I don't think you're making a very cohesive argument.