I just realized that Nintendo will stay in first place for a long time

[Mr Khan]

RolStoppable said:

Mr Khan said:
The difference being that catering to the hardcore to a certain degree now is easier than it has ever been: with third parties desperate to have more places to multiplat to, if you give them an environment they can easily work in, they'll just dump their stuff there along with everywhere else

Now certainly this gives Nintendo no advantages, but it cuts their disadvantages, and if their platform is competitively priced and continues to see the kinds of titles that made Wii a success, then they'll have what they have currently as well as a healthy third party environment

The worrying thing is the 3DS' lineup. Mario Kart is a solid start, but we'll have to see more of Super Mario 3D before we can evaluate it (unlike Malstrom, i believe that convergence between 2d and 3d Mario can occur successfully, and i suppose this game will be the test for that), but there really aren't any major mass-market hooks outside of those

The big question is why should Wii owners buy the new console? They aren't going to get better motion controls and the Wii U controller with its swiss army knife approach is going directly against one of the core philosophies of the Wii. Nintendo will have to put out not one, but several great games to get their Wii audience on board, because they won't be "upgrading" for the sole sake of better graphics and some tablet minigames.

I don't believe that 2D and 3D Mario can be successfully combined. Super Mario 3DS will be played with the slide pad and any analog control input isn't precise enough for a 2D platformer like SMB. The 2D sections in Super Mario Galaxy 1/2 are awful compared to NSMB Wii. On top of that, Super Mario 3DS also looked slower than usually, making matters only worse.

Why did anyone buy the SD GameCube-plus when for $50 more at launch they could have entered the wide world of X360?

If the Wii U succeeds, it'll be for the same reasons: software. Sink or swim and it's up to Nintendo