Nintendo should do nothing, Wii is still the winner...

So Nintendo should not release 3DS in 2011 for Wii's sake?

No, it means they should try harder, which they are likely doing.

Nothing. What happened when the balance board came out? Nothing. Kinect does not affect nintendo. What it does affect is hardcore games here on out for the 360. They sold 8 mil mostly to casuals meaning game makers are going to make the 360 games more accessible to that market. So all you all praising kinect get ready for Gears of Parties.

Honestly Kinect is selling way better then I expected. 8-million in two months is amazing however I notice that 360 hardware sales have not gotten as big of a boost as I would have expected. The people buying Kinect are 360 owners and not so much the general public.

I didn't see 360 gaining a million more in hardware sales then Nintendo's Wii, Sure 360 outsold Wii this holiday season to my knowledge but the Kinect did not drive sales to extremely high levels. In stores I see stacks of Kinect bundles still unsold however the device itself is far less common.

Another factor I have noticed is stock, at least in British Columbia Canada their are Kinects in almost every store. Their is no drastic shortage. I have heard in several states Kinects are also common sight on store shelves. If they go out of stock the stock is replenished in days. This is a big different then typical hardware releases, Nintendo and Sony can never actually keep up with demand and thus lead to smaller numbers near the beginning. Where as Microsoft is churning these things out as fast as possible and thus leading to much more units coming way faster and thus selling way faster.

What should Nintendo do? Absolutely nothing, the Wii is still selling stronger then the PS2 did at this point in its life. The Wii is also still selling competitively with 360 and is not being blown out of the water. Seeing as most of the Kinect sales are to existing 360 owners and hardware isn't seeing a huge drastic boost I don't see it being maintained. In a few months the Kinect will reach market saturation all the 360 owners who want it will have it and their won't be a drastic number of new consumers to kill off the Wii.

Keep the balance board in mind it shipped over 22-million units not including the ones shipped later with WiiFitPlus. Nobody was screaming "What is Microsoft going to do" the only difference is Nintendo didn't support the balance board with much software where as Microsoft will.

I see Kinect shipping about 20-million units life time sales this gen. The device will be incorporated into the NexBox and become standard to the X-Box line. But I don't see it obliterating Nintendo's lead in the market, it may boost hardware sales by about 5-mill lifetime but I don't think it will boost enough to cause Nintendo much to worry about.

In the end Nintendo can launch with a clean slate next gen and no I don't think they will have to react to Kinect because by the time next Gen rolls around 2012/13 the novelty will have worn off and Nintendo's innovation will still sell. So Nintendo will just need to wait it out and wait for its eventual decline.

My friend is a manager at the local Wal Mart,   this past Christmas I was able to purchase a Red Wii bundle for 199 with a 75 dollar gift card.  My friend told me that the store mgmt expects Nintendo to drop the Wii's price this spring or summer to either 149 or 129,  next Christmas we will see black friday specials with the Wii going to 99 Dollars.

Kinect is a 150 dollar add on,  add to that Microsoft isn't able to cut the price on the entry level 360 this year.  This country is still in a recession and a 150 dollar fully functional Wii won't suffer from a 300 dollar Xbox 360 Kinect bundle.

Nintendo will combat the Kinect and Move with price this generation,  they have already won.

Software is how you compete. For one thing, a steady stream of big games is the reason the PS3 and 360 were able to sell as well as they have. And it's well known that poor software lineups for most of 2009 and 2010 were what hurt Wii sales.

The system needs more big games, not a price cut. If their upcoming Motion Plus software gets more attention than any upcoming Move or Kinect games, that will be the best kind of response.

That would be fun to see just because BioWare, Criterion, and DICE would go down with them, two of which (BioWare and DICE) have made disparaging comments about Nintendo in the past, and Criterion which showed how much they care with that Need for Speed game. Then imagine the meltdowns of "Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Need for Speed, Burnout, Battlefield, Mirror's Edge all Nintendo exclusive"

it'd implode the internet, it would

Do remember Nintendo rejected Kinect first - the company brought it to them, Apple and others first. Microsoft already had some of the other complicated software (like facial recognition) sitting around that they could use to make it work.  I think it will be looked back as a brilliant and daring decision.

I think forced feedback gyros in the controller would be a great next step.  So for when you try to push against something, the gyros in the wiimote spin and give resistance.  You could dial up or down the resistance to suit your  levels – like the Dyna-Flex exercise balls – the wheels spin fast and provide lots of resistance.

You could also figure out the shape of things with the feedback, i.e. find your way through a secret doorway, etc.  Plus, it would be a boon for workouts as the gyros could spin and provide forced feedback like a weight system.

The think I don’t know how you would figure out is how to power those things, but it could also should be able to re absorb consumer energy.  This is a bit of a fantasy, but I think it would be a great next step.

I think the next Wii will be 3D, that with the feedback will move the environment toward the next level in virtual reality.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU4PTgEpk6w