Also, don't forget about the newfound VR functionality in Wii

MrPickles said: Also, don't forget about the newfound VR functionality in Wii

 What do you mean by that?

 They will go where the money is. In all honesty, sucessful companies are run like a business and put their strongest efforts in areas where they will see the greatest returns. The money now is being taken in handheld gaming. Arguing that one platform's sucess doesn't kill demand on another console is facetious. The huge sucess of one video game platform does take away development and focus from other platforms. The question now is who will win or lose based on the trends, not who will be the few that manage to survive in spite of bucking them.

@ fkusumot

Companies are investing more money into home console game development than ever before. There is some competition like I said, but amongst home consoles there's far more direct competition.

Look I can easily say I greatly prefer the PS3 over the 360, but saying I prefer a PS3 over a DS sounds a bit weird to me as they are intended for far too different purposes. I could however easily say I rather take a DS with me while travelling rather than taking a PS3, HDTV and my surround sound audio setup with me (actually it's not even an option for me) as well as saying while being at home I rather play games on the PS3 than on my DS.

Mike, its very simple. Up to now, handhelds were *completely* different (hardware) beasts from their console cousins - primarily not 3D.

The PSP/DS are the first (successful?) 3D handhelds - handheld development is blending into console development. The next big overlap will be when mobile phones can compete with handhelds/consoles in 3D development.

There is no question that the barriers between console/handhelds are now broken down, and its becoming "one big development pool".

Is it easier for a Wii developer to produce a DS title - or a PS3 title? I would say DS development. You could argue that PS3 development is more disjoint from Wii development, than DS development is!

...

Just like any market can be broken down into segments - you then still have to look at the overall performance of a company, by looking at all the segments.

The car industry has have the luxury segment, the SUV segment, the family/low-cost segment, etc. But when measuring performance they look at performance across all segments at once.

(by the same reasoning, remember that Ninty is *games only* - MS/Sony have lots of other divisions...). 

MikeB said: @ Sqrl The answers should be fairly obvious and if they are then you are probably the sort of person that understands why the Wii is successfull even if you don't like it for those reasons (or at all). Not due the advancement of game complexity (not meaning complex to play or anything like that) and graphics. Six main reasons why I thought the Wii would sell like it does, before the Wii launched: 1) GameCube discontinued 2) Relatively cheap, but (despite low specs, 3) still looks fresh due to) Motion sensing, fun new novelty gameplay (and) 4) Cute form factor 5) Popular game franchises, brandname people grew up with playing. 6) Targetting new groups of people like Grandparents and good brandname reputation for producing cute kids games. This may explain why I never was much surprised like others the Wii sold like hotcakes and likewise I won't be surprised when sales start to slow significantly in the future. I look forward to when consoles are pushing the envelope on interactivity and graphics together because that will truly be an amazing generation The graphics and processing potential of the PS3 would result in a more expensive device for the short run killing one of the Wii's most profound advantages at this point. Of course I agree there's a lot of potential with regard to input devices, Amiga based solutions pioneered with motion sensing enabled virtual reality (head and hand tracking in games, sword games, tennis, boxing, FPS, etc) and the Amiga Joyboard (balance board) from the early eighties was rather similar to Wii-Fit (surfing and skiing games). It was clear there's a lot of potential for games in the future for such innovations back then. Sony also introduced the Eyetoy and games like Eye Sports for the Playstation 2, of course the PS3 includes Eyetoy support and motion sensing as well, for example the flying levels in Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction are a lot of fun where motion sensing really adds to the experience. I would love to see a Wii-mote-like device for the PS3 (technically only needs a Wii-mote driver), but in no circumstance would I want such a device as a complete replacement for the Sixaxis controller, IMO for the majority of games I care about the Sixaxis controller is far more suitable.

On the first part, you are doing yourself a disservice to convince yourself that those are the reasons it sells.  Sure you could say that some of them are reasons it sells, but the real reasons the console sells are fairly obvious, and as I said, some get it some don't.  There are plenty of threads debating this so I won't rehash it here, so for now suffice it to say I disagree.

On the second point, I belive you missunderstood. First and foremost I am saying that game companies should not be utilizing technology that is beyond the cost effective curve.  The reasons for this are (should be) obvious.  But secondary to that I want them to push the user interactions like they have done with graphics.  We seem to agree that there is merit in this philosophy so I won't dwell on it further.  But I will say that this type of change will have to come next generation, so you are mistaken if you think I was saying the Wii should have had that. 

 Well, perhaps our views are merely a matter of degrees than differences of kind. While you "admit" that there is some competition I think that the competition is actually more fierce. With assets being re-used from the last two generations for the current handhelds I see the competition becoming greater and the lines between the types of games that are "achievable" (whatever that means) starting to co-mingle. To be clear, I think that the handheld/console dichotomy is at an end.

MikeB said: MrPickles said: Also, don't forget about the newfound VR functionality in Wii  What do you mean by that?

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=12594

I agree with this, but with one distinction, I think it has evolved rather then dissappeared.  The differences still exist but they are less than ever before and will likely continue to diminish.

@ shams