I think a lot of us don't understand the meaning of "competition"

[VanceIX]

Aielyn said:

VanceIX said:

Aielyn said:
Thanks for proving that you, also, don't actually understand "competition", "innovation", etc.

Could you expand on that?

Sure. One of the primary results of competition is innovation - that is, efforts to bring new things to consumers. In the context of the videogame industry, this means making an effort to bring experiences to consumers that they couldn't have had with previous consoles, or on the competitors' systems. Furthermore, competition doesn't breed MORE POWER, it breeds creativity.

What you have said is that you want to see Nintendo struggle most, and MS struggle compared with Sony, because it improves competition. It doesn't. It stagnates the industry far more than anything else could. Nintendo continues to innovate and attempt to expand their appeal. MS haven't done so as much as Nintendo, but they certainly are trying to ensure they have something unique to their system in the form of Kinect. The PS4 is pretty much literally a PS3 on steroids - the only noticeable difference in functionality is the inclusion of a touchpad on the controller... which is literally a gimmick, having no functional capability that one cannot get with an analog stick.

Now think of the games that have come from Sony for the PS4. The only one that isn't either a direct sequel to a PS3 game or releasing on the PS3 (or ported from the PS3) is Knack... and you can't tell me that they couldn't have done Knack on the PS3 without compromising anything (other than graphical fidelity, perhaps).

Furthermore, Sony and MS spend much of their time paying third parties for exclusives, exclusive DLC, advertising preference, etc, that could easily have done well on all three systems, resulting in gamers being forced to buy multiple consoles to get a reasonably broad experience, especially if they want innovative control schemes to be implemented.

Simply put, if you cherish the effects of competition, you don't want the PS4 to be in the lead, and you don't want the Wii U struggling. Indeed, proper competition would involve all three hardware makers having to fight tooth-and-nail for consumers.

And as such, the assertion that competition is great, because it will force Nintendo to increase their power and MS to slightly increase their power, is so misguided as to be laughable. Competition will drive them to reduce costs, not increase power (which would reduce profitability or sales potential, one or the other), and the result is greater homogenisation of the industry, rather than improved diversity.

EDIT: Let me put it another way - competition drives companies to take risks. Risk-aversion is the biggest problem in this industry, and Sony is the king of it.

I see what you're saying, but there is a reason for Nintendo's struggle, and that is that they themselves refused to listen to consumers, and pushed out their hardware too early and in the process abandoned the third-party.

In a fair world, consumers would forgive them right away and they would go right on competing with Sony and Microsoft, but that's not how it works. You learn from your mistakes, and you only realize you made a mistake when you suffer from it. Nintendo is going through the suffering phase, and in doing so they will be forced to reevaluate their position on hardware and software, and they will look for a way to regain their market position next generation by appealing to their core audience. 

And I never said that power had to be what Nintendo and Microsoft change. Now, if having a more powerful console is what consumers want the most, then yes, that is something they should concentrate on better. It is not at all misguided, just the way business works. At the end of the say, you have to realize what the customer wants, and only then can you succeed.

Sony may not have "innovated" in the traditional sense that they added a different kind of control scheme, but they innovated in that they were the one company that didn't, and instead looked towards improving internally and for the most part abandoning the casual audience in favor of the core audience. In that way they differentiated themselves and appealed to consumers, now it is Microsoft and Nintendo's turn to figure out a way to regain customer favor, and whether they do that through hardware, software, control scheme, etc. is up to them.