Nintendo fails 2012: I blame everyone

[Kresnik]

I think this whole situation comes down to the Nintendo/Sony dispute that led to the creation of the Playstation.

Once Sony created the Playstation, marketed it as being really 'cool' (see: WipEout etc.) and brought in a whole new demographic of gamers, the third parties went with them. It was the third-parties that absolutely propelled Sony to dominance in the fifth and sixth gen and gave them so much traction in the industry.

Nintendo could - and should - have done something about it before it was too late. Heck, they should have stopped the Playstation being created by agreeing to a venture with Sony, but their stubborn-ness of cartridges instead of optical discs - and what I can only assume was arrogance that they'd easily beat Sony since they were already beating Sega - led to the loss of third party stuff which never came back.

The Wii has been a nightmare in terms of this. Gamecube had many problems, but at least there was a decent outside developer showing which Nintendo embraced. They have pretty much single-handedly propped up the Wii for its whole lifespan which isn't a road they should have gone down. I'm not saying they shouldn't have made the great first-party stuff - of course they should, but there needed to be more of a push for other things rather than Just Dance and Lego games, and that showed in their E3 conference since they had very little ouside support.

Heck, Mass Effect 3 shows just what a problem it is. Sure, you can dip straight into Mass Effect 3 without any knowledge of the previous two, but it won't be the same - and you won't be able to move your Shepard across, which is a big part of the whole series.

I like that they're trying to entice the third-parties back, but there's a long LONG road to go down before they can - and personally, I don't think Wii-U is the answer. I'm pretty certain they have the financials to prop themselves up until the neXtbox/PS4 come out, which they should have done and built a matching console - but that's just my view.

Also, to all the doomsayers: Boo. Nintendo have weathered far worse storms than this (N64, Gamecube). Even though I think the console won't be a success - they'll still capture a portion of the casual market, and I'm pretty certain they won't lose any money on it. So maybe they'll get it right next time around.