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Imperial on 26 May 2008
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ZenfoldorVGI said:
kingofwale said:
Who? Pretty much everyone... Sony will, Microsoft will, heck, maybe even Apple will come up with their "casual" based machine. Nintendo is right now holding the majority of the casual market in both handheld and console market.

Ah, but that opens up the can of worms Sony and MS fanboys despise.

To take top spot, the next consoles will have to enter the casual market in some way. We're already seeing them try to do it.

 Agreed , it's incredibly unlikely that any console could hold majority marketshare without the casual market.

So what is more important to their respective fanbases? Beating Nintendo in sales figures, or having first party games stay true to the hardcore mentallity rather than catering to a casual audience via gimmicky hardware?

Why isn't it possible to have both ? yes it is very difficult but if Sony/MS/Nintendo came out with Semi-Powerful hardware ( e.g PS2)  , then it would be possible to achieve a lower price point that apeals to the casuals and semi powerful console that apeals to the hardcore , as the console becomes more popular (through apealing to a large % of all markets ) it will only matter to a small % that it is slightly less powerfull than it's rivals.

You can't have it both ways. If you want Sony to win, you have to want them to enter the casual market full force which could destroy everything you seem to love about them. If you want them to stay strictly hardcore and "win," that might not be possible.

The PS2 is a great example of exactly why you don't have to enter the casual market full force , Sony dropped the price of the PS2 pretty fast and then introduced Singstar, Eyetoye etc. The Wii is pretty much the opposite of the PS2, it started of a the casual end and is working it's way to the hardcore market ( Conduit etc ) however the hardware is a limitation for the Wii.

Also, with Nintendo's brand power in the casual market, I think it'd take more than one generation to wrestle leadership of it from them, even if all those companies you mentioned teamed up to take Nintendo on, together.

 Here's the thing , the casual market are far less loyal than the hardcore market , the casuals are looking for whats popular,new,celebrities are using . Nintendo will have to proove themselves all over again to the casual market ( of course there will be there's that love the Wii and want an improved experience next time ) because for the most part casuals have poor memory.

 However the hardcore market is as loyal as hell , this is seen in the PS3 outperofming the XBOX 360 in hardware sales despite the PS3 having a small (and arguably poorer) libary of games , The PS3 is kicking the XBOX's arse in europe and japan this is clearly brand loyalty.