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jarrod on 10 May 2010
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Mazty said:
jarrod said:
Mazty said:
jarrod said:
Mazty said:
Nintendo could never beat Apple. Apple have better marketing and essentially better products. They may not be the best in the market e.g. their pad over others, but the build quality and accessibility are second to none. Plus they don't have any geeky stigma, especially with the iphone.

Nintendo makes better games though.  That's why they destroyed PlayStation this generation.

According to who?? Don't kid yourself. The Wii did not sell on quality game titles, it sold because it was accessible and family friendly while headed by heavy and very successful marketing. Most of the large selling wii titles are just shameless remakes, and so unless you think games shouldn't improve per generation, you've not got a leg to stand on.

Plus if farmville & MW2 have taught us anything, quality of games means nothing.

Nintendo won on the strength of their software.  Consumers chose Wii and DS because of games like New Super Mario Bros., Brain-Age, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Nintendogs, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, etc.  They make the best games in the business according to the massmarket.  That's their greatest strength against Apple, just as it was against Sony.

Some nice assumptions right there.

Yes the consumers bought the wii because of the software, BUT that does not mean it is the best software out there - it could just be better priced, marketed etc.

Also you say they are the "best" games. In what way? The best graphics? No. Best AI? No. Best online MP? No.
The most family friendly games? Certainly, but family friendly =/= best. Mario Galazy is probably the best platformer out there, but that is where genre leading titles end on the wii. Does it have a 3rd person shooter better than Gears or Uncharted? A hack and slash better than God of War? FPS' better than Killzone, Resistance, Halo etc? What about a racing sim better than Forza? Ora beat 'em up better than Street Fighter? The list just goes on.

The wii and the PS3 are aimed at two entirely different markets, so saying Nintendo beat Sony is like saying Kia beat Ferrari as it sells more cars a year - hardly makes the kia the better manufacturer, they just appeal to a wider market.

Nintendo make games that appeal to a wider audience than the traditional console games. That does not mean the games are "better" in anyway, and if you are to claim better, it is in no technical way, and so you are only really left with saying "better marketed" or risk saying better game design, which I think we all know is a load of ass.

Speaking of assumptions... I addressed this before, but you're mistaking "quality" for what's "better".  Quality can certainly be a component in determining worth, but quality is inherently subjective, market performance isn't, and I'm speaking exclusively to the latter.

I'd also argue games don't get any more "traditional" than Nintendo this generation.  Deconstructed, the design of Wii Sports or Wii Play is about as gamey as you get, they're basically like mid-1980s NES games at their core.  Something like Halo, God of War or even Mario Galaxy is hugely abstracted and further complicated by comparison, and thus further from "traditional", even if they use mainly decades old interfaces.  The secret to Wii's success is in accessibility, but that's due just as much to software design as it is interface, and for as many people as it's brought into gaming, lapsed gamers likely account for just as many as legitimately new gamers.