Nintendo's gamer strategy and why they could take it all this next gen

[DanneSandin]

HoloDust said:

DanneSandin said:

HoloDust said:
Hm, not absolutely certain for Xbox, but I'd say PS3 user base is potentially quite over 60mils - PS2 sale figures have shown how long tail Sony's console can have, and I don't see it being any different with PS3. And since both consoles are more or less equally powerful they got mostly the same 3rd party support, unlike Wii. That said, while Wii U is without a doubt more powerful than PS360, if those new engines demos are glimpse into what X720/PS4 are striving to achieve I don't see many major developers giving Wii U much support down the line. Unity 4 is nice move from Nintendo though, they will probably get much love from indie/small developers...

Well, it's no secret that PS1's success was closely tied to them getting superior 3rd party support - and the same goes for PS2. It's all 3rd party support. If it actually were the PS brand and it's 1sr party games people wanted, wouldn't it reflect onthe amount of sold 1st party games? And it does. Very few buys PS for the 1st party support - they bought this brand because of the 3rd party support. And what happens when a second console gets the same amount of 3rd party support? Well, you knw what happens. Could PS survive only on it's 1st party line up? Probably not.

Well, though PS3 had it hard going at the beginning due to it's unique architecture, both Xbox and PS3 have (more or less) same 3rd party support - so it's 1st party games that determine which way you go - and I'd say Sony excels in that, maybe their titles don't sell as much individually, but if you look at diversity I say they are at the top of their game. That said, even if all 3 consoles get same 3rd party support it will come to 3 things:

I have to agree with you with this point; Sony has better 1st party games than MS, for sure. And I also agree with your 3 points below.

1) who prefers whose 1st party titiles - all 3 consoles have their very loyal fans, so I don't see much shifting of user base there

2) where you online friends are - I'd say Microsoft has some advantage here, though lot of people prefer PSN

3) how good 3rd support actually is - are your version of multiplat game is close enough in visuals/performance to other 2

To be honest, I don't see Microsoft and Sony failing in any of these (though 3 is still problematic for PS3 compared to 360), but I do see Wii U having problems with 2) and 3)....all said, IMO, best case scenario is Wii U manages to attract enough 3rd party support, makes good online and be on par with other 2, which will give them some 60-70mils. Thing is I don't think major publishers will stay for long, they really want a major push in technology, once 720/PS4 launch we'll see games that simply can't run on Wii U without major cutbacks (I forgot who just recently announced PC game that will require 4GB RAM as minimum (reminder - Win7 uses under 512MB, Win8 even less)), and it will be Wii level of support from majors again. On the other hand, as I said, Unity deal is good thinking, lot of succesful titles have been and are made on it (e.g. Limbo being one of them, and it's "sequel"), so at least I can see lot of love from "indie" comunity. One way or the other, eventually I'll enjoy my Mario Kart U and Zelda U, unfortunatelly, for me that's about it...

I think WiiU will close the gap on online service next gen. Just look at the Miiverse. That'll be loads of fun (IF executed right)!! It won't be as far behind as Wii was this past gen. And if you read my thread, which I have a link to in my sig, I explain why PS4 won't be a major leap over WiiU next gen. The reason is simple; Sony just can't afford it. And if we got 2 consoles roughly on par with each other they're gonna get equel 3rd party support, so I'm not worrying about WiiU NOT getting any games. And most developers simply can't afford to make those huge games if they're costing much more than they do today. If X3ox makes a BIG leap (like Xbox360 made latst gen) developers won't be able to take advantage of its power because it'll be too expansive. And becuase of the costs developing games nowadays they're gonna want their games to hit ALL consoles, and that's anoher reason they won't use all that potential power in X3ox; those games will be ports of WiiStation games.