Are you tired? hungover? hating monday mornings? well then sit down put up your feet and enjoy some lols by reading these 2 recent articles by our old friend BruceOnGames!

I am very, very glad that I am not in competition with Microsoft’s Xbox division. They really are grinding the opposition down. And it is not as if they are attacking on one front. No, Microsoft believe in being better in every single possible way. The Xbox 360 is now, by a huge margin, the gamer’s choice of consoles from this generation. It is cheaper to buy, has far more games available and has the best online gaming service on earth, Xbox Live. Little wonder that in September Microsoft sold $404 million of Xbox 360 hardware, software and peripherals in North America alone. A phenomenal result.

Part of the success is down to platform exclusives. Halo is massive and Halo 3: ODST has done the business again through this summer. But there is also Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, Forza Motorsport 3 and Left 4 Dead 2 with Mass Effect 2, Gears of War 3, Crackdown 2, Halo Reach and Alan Wake to come. Relentless and formidable.

There is the constant upgrading of Live to become a media hub, with HD movie rental, Facebook, Twitter, Zune and Sky Player on the way. This makes the 360 by far the most powerful entertainment hub that you can connect to your television. And it is a lesson to everyone that Microsoft are a software company, they see the Live service as being infinitely more important than the 360. The 360 is just the current box of choice, there will ultimately be far more that can use the service.

Also, quietly but persistently, Microsoft are moving content distribution away from the physical plastic and cardboard sold at retail. Online is the future and Microsoft are already there. They keep adding to the number of game titles that can be directly downloaded with a new batch just released including Army of Two, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, and Sonic Unleashed. Microsoft are making the transition gradually so as to wean both retail and consumers to the new reality. But the rumours are that the Xbox 3/ Xbox 720 / Project Phoenix will be a download only device.

As if the weren’t enough we have Project Natal on the way. An implementation of gesture interface technology that is a quantum leap beyond anything else. This will bring infinite new possibilities to how humans interact with video games and the whole online world. New levels on immersiveness will transform the potential of the medium. We are about to make a paradigm shift of epic proportions.

People scoff when I say that I think that the Xbox 360 will ultimately outsell the current non HD version of the Nintendo Wii. But I still think that it will. The 360 represents amazingly brilliant value for money, yet Microsoft can easily sell it even cheaper. As a gaming device it massively outperforms the alternatives. And it is evolving to do so much more as well.

http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/10/22/the-relentless-xbox-machine-rolls-on/

Inevitably, and for reasons explained many times on here, the Wii bubble has finally burst. In the half year to the end of September sales were down by 40% compared with the year before. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has no option but to admit: “Wii has stalled” he even admitted that the price drop has failed to arrest the decline: “With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time”. Which was all as inevitable as night follows day.

A lot of the success of the Wii was fad. People becoming lemmings under the onslaught of peer pressure. Just like the Hula Hoop and Rubik’s Cube for previous generations. And fads have very sudden endings as the zeitgeist moves on to something new.

The Wii is a very strange and paradoxical device, its hardware capability is mainly last generation yet it boasts an innovative and compelling gesture interface. Most Wiis are bought as family toys and are little used yet it has some amazing games including possibly the stand out title of this generation, Super Mario Galaxy.

The Wii has had its popularity and life massively extended by the Balance Board and Wii Fit, but there are only so many overweight middle aged women willing to pay so much in a feeble attempt to assuage their vanity. So it looks like this market is exhausted, much to the dismay of the many publishers who thought that this was a bandwagon they could jump on. The reality is that the Balance Board is panning out as being the Reebok Step mark 2.

It doesn’t help that you can buy a vastly better machine, the Xbox 360, for less money. Even Sony have tried to be more price competitive and have improved their act in many other ways. Both these machines are introducing gesture interfaces that will finally remove the Wii’s main trump card.

We have known for a long time that the Super Wii is in the way with HD graphics and a rumoured Bluray disk drive. But this is thought to be coming some time after the middle of next year and the market needs it now. Nintendo have got their timing very wrong this time.

It has to be said that the Wii has done video gaming a massive amount of good. It has taken the medium to new markets and new demographics, vastly expanding it for everyone’s benefit. They have introduced new genres of games and extended old genres in a prodigous burst of creativity. And they have continued in their fine tradition of production values that put most of the rest of game publishing to shame.

So what is going to happen? Well it is a golden opportunity for Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Sony) to make hay whilst the sun shines. They can fill the vacuum that Nintendo have created. They need to give tens of millions of Wii owners a compelling reason to upgrade and I am sure that their marketing teams are working at doing exactly that. And my prediction still holds that the Xbox 360 will ultimately sell more units than the current non HD version of the Wii.

http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/10/30/the-wii-bubble-has-burst/

have a good day

Natal and even sixaxis doesn't mean Sh*t if you don't have any games that appeal to the casual gamer, and until now Wii seems to do just that

lol :P thanks for that!

how can a 40 year old fanboy be so fanboyish?

I think we should organize duel beetween Bruceongames and Maelstrom - that would be funniest show ever.

OMG

He's improving - some of his reference links go to places other than previous articles on his blog!

...But he's still crazy.

Interesting take on what the future holds. On one thing I do tend to agree: Nintendo have opened new consumer demographics to MS and Sony. The blue ocean doesn't have people with significant brand loyalty, so they can be drawn to the PS3 or 360. If Nintendo's market research finds that significant numbers of Wii owners who are first time console buyers are buying a 360 or PS3 a few years after initially buying the Wii then Nintendo will need to act to hold on to those people for the next generation.

But predicting the demise of Wii while it is still selling in greater numbers than the PS2 at the same in its life is rather premature. And predicting the 360 will eventually sell more units than the Wii basically requires the 360 to sell at peak numbers for 2 whole years after Wii is discontinued. And that's assuming Wii doesn't extend it's lead over 360 at all over the remainder of Wii's life. It could happen if Nintendo release their next console in 2010. But not likely if Nintendo wait until 2011.

I find it very amusing that for Xbox the future is in a digital distribution only system (with a gradual move to wean consumers and retailers) in which Xbox is leading the way. Whereas for Sony the first HW maker to place a digital distribution only device on the market in PSPGo (while still providing for disc based distribution on its handheld platform) is fail upon fail. Though I note Bruce didn't criticise the PSPGo, only that he neglected to acknowledge that Sony is already heavily invested in the future and success of digital distribution.

This seems to be a little more reasonably written that some of his others, but it's all for naught as he still has the same asinine conclusions.

Unless Nintendo pulls the Wii off the market very very soon his dream has no hope of coming true.

Actually, blue ocean customers have been found to have more brand loyalty.