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superchunk on 29 May 2012
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Soleron said:

I think it's about games. If your machine only played games but it had the games people want (pick any of Call of Duty, Halo, Mario, handheld Pokemon, etc) people would be rushing to buy it.

Any console company that does the above will succeed regardless. I have no doubt MS and Sony will get into a tech war, and Nintendo will try and imitate them badly, but it isn't inevitable if one company realises why people actually buy consoles.

Having an OS and media capabilities etc means two huge bad things for a company. i) Extremely high ongoing maintenance costs, and constant need to be making business deals with content distributors like Netflix or Onlive or Universal, ii) as soon as you fall behind in one tiny feature you lose the tech battle and your sales will crater. See Nokia, RIM, LG etc,. Combine this with an incredible dependence on marketing and image.

I don't understand why a company would want to enter the crowded tech/content market, when all they have to do is what they've been good at since 1986 and make games people want to buy.

Its always about games content. Wii sold well due to Wii Sports and Wii Fit, it also leveled off due to no 3rd party support and Nintendo themselves focusing on its next gen hardware.

However, none of these companies can ignore the way the market is moving. Its been moving this direction for generations. Its why MS entered gaming in the first place. Its why Nintendo added Netflix, hulu and various TV services to Wii late in its life.

Content is king. Nintendo helped create Android and Android is the dominant mobile OS. It only makes sense for some form of integration, especially with the tablet controller.

All three will have their game content. That is inevitable. But what will be the differentiator? It can't be just first party games.

You can't deny the obvious move by MS with win8. You can't ignore the Vita and what it has already done without Android and Sony's lame attempt to bring playstation brand to Android the so far sub-par Playstation Suite.

You also can't deny that its a logical conclusion that Apple and Google will move stronger into gaming. They did so with music, movies, and books. They've already started to with games and both publically stated gaming will be a big focus in the near future.

The only loss for these companies would be to ignore this. If any of them put out a pure dedicated console with now smart OS base, they would fail and lose big time. They would not only be behind the their more direct and natural competitors, but also Apple and other Android OEMs who put out TV based boxes.

I love Nintendo games and would buy a Nintendo console anyways. However, the price I pay for it will be greatly dependant on this topic.