I'll never get over the loss of the greatest rival that Nintendo ever had :)
The only rival to Nintendo is Nintendo themselves.
what about Sony ? PS1 and PS2 days?
They are so different in style from Nitnendo and Sega that they shouldn't be considered a rival.
how so ? they're japanese ?
It's hard to explain. But I'll try.
Sega was like Nintendo in that they are both pure games companies, both relied on first party games to compete and to drive hardware install bases, both have a mascot that are the face of the company, and they have similar licensing practices.
Sony does not have a platformer that is the face of the company They have platformers, sure, but no mascots, and none of their characters is the face of the company the way Sonic or Mario is. They rely on undercutting hardware and paying third parties for exclusives in order to compete and drive install base.
I just think that Sony is too different from Nintendo to be considered a rival. Sure, they are a competitor, but they compete on very different terms whereas Nintendo and Sega competed against each other identically, and thus were rivals.
I totally disagree with you.
Sony did have a mascot during the PS1 dominated era. And i really hope your joking about Sony relying on 3rd party games, Sony has probably the best First Party line up of any of the competitors this generation. Sony also relies on making new IPs instead of continuously recycling old ones.
Crash bandicoot and spyro? Those were good platformers for the system, but they were never the face of Sony.
How much hardware do Sony's first party games push? Have you seen how terrible Sony's first party lineups were during the PS1 and 2 era?
And even though Sony's first party games are new IP's they are not original. GoW plays just like DMC, GT is a racer, Ratchet and Clank is your standard 3D platform game, same goes for spyro in his glory days, Killzone is a generic FPS and Infamous is a generic sanbox game. Nothing about hose games stand out. The only Sony first party games that stand out are LBP (Which is from Media Molecule who were bought by Sony this gen) and the games from Team ICO.
Sony never relyed on first party until most recently, and they only try to do that becasue their 3rd party support decreased this gen. Hell, the game that sold the original Playstation was Final Fantasy VII wich is a 3rd party game.
Crash was definitely the face of the playstation and moved untold amounts of hardware. They were't far behind mario 64 in sales.
