DigitalDevilSummoner said:
Thanks for so provocatively misrepresenting my sayings and showing everyone what a straw man argument is. Generalizing is a very cheap shot at making a point: We are talking about gaming generations. |
It's sort of a jestful reply to garner a response because I was too lazy to delve deep, but I'm kind of dead serious. Apple has sold the most units in the last 6 years (over 250 million iPhone line devices), their mobile gaming platform and its associated business practices have probably had the most effect on the overall trends of the gaming industry recently, and their brand strength is notably improved by their reliable phone hardware. They meet your own three criteria. The only reason you'd discount them as victor is that they have catered to the casuals instead of the "hardcore" gaming market.
My second point was intended to remind you that it's not so easy to determine who is in either the hardcore or the casual market. Without even getting into distinctions of what the terms actually mean and if you define it by types of game, spending volume, playtime, forum visitation, what have you, I can guarantee you that the PS3 and 360 have sold to quite a few casual consumers no matter the definition. The Wii has also sold to some hardcore consumers, no matter your definition. If you wanted to determine who the generation winner was by which console hardcore gamers favored, the only effective way to do that is hold a poll of people you personally filter through as being hardcore gamers to determine their favorites/what they own, not to look at global sales stats of anything as are provided here.
And I'm not sure how you can say the Wii had no impact on the industry when it appears that Microsoft has based so much of the R&D for the Xbone in integrating Kinect features that were inspired by a want to gain a piece of motion gaming. Sony essentially abandoned the Move but I'm sure there were non-negligible costs behind that as well, and there was pretty much an entire E3 press conference spent on it.
I also am not quite comfortable with the assertion that a specific generation's leader depends upon that company's performance in the following generation. Does this mean the Atari 2600 was not the winner of gen 2? Does this mean Sega was actually a dirt poor competitor in gen 4 because their brand strength clearly didn't carry through to gen 5?
I'm not going to argue with you that Nintendo's strategy with the Wii, while garnering them billions upon untold billions of dollars over about 5 years, was in the end perhaps a limiting business practice that contributes to their struggles today. But I don't think your metrics of "affecting the market" or "brand strength" are necessarily good ones, or lacking from the success of the Wii.
I think this as a whole highlights the actual unimportance of "winning a generation".
