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Soundwave on 08 December 2015
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AsGryffynn said:
Soundwave said:


The market only supports two options unfortunately ... people don't want 4-5 different gaming platforms any more than they want 4-5 alternatives to DVD/Blu-Ray. 

That means if Sony is going to grab one seat, there's only room for one more. 

Sure, sure, Wii did it, but Wii was a one-time controller miracle that can't be replicated now that there's 1 billion casual games available to soccer moms and the like 24/7 for free all the time. 

Microsoft doesn't need gaming. They make billions of dollars. Nintendo needs the game business for obvious reasons ... they're the only purely game focused hardware maker left. With their portable market shrinking thanks to the above mention smart device gaming boom, Nintendo can't afford to simply have a crappy selling console and make up with it on the back of a strong portable market either. 

More competetion isn't always a good thing either. Competetion forced Sega out, and are we as gamers better for it? Nope. We lost one of the greatest game forces ever, and the industry lost a lot of its spark once Sega basically de-evolved into nothing. 

The way I see it, MS doesn't need gaming and really all they bring to the table is mostly doing the same things that Sony already does. Them vacating would allow Nintendo to move back more into their 90s position where they made more core gamer initatives too (ie: the Star Wars deal, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Kobe Bryant NBA games, Ken Griffey MLB games, deals for things like Starcraft 64, etc.). 

Two competitors keep each in line anyway, so that things like a $599 console would quickly be punished by the market, you don't really need 3/4/5 companies for that. 

Why not just rule together? Ever since the Wii I don't feel like we can trust Nintendo or Sony... yes, this has to do with both companies being Japanese...


Hey if MS and Nintendo want to partner somehow, that'd be fine with me. 

But the fact is the market ultimately decides and the market has never supported three successful consoles in a generation, except for the Wii which had to bank on the casual audience that's been completely corrupted by freemium gaming on their smart devices. Nintendo can't sit around and wait for a controller miracle to fall into their lap again (fun fact: the Wiimote was invented by an American who shopped the idea to Sony and MS first, it wasn't even made by Nintendo, which shows you how precarious an idea like that is). 

If Nintendo is going to survive in the hardware business, then they need to simply adopt an attitude of going for the kill. The industry is what it is. You can either adapt to that or sit around and die. 

They have to toughen up in a lot of ways. I liked Iwata as a person, but I hope Kimishima can understand that. Microsoft is not some unbeatable entity either .... Nintendo can beat them if they're smart and act swiftly, Sony is a tiny company compared to MS too yet they've managed to take them out. Nintendo gave MS too much respect; they're a great OS company sure. But 15 years in and the XBox brand is basically spinning its wheels stuck in the same rut it was at the beginning -- viable mostly only in the US and far behind the Playstation everywhere else. 

If Nintendo can make the NX take off in Japan, have OK-ish sales in all of Europe (not just the UK), and then start to make inroads in the US maybe more akin to the N64 (which was very popular in the US) ... they are in business even if Sony far exceeds them. But MS, they gotta get them, they can't be in third place, it's time to lose the "loser-ey" attitue that third place is OK. It's not when you're not selling 100 million handheld units every 5 years anymore.