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Asriel on 01 February 2013
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hunter_alien said:
Metallicube said:

Sony has zero effect on Nintendo. The only thing that is harming Nintendo right now is Nintendo.. And that is because of their stubbornness to return to the niche Gamecube style games that alienates the mass market audience that was a large part of the Wii's success.


Agreed. Nintendo has to blame themselves for not having a strong enough library at launch. I doubt that announcing the PS4 will have a negative effect on WiiU sales. Yet again, IMO the 2 consoles will target mostly different buyers, and all Nintendo and Sony have to do toi stay relevant, is to make sure that their systems have quality games.


Nice to see some sense in here. As fun as it is to try and stoke fanboy wars and proclaim that Sony are getting ready to hit Nintendo in the nuts, Sony are far more likely doing this because it will benefit themselves in the eyes of their investors. It's far more important to appease their investors with an exciting new product, than it is to piss on Nintendo's chips, so to speak. Nintendo have already began to address their faithful audience with their Direct. They have four titles (Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Wonderful 101, Pikmin 3) that should be announced shortly for Quarter 2 releases, and Quarters 3 and 4 of this year could easily see a Zelda remake, Mario Kart and 3D Mario. Those are big games Sony cannot compete with while launching their new system. Every bit of Sony's energy this year needs to be focused on boosting Vita and successfully launching the PS4--they don't have the resources, or the brand strength, that they did 12 or 13 years ago, to wreck a competitors sales by announcing another PlayStation. Like it or not, the world has changed.

This announcement is far more about Sony's problems than Nintendo's problems. Vita is struggling in every major market. PS3, while still selling well, is most definitely declining. It makes more business sense to announce PS4 now--long before PS3 is circling the drain--than it does to wait. This shows Sony's investors that Sony have long-term plans to offset declines and restore growth in their home console business. Given the difficulties both Nintendo and Sony face, in the near term at least, both companies will be far more concerned about issuing announcements to address their own problems, than attempting to aggravate the problems competitors face.

EDIT: That being said, it's good timing and hopefully the sign of a good strategy of gradually releasing information about the new console. Sony have to get the concept, the software, the services, the launch dates, the pricing, the hardware configuration, across to the market successfully before launch. By beginning the release of information soon, and not shouting everything out during the din of E3, Sony will more effectively get their information across.