| greenmedic88 said: That is backwards thinking to say that the graphical quality of games is ultimately determined by the non-gaming stockholders. If the stockholders in question are non-gamers, then they neither know, nor care about such technical aspects so long as the producing company continues to post profits and growth. What next? Stockholders are ultimately the ones who determine how "fun" a given producer's games are? No. It's the people playing and buying them who determine what sells, whether it's dreck or quality product. The companies are only responsible for keeping production costs in check and producing projects in time to maintain profitability. Stockholders will follow by investing in the companies with the strongest financials or most promising upcoming product line ups. There are no "suicidal moves" being committed here if the games, regardless of how they look, or what demographic they're targeted at, continue to sell, even if they're being "snuck by" a less savvy demographic that isn't as discriminating about what they play so long as they're having fun. There is no dictating what a player/consumer enjoys playing. |
That's very charmingly innocent of you to think that major stock holders are not aware of what's going on and don’t have an influence. Consumer influence is less than you think and is slow in developing. Did Toyota call you up and ask you what kind of car you wanted made next year? Nope, me neither. If I owned about 5 or 10% of their stock do you think they would keep me in the loop?
One thing investors look for is rapidly growing markets. One thing they hate is early fading (bad news for the Xbox). To an investor momentum is everything. They are always looking for a big wave to ride. You don’t stop current projects underway because you need to recoup the development costs. You do reevaluate future directions. Don’t think that process has started? Read between the lines. One game developer today said that there would not be any new high budget FPS in the future, because the market was too small. Hmm, which consoles practically live for big expensive FPS.
By this time next year we’ll be up to our eyeballs in fitness games because when you can move $89 games like cotton candy, it will be noticed. It is just sinking in that Nintendo games are multimillion sellers not just because of Mario. I don’t give a rat’s ass about cute Italian plumbers; I buy almost every Nintendo game because they play well and look good.
Miyamoto was interviewed and asked why 3rd party developers couldn’t compete with Nintendo. He said that it was obvious to them that most developers were putting in their third string team. He said Nintendo always used their first string. That pretty much matches my observations.
But don't take my word for it because you won’t anyway. Let's wait about six months and take another look. It will be a rather different landscape emerging.
