I know that Malstrom is hated around these parts. But I think he does speak to gamers like me. The NES, SNES, GBA, DS and Wii were all good. But I'm not much of a N64 or Gamecube fan. For many of the same reasons he pointed out in his blog. He's more Anti-Xbox/Anti-Playstation than I'd prefer but honestly I think he makes some good points. I got a Xbox 360 and PS3 because of how much they were hyped up, because they had high metacritic ratings, etc. And yeah I had fun with the 360 and PS3. But to be honest, I find a lot of these HD games to be over-rated, especially the AAA blockbusters. I find myself preferring handheld gaming (DS, PSP and Android) and I find myself more motivated to play my Wii backlog than on the PS3 and 360 these days.
If Nintendo is going to go the Gamecube direction with both the 3DS and Project Cafe, count me out. I hope they don't but it seems like all signs point to this. After all why would you make old-school 2D games and 2D RPGs on a stereoscopic 3D system at high production cost when you can just make them pure 2D cheaply on the existing portables, iOS or NGP? I suspect that 3DS won't be the retro king that the DS was. The handheld jrpg devs and retro 2D devs are probably going to go NGP or iOS/Android for the 8th gen or even continue to support the DS/PSP for a long, long time. The PSP is on fire in Japan these days and iOS is getting more and more Japanese support lately. Kairosoft gained a lot of buzz with Game Dev Story on iOS/Android and their second game (Hot Springs Story) is also on iOS/Android. Smartphones are a new avenue for niche indie developers. Even for the Japanese. Nintendo is screwing themselves by pigeonholing themselves into the whole 3D thing. Making 3D the focus of the system. Since Sony, Apple and Google aren't basing their platforms around 3D, they don't have this problem.
3DS will still beat NGP in the "war". Outside of Japan, NGP will be DOA pretty much. In the west, the software will only appeal to a niche audience (especially the western otaku probably just like the PSP). But 3DS won't have the success of the DS. iOS/Android portable gaming revenue marketshare will also continue to go up and up (ultimately I don't see iOS/Android surpassing Nintendo with kids though. Parents may buy a 3 year contract smartphone for their teenager but not the kids). As for Project Cafe, if they pull a Gamecube (the 3DS is going the Gamecube direction, I see no reason why they aren't going to go that direction with their home console too), I expect it to finish in a distant 3rd (yes distant) unless Microsoft and Sony really screw up somehow (I wouldn't be surprised to be honest). Even if we see a $500-600 PS4 and NextBox (I hope not), a Gamecube-direction Project Cafe will probably still finish in 3rd eventually because Project Cafe will become seen as "dated" anyway once NextBox and PS4 hit. And if just one of PS4/NextBox launches at $400, a Gamecube Project Cafe would finish a distant 3rd. Especially if both launched at $400. Nintendo can't win in the perception wars with the Call of Duty/Grand Theft Auto type gamer. They just can't. To them, Nintendo = kiddie no matter what. "Keeping up with the Joneses" (N64/Gamecube direction) doesn't work for Nintendo.
