Best Year Ever: Nintendo vs. PlayStation vs. Xbox

[zorg1000]

Jumpin said:

Ka-pi96 said:

Wah!? :o

They've had their ups and downs sure, but calling that whole period the 'dark ages' is a bit harsh don't you think?

I don't think so, it was a period marked with bad hardware decisions, huge software droughts, and a significant decline in fandom. At the same time, PlayStation was sweeping in and steamrolling Nintendo in sales and software support. Nintendo lost all their most important second/exclusive third party support during this period: Square, Enix, DMA/Rockstar, Rareware. Parties that went from close exclusive supporters to no longer supporting Nintendo consoles. Nintendo was seen as passé through this period. They began to reverse this around the time of the GBA SP, but it wasn't until the DS Lite that things were clearly turning around to brighter days. So everything in between the end of the SNES and the DS Lite was a really dark time for Nintendo fans from the NES and SNES era.

i think you have history a bit mixed up when it comes to Nintendo handhelds. The early-mid 90s were a time of decline for Nintendo handhelds but the late 90s-early 00s saw massive sales thanks to Pokemon & Gameboy Color.

Nintendo was consistently shipping 15-20 million handhelds per year and Pokemon alone sold over 100 million during these "dark ages".