Since the launch of the 3DS, and the announcement of the Wii U at E3, there seems to be a massive wave of fear, uncertainty and doubt in forum threads and mainstream gaming journalism about the future of Nintendo on a level I haven’t seen in many years. It has reminded me of early 2005 when everyone was convinced that the slow start for the DS and lower capabilities were going to ensure that it was eclipsed by the PSP, and that no matter what Nintendo’s "Revolution" was there was no way that they could compete against the PS3 and XBox 360. Not only were these critics wrong about Nintendo being headed for failure, Nintendo thrived in this environment and had two consoles which reached levels of success that were unprecedented for Nintendo; and the reason for this can be explained by a presentation that Nintendo gave back then (at E3 2005 if I remember correctly) ...
Nintendo’s presentation essentially said that in the galaxy of interactive entertainment what we know as videogames only represent 1 planet; and Nintendo planned on taking people to countless new planets and creating new experiences. They followed this up by releasing the following software that can hardly be called games in the conventional sense to massive success:
Nintendogs
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day
English Training: Have Fun Improving Your Skills!
Art Academy
Personal Trainer: Cooking
Personal Trainer: Math
*face training
*common sense training
Wii Fit
wii Music
*really long Japanese name
On top of this, they repeatedly broke all the rules and conventions that everyone claimed were necessary for videogames and received massive success for doing so. Retro gaming became viable again, and accessability became a value which was as important as complexity for the success of a game.
With this in mind it becomes clear that there is an emerging and very important market developing in front of our eyes, and who (besides Nintendo) is putting a serious effort towards developing this market? How many games that exist in these markets are not clones or copies of what Nintendo has done and received success from?
While the 3DS is certainly a strong core gamer system, and I suspect the Wii U will be more viable for core games than the Wii was (in part to reduce the "need" for a second console), I don't think these system's success will be determined based on how well suited it is to play core games. If Nintendo can find a new "Wii Fit" every year along with a handful of successful unconventional games they could easily become far more successful than anyone is currently predicting.
