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Killiana1a on 12 December 2010
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Gamerace said:
Killiana1a said:

Next generation the Blue Ocean will have many shades of red because there will be no new Blue Ocean unless Nintendo can sell games to dead people.


That's a ridiculous statement.   While there's no question of Wii's success, there's still a huge market for them (or someone else) to capture.   I work in an office full of single women and all of them at one point or another mused about getting a Wii.  None did.   While Wii did succeed, it also fell short of the target.   Wii Music/Animal Crossing where two of the biggest missed opportunities in the history of gaming.    If they had gotten them right (Wii Music more accessible, fun and AC more like Farmville) then they would have continued to be sold out all 2009.

There's a whole lot of blue ocean left to win.  I don't see Kinect as doing much, except selling to 360 owners, so the wife can play too.    The real expander of the industry at the moment is Apple with ipad/phone/pod games.

Problem with Wii is people got it to experience new games - that is, all new viseral experiences.  Wii Sports did that, so did Wii Fit,  Red Steel (although it was broken), Mario Kart Wii, Shaun White, Tiger Woods, Just Dance, etc.    Nintendo missed the mark with Wii Music then just seemed to run out of ideas and recycle - Wii Sports Resort, Wii Party (Mario Party) and old franchises.   If they continued to provide new viseral experiences they would have continued to win over new players.

The real failure of Move/Kinect is so far neither has produced anything really 'new' either.  Mostly just recycled Wii games.

The great thing about the 'core' market is they'll buy the same damn game every year with a slightly different story and slight improvements.  See Madden and Call of Duty.   Casuals will buy a new experience once.  Sequels very rarely surpass the original on Wii (has it ever happened?) but they do all the time on 'core' HD games.   Nintendo failed to produce 'new' experiences for too long on Wii.  But as soon as they do again, be it on Wii or Wii2, you can bet people will buy.

Believe me, I have my doubts whether Kinect and Move can sustain without their advertising campaign. How well Kinect and Move encroach in the Blue Ocean will be evident by summer of 2011.

As for the 'core' market who will "buy the same damn game every year..." do you hold the same standard to Nintendo users eating up any Mario, Zelda, Metroid or Donkey Kong game? If anything, those 4 Nintendo franchises provided the blueprint for Madden and Call of Duty.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is nothing but the old Donkey Kong Country recycled with the same music, no crocs, same story regarding the lost banana horde, and on. Every Zelda game you can count on it having an open world with dungeon-based gameplay where every dungeon has a master key, compass, map and dungeon item used to defeat the dungeon boss. Mario games, 2D or 3D, are the same where it each level is to get from point A to point B collecting coins, same goombas from the NES game, bowser, a princess in peril and on. Metroid same deal.

All successful franchises and sequels are just new iterations off the original phenomenon. They tweak here and there, but they rarely if ever fundamentally change the gameplay. Games like Super Mario RPG, which I love to death are the exception.