| Wyrdness said:
N64 had a lot to do with Nintendo's own mistakes then Sony's good decisions, firstly it was not an abomination by any means it had games on it that practically define gaming today, PS1 only came to be because it was meant to be a Snes add on but Nintendo didn't want to sign over royalties of every bit of software released on it including their first party titles. N64 arrived 2 years after the PS1 arrived such a headstart would put any company in a strong position and as if Sony's luck couldn't get any better Sega had seriously messed up with the Saturn, the PS1 allowed an alternative for third parties so they jumped aboard, with momentum of an unchallenged 2 year head start and third parties clamouring to get away from Sega and Nintendo it wasn't really the strategy that worked but the situation, Sony just captitalized on it with good marketing. N64 then stuck with cartridges as their alternative deal with Panasonic didn't come into play fast enough which further pushed third parties away, the market also didn't have overly high development costs so they could stick to one platform as seen with the PS2. The risk in Blue Ocean is that you're trying to capture people who were never into gaming and have to spread your approach to cater to everyone, success in the Blue Ocean approach means that you're bringing in new gamers as well as having a much larger userbase buying your product while failure in it means your product barely takes off and is left behind by the Red Ocean group. Every approach can fail and in fact the Red Ocean approach has already crashed once before in the 80s however what makes the Blue Ocean more resilient is that it's pulling in new gamers and caters diversely across every group in the market instead of a select group essentially it aims at everyone, for Blue Ocean to eventually fail something very off the wall would have to happen like gaming just comes to a stand still or a new approach is brought out. |
As odd as this is Wyrdness, I almost 100% agree with this, one point to clarify.
@italics. It did fail, and when the NES came in they had a Blue Ocean approach. In North America, they sold it in toy stores, did a massive campaign and ensured quality control on their titles. That was blue ocean as it opened up to a whole new market with games like Duck Hunt and a real working zapper, and tons of support for it. Super Mario Bros. was a whole new experience people never played before, so that tapped into a whole new market space. (I learnt most of this by debating with Rol, so I take little credit for this) SMB applies to both Japan and North America. From there, Japan succeeded more on 3rd party titles, while NA continues with the explosion of Mario and some 3rd party support.
Mind you the D-Pad has very little to do with this (in case anybody brings it up), and in NA games like Final Fantasy and MegaMan only tapped into Nintendo's legwork and kept the momentum going (these were much more important in Japan, as the SNES and PS brands show). The D-Pad was created by Gunpei Yokoi for the game and watch Donkey Kong game. It has little to do with the NES' success, other than a possible effect on image, but it pales in comparison with the effect Toy R.O.B had on the NES' image, as well as its stow-away cartridge loading style look.
I want to stress that, your 2-year headstart argument is fundamental. The question begs to be asked, at that time in the history of gaming, would people have bought a whole other console with Blue Ocean strategy measures when they already bought the PS with 206 games that sold over 1M units, lots of those sold by the time the N64 was released? A few did (30M), and that's very good considering circumstance. However, the bulk of that was sold in NA. Europe was not Nintendo friendly bar handhelds at the time, and Japan completely rejected it. Look at the percentages:
Japan:
| Pos | Platform | Japan |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PlayStation 2 (PS2) | 23.18 |
| 2 | Nintendo DS (DS) | 33.00 |
| 3 | Game Boy (GB) | 32.47 |
| 4 | PlayStation (PS) | 19.36 |
| 5 | Wii (Wii) | 12.32 |
| 6 | Game Boy Advance (GBA) | 16.96 |
| 7 | PlayStation Portable (PSP) | 18.78 |
| 9 | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) | 19.35 |
| 11 | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | 17.17 |
| 12 | Nintendo 64 (N64) | 5.54 |
N64 sold almost 25% of total PS sales there. A joke. Compare that to all other successful Nintendo systems there, they are mostly on par if not 1.5x better than PS numbers. This had to be more than about mario. The PS brand was explosive over there, not much Nintendo could do about it, espcially not with 3rd party support. Japan never really was super Nintendo 1st-party friendly anyways post nes. SMW sold a whopping 3.54M there, and that's as good as it gets (well, except for mario Kart at 3.81M). Compare that with PS's success in Japan, and you see FF and DQ are much happier there.
| Pos | Platform | Europe |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PlayStation 2 (PS2) | 53.28 |
| 2 | Nintendo DS (DS) | 51.13 |
| 3 | Game Boy (GB) | 40.05 |
| 4 | PlayStation (PS) | 36.91 |
| 5 | Wii (Wii) | 31.14 |
| 6 | Game Boy Advance (GBA) | 21.31 |
| 7 | PlayStation Portable (PSP) | 20.82 |
| 9 | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) | 8.30 |
| 11 | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | 8.15 |
| 12 | Nintendo 64 (N64) | 6.35 |
In Europe, Nintendo wasn't even doing so hot at 8M at best (bar handhelds). To launch late against the PS without CD-playback ability (useful for sports games and simulators) was a horrible move. Yet it still managed to move 6.35M units. Nothing Mario could have done here to help. At best, Mario had sold there 3.75M (SMW).
Other:
| Pos | Platform | Other |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PlayStation 2 (PS2) | 23.57 |
| 2 | Nintendo DS (DS) | 12.40 |
| 3 | Game Boy (GB) | 2.99 |
| 4 | PlayStation (PS) | 9.04 |
| 5 | Wii (Wii) | 9.18 |
| 6 | Game Boy Advance (GBA) | 2.85 |
| 7 | PlayStation Portable (PSP) | 12.75 |
| 9 | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) | 0.77 |
| 11 | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | 0.90 |
| 12 | Nintendo 64 (N64) | 0.93 |
The playstation made a killing in Other for its generation. Only GBA had made that much headroom. The N64 is a shame, not even 10% of PS sold. Look at how Wii and DS managed to capitalize! Nothing Mario could have done to change this. Not even 1M Nintendo units sold there even with the big M.
NA:
| Pos | Platform | North America |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PlayStation 2 (PS2) | 53.65 |
| 2 | Nintendo DS (DS) | 55.00 |
| 3 | Game Boy (GB) | 43.18 |
| 4 | PlayStation (PS) | 38.94 |
| 5 | Wii (Wii) | 42.51 |
| 6 | Game Boy Advance (GBA) | 40.39 |
| 7 | PlayStation Portable (PSP) | 21.03 |
| 9 | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) | 33.49 |
| 11 | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | 22.88 |
| 12 | Nintendo 64 (N64) | 20.11 |
North America is the N64's best region! It sold only half of what the PS sold, after 1 year of PS' headstart. People were Nintendo-loyal in NA, but due to circumstance and the 1-year headstart, Sega's failure with Saturn, great marketing and 3rd party support, all went PS' way, and despite all that the excellent SM64, sold almost 7M in NA as a non-bundled title! What a feat. There was not much Nintendo could do to counter circumstance. Obviously the Wii situation was completely different, and Nintendo had the room to disrupt, nothing was going on for the 360 really and the PS3 bombed. Yes, circumstance has much to do with this.
