Nintendo's Conflicting Hardware and Software Philosophies

[Scisca]

RolStoppable said:

Soundwave said:

It's not a double standard, Nintendo simply keeps making hardware that third parties don't care for. 

Their best bet was the GameCube but they self sabotaged that console by shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly and crippling the poor console before it had a chance. No one put a gun to Nintendo's head and forced them to make it a purple lunchbox and make bizarre development choices with virtually all their core franchises or conceed the FPS market to Microsoft when they had a good thing going on the N64. 

If Sony made the Playstation 4 into what the Wii U is (same chip, same emphasis on controller) third parties would pretty much uniformily embrace XBox One as their go to console and drop Sony support after a few years. 

The Wii U isn't powerful to anyone but Nintendo which is living in a time warp 7 years behind everyone else, the main difference now is the "casual" audience is no longer blue ocean either, it's a red ocean where their thunder has been stolen by other, faster moving and more sophisticated (marketing wise) corporations. 

If Sony made the PS4 like the Wii U, then third parties would still support Sony, because it's part of their plan. Keep Microsoft and Sony in balance, so that both keep handing out money. Putting one of the two companies into dominance would dry up the moneyhats. Oh, and Nintendo would still be left out despite power and controller parity with the PS4.

The blue ocean Nintendo captured with the Wii is actually still blue, because no company cares about it. Those people are simply leaving the market with no one there to pick them up. Flash game portals on the PC didn't put a dent in the Wii, just like mobile gaming doesn't. iDevices can't replace Wii Sports. It should be pretty obvious, but unfortunately not everyone is able to see it. Sony obviously doesn't care about the Wii audience and Microsoft's Kinect didn't catch on. Because if it did, then Microsoft's fortunes would have changed in the markets they had trouble in.

@Bold - that calls for a tin foil hat. The 3rd parties have no secret policy or master plan. They just want to earn money and not share the fate of THQ.

The blue ocean no longer exists, it has been devoured by smart devices. Casuals are gone and they are not coming back.