Could the Wii remain dominant another five years?

[dunno001]

**Note: This part of the post is under the assumption that no new home console will come out in 5 years.

Hrm... in 5 years? The Wii will be around, still profitable, and relevant, but I can't see it still being dominant. And the reason for this is the 3rd party companies. Unless a game has been in development for a while (DQX), or has Nintendo helping them, 3rd parties have already written off the Wii for their big-name games. And even if they fall into 3rd for total sales (which I don't see happening, BTW), it will remain relevant, if for what it has done to gaming. And I'm not just talking about getting motion controls to take off. I'll look at that more:

Many of the "hardcore" gamers bitch and moan about how Nintendo brought in a slew of new "casual" gamers. But, the fact is, while there was still current growth, if no reach out to new people was made, things would start to stagnate and shrink. What needs to be watched is what this new breed of gamer does. Yes, there will be some, quite a few, in fact, that will play their Wii, finish, and be done with gaming again. But I do think there will be some that will start to get interested in other games that they also hear about- and start to branch out. And it is at this point that I think Nintendo's loss of dominance will start to accelerate; the only games advertised for the Wii are done so by Nintendo. The interest will be a gradual process- you're not going to get someone who got into gaming this gen playing the WiiBlank line, suddenly jumping in with Halo: Reach. What may happen, is say someone enjoys Wii Golf. They may have picked up Tiger Woods 11 for the Wii, using the same controls. They may then see a commercial for Madden 11. Hey, it's also an EA Sports game, let me look in to that. A year or 2 later, EA advertises some other new game that would be considered "core". This person may see this, and be interested, solely by the fact that they're familiar with EA's sports games, and they know the company for other good games. Of course, if EA is advertising a core game, it'll be a PS360 release. But our WiiBlank fan didn't have an HD system. He does, however, know someone who does. He talks to that person about the game, maybe even tries it if they have it. He likes it, and buys a new system and that game. And now there are other games to look at. Konami may have released a game like game X from EA, but that has feature Q. Maybe that'll get picked up also. And from here, things go on.

I also think it'd be foolish to say that Nintendo would lose everyone, but their new fans from the Wii already have a Wii, so they won't keep the console market for them going. This leads to Nintendo's benefit at the launch of the Wii's successor, as they see the new system from Nintendo, and remember they fun they had with Wii Sports. But this time (hypothetically only), Nintendo packages it with Super Mario Galaxy 3, and sells Wii Sports Universe seperately. This fan, who wants WSU, gives SMG3 a crack, and likes it. And now they're branching out more into other games. And my biggest hope, is that Nintendo and the 3rd parties would this time capitalize on a market that is there at the beginning. The severe lack of quality follow-up, despite Wii games outselling their PS3 counterparts initially, is what killed the "core" market on Wii, and why they will not keep their dominance for an extended period of time.

As much as I hate to say it, Nintendo's best shot at dominance is to get the 3rd parties on board with a new system. The PS1 and PS2 proved that you don't have to be the strongest system. (For that matter, in no gen, has the strongest system won.) Give them some power, but not so much as to go overboard on the system cost and complexity. I personally think that Nintendo did the right thing with the Wii, but enough of the 3rd parties are showing even recent malice toward it, trying to sink it, because they're afraid of change. Without the change, we would get to a market small enough that nobody cares about dominance- it's just not profitable. Technology is not a straight line- adapt, or die. And it is the adaptors that will be dominant, long past the Wii and this 5 year window.