I'll start my post by asking you people to read this article first, from Sean Malestrom:
http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html
As I see it, Microsoft is not looking at the whole perspective when it comes to understand the Wii. They are looking at the consoles success based on four aspects.
- Marketting
- Motion Remote-like Controller
- Low price (development / consumer costs).
- The "casual" audience
Concerning these three fact, I see Microsoft not being successful and may fail miserably. Because they are failing to see the real reason for Nintendo's success in the market. They simply can't reproduce what took Nintendo months or years of investigation, and their result was the Mistake Nintendo did with the gamecube at the begining trying to go on the success with the PS2 and Microsoft beat it too later on. They will gat some developers and makes will appear aimes to that peripheral, but what thet were aiming will not be accomplished.
- A new image begins with a New Console: Changing the image of one console is not easy, and mostly since the original one is the total opposite. Nintendo started with the Gamecube and understood this so they rather started all over with a new console. A consumer sees a relation between a new console with a new image or philosophy more reasonable.
- There is no casual market: Read the article at the begining of this post first.
- Pissed off fans: Console fans bought the console for the main image it presented to the consumers. Microsofty called many times the Wii a "Fad" or not a "next gen" console. With that move, many will see that Microsoft is "downgrading" the console and some may actually chage for the PS3.
- The "same but better" approach: With an image "we can do what the Wii does with better graphics" will be a sing of market desperation rather than innovation. "Sega does what Nintendon't...... or...... blast processing?"
- The Wii is more than the sum of it's parts: The low specs, the downmarket ("casuals" if you prefer), the low development costs and the marketting campaign are just the tip of the iceberg about Nintendo's new Strategy, making it more applealing than the copetition. When Microsoft trully understands this it will be too late for them.
