| RolStoppable said: All eighth generation systems have been launched now, so here are a few things that we can be almost certain about. 2. The industry stays on the same trajectory as in the seventh generation The breadth of available retail software will keep getting narrower while the blockbusters will accumulate more sales per individual title. Nothing was done to reverse the fortunes of the middleground games. The market will increasingly shift towards the Call of Duties, Assassin's Creeds, Battlefields, FIFAs and Maddens, not just because people want to play those games, but also because there won't be any real alternatives. Games that do not exist cannot sell, as I like to say. 3. The Wii was the right decision A lot of people freaked out about Nintendo reconsidering their strategy after the GameCube failure. It wasn't right to make such a console. Worse, it was injustice that it was successful. With the Wii U, if nothing else, everyone gets to see why the Wii was the right move. The spiritual successor to the GameCube sells worse than the GameCube, thus continuing the historic decline of Nintendo home consoles. Although this early in the generation there are still a lot of simpletons who are falling for the Wii branding and mistake the Wii U for a continuation of the Wii. 4. The Wii U will finish in third place For me, ever since E3 2011, it was only a matter of when, not if, until the PS4 and Xbox Doublespin would overtake the Wii U in hardware sales. Nintendo had laid out their strategy and that's basically all you need to know to make a sensible prediction. That strategy was, in the most simplistic sense, anti-Wii. Nintendo had lost before it even began, so the only question that remained was what Sony and Microsoft would do. The PS4 was announced to be nothing more than a straight evolution of Sony home consoles, without committing PS3-like blunders in pricing and hardware architecture; and that's really all it takes for Sony to be successful, because they are on very good terms with third parties on a global basis. Microsoft... well, you all know what they did. We trolled them like there was no tomorrow under the guise of caring about consumer rights. Then they put a $500 price tag on it and that was the moment when I questioned my certainty regarding the Wii U finishing in third place. It's not that that would have made the Wii U sell better, but the result would have changed to the PS4 steamrolling everything. But Microsoft got cold feet after seeing their preorder numbers and fixed as much as possible before launch, so they will be okay to go... in the USA and the UK, because they once again failed to present any sort of strategy to succeed in other countries. But those are big markets, so that's at least something. 5. The 3DS is still failing, because it was conceived with the same philosophy as the Wii U Right, I shouldn't say the 3DS is failing, because it was the best-selling video game system in 2013. That's what the general consensus is, the 3DS is doing great. But it really isn't. Just like the Wii U's strategy revolved around taking gamers away from Sony and Microsoft, so did the 3DS's strategy revolve around taking gamers away from Sony. And while the 3DS at least succeeded somewhat in its mission (securing Monster Hunter exclusivity helped a lot), it came at the cost of driving away a lot of DS customers. Nintendo certainly noticed some of their errors and tried to fix them, but not everything can be fixed, so not all of the problems will go away. Another general consensus is that home consoles and handhelds are so different that they should not or cannot be compared, but I beg to differ. Consequently, this means that the Wii U is unfixable and its result is going to be worse than the 3DS's, because it only drove away Wii customers while not picking up anyone else. The Nintendo of the eighth generation doesn't care anymore about expanding gaming which clearly shows in the lack of new IPs (digital-only games don't cut it). 6. The PS4 will be the best-selling home console in every country Why wouldn't it be? There is no such thing as widespread brand loyalty. If Nintendo could usurp Atari in the USA, Sony Nintendo, Nintendo Sony, and Microsoft Nintendo, then why shouldn't Sony be able to beat Microsoft? Did you have problems to read and comprehend the previous sentence? |
I cut the ones I agreed with and left the ones I disagree with.
2. I'd argue you are right here but also that is part of what makes you wrong with Nintendo. In an industry in which the gaming consolidates around several mega-franchises, the owner of several of those franchises is going to make out just fine. The real issue with the last generation is that Sony and Microsoft battled to a standstill with Microsoft taking North American and Sony grabbing the rest of the world. That clearly isn't going to happen this time and both of them follow the exact same business model so when there is a clearly loser there, it means they will lose badly. Nintendo is the winner in that they aren't trying to compete directly against Sony and Microsoft. They get a certain amount of business just by being the only true alternative solution and then on top of that, they've chosen a low cost solution to be a second choice for many living rooms. Over the long run, this is really going to be a positie as Sony kills of Microsoft.
3. I disagree. The Wii U is basically the perfect wedge product in the age of changing tastes and dynamics. Microsoft and Sony are going with more of the same and raising the cost of doing so. We've seen this strategy fail spectacularly with Vita. It won't fail for both of them but will for one of them in this generation. Nintendo has the strongest second screen strategy in my opinion and that is very important in this day and age. The living room is going to have one big screen and then plenty of people sitting around staring at small screens be they a smartphone, tablet, 3DS or Wii U. It doesn't demand to control it all like Microsoft tries to do. Instead it offers a solution and fits in with everything else. These consoles are probably going to be the last of their kind in that other solutions will take the place of needed future hardware improvements. All of them are powerful enough to become dumb boxes for cloud based services and processing that will develop/improve in the future.
4. I don't see it as anti-Wii. I see it as Wii+. It still has all the prior motion controls and is fully backwards compatible including even being able to use a Wii-mote with the tablet controller. I see Microsoft as really stacking up units and with sales dramatically dropping off after the early adopters. Plus the network effect is going to hammer them hard when so many other people choose Sony. The only solution then is to be the alternative thus not needing the network effect. What is the solution for those who need something other than collecting trophies and killing each other in Call of Duty? Nintendo and it will be cheap and get cheaper to boot. You note that Microsoft blundered. All they've ever done is blunder. They just have deep enough pockets to try to spend their way out of their blunders but the number of burned bridges is too deep this time. More expensive but less value in an online experience, highest cost console with less performance, biggest box, and the fear that their policies can turn against you at any moment along with the sour taste of so many bad Xbox 360's will have more people looking at Sony this time and as you note, Sony has done the right thing. They will take first but I see Microsoft in third this time (as they have been in the prior generation.)
Plus let us not forget that all of these 8th generation solutions are competing against the entire 7th generation. Before someone is going to thrown down good cash they need a compelling reason to dump their current investment. Nintendo has made it easy to keep that investment and extend it. Much like how DVD and streaming have limited the appeal of Blue-Ray with regard to replacing DVD's (of which plenty are still sold.) The 7th generation is good enough for many people and the 8th generation value proposition will have to improve enough for them to give up or sell off the prior generation investment. Considering Gamestop and others basically had to throw away their PS2 stock to force people to stop using it, it will become even harder to get ride of this generation which already has many of the most important capabilities wanted in a console (streaming, gaming library, etc.)
5. Point blank the 3DS isn't failing. It is winning as well as it can in a changed marketplace. The old rules are gone and the new rules have the 3DS selling as many units as it can against factors the DS never had to face.
6. Microsoft might still take N.A. They shouldn't but they might. They don't mind bleeding tons of money and Sony might not be able to follow them in terms of bleeding money. They can't afford to do it everywhere but they might pick their spot and try to survive until the next generation or just write it off as an expensive loss to leverage Windows phones, tablets, PC's etc into the living room. That is what Xbox has been all along anyway. A big money loser to keep Windows in the minds of the masses.
