| MrMe said: Ok, the 2 main contenders after the last gen were Microsoft and Sony. Sony had a huge marker share, they were the ones who will lead us into the next gen. They decide to turn the games console into an entertainment hub, top notch graphics, huge power, loads and loads of non-gaming features. It will be the future. Yes, it comes with a big price tag, but it'll be worth it, no home can be without one. Microsoft do roughly the same thing, not quite a feature packed, not quite as expensive, but the idea is pretty much the same. Then along comes Nintendo, who shouldn't have a say in this gen. They should really follow what the big 2 are doing and try and do it a bit better. But no, they don't. They decide to go with the gaming is fun and should be cheap option. The majority of the public agree and flock to this cheap and cheerful games system.
We all know, pretty much, that Sony + Microsofts vision for the future is probably right. One box in the home to do just about everything. But because of Nintendo this vision is still just that, a vision. Did Nintendo spoil it for the rest of them? Would consumers just have accepted that this was the price to pay for the future and bought 42.62 million (Wii+360+PS3) consoles so far this gen? Or has Nintendo just tapped into a market the Sony + Microsoft were never planning on tapping into anyway? |
Even with the PS2 being the dominant home console on the market, Nintendo was (potentially) the most important company in videogames because of the Gameboy line and their massive success as a first party publisher. Being that Microsoft is the smallest first party publisher, has never sold many systems, and has failed to turn a profit I don't think you can claim that they were ever a main contender.
Beyond that the vision for a gaming console should be judged based on how it makes videogames better; Sony and Microsoft's vision is to produce the exact same videogames we have been playing for over a decade now with prettier graphics, to push development budgets to a level where even well established publishers and developers can not afford to make any mistakes, and to raise the cost of entry so that only the rich can play videogames ...
