| Final-Fan said: Why? It would surely take much more effort than the amount Nintendo would benefit from trying to keep the others down, compared to trying to simply focus on its own success. |
First, hardcore market is still big enough to let at least one of Nintendo competitors thrive, if it manage to dwarf the other, in that case, given the huge dimensions of both, next gen it could be a very dangerous competitor.
Second, Nintendo is clearly showing (it's almost always sold out), that it doesn't want to rush plant building to follow huge demand, perhaps because if they build or finance too many, if next gen isn't as wildly successful as Wii, they'd become a financial burden. Given the self imposed limits to production, Nintendo can keep on getting without much effort 45% to 55% market share, more than enough to get a strong leadership if both competitors are roughly equivalent, but more risky if one of them crushes the other: giving room to both to reach the fateful 25%, it could make quite sure that they neutralize each other's efforts to get the leadership. Obviously, if this doesn't work, and either Sony or MS manages to secure for itself most of that roughly 50% remaining, Nintendo is forced to try to crush both, unleashing its full potential, but this will cost a lot of money.
