Nintendo products were considered toys before the Playstation turned them into profitable multimedia hub. Cell Phones were just phones before Apple create Iphones and Black Berrys came along. A multimedia hub isn't a gimmick, it's a legit device where you can play your games, DVD's, MP3's, Video chat and more. The PS3 is the savior of the Blu Ray format and the cause of affordability for families around the world, just as they and Microsoft (following behind) were for DVD's. Motion controls brings casual appeal back to gaming. Yes....thats true...it increased the market size by allowing people to hate gaming or find it to be too much of a challenge to finally have fun with it without complexities. So? Kinect one-upped that and Microsoft is using those legs to stay ahead of the PS3. The PS3 is the only losing console thats been able to stay close to its main competitor primarily off of multimedia and core titles nearly tripling the sales of the Gamecube if it hasn't already.

As far as I can tell the only part that made Playstation unprofitable is their emphasis on multi-media, blu ray and unneeded value-adds that have nothing or little to do with gaming.

Is it just me or the 360 did fine without Blu-Ray, without the do-all cell processor? hmmm... maybe they should just stick to making game machines.

But wait, that's what Nintendo does.

Gimmicks are things that attract. Pure gimmicks are products that attract while bringing little value. To what might I ask? To gaming.

Hence, the Playstation 2's DVD capabilities, the Playstation 3's blu-ray playback capabilities are all pure gimmicks as far as gaming is concerned.

Motion controls are the pole opposite. Sorry to break it to you.

Are they a technology in the making? Yes. Are they fully ready? No. Are they gimmicks? No. They would be gimmicks if your movements reflected nothing happening on screen, but that's not the case. If it was, I would have agreed with you a long time ago.

But my conclusion here is that the Gamecube is the opposite of the Playstation line of products when it comes to the gaming industry. It was actually meant to be a gaming machine and not a media hub + dishwasher. Hence, the cube is the savior of gaming in contrast with the Playstation family of products, which are gimmicks.

I thought the same as you about Blu Ray being unneeded, but until I got a PS3 I didnt realize that Blu Ray is pretty much the last great disc format before we go full digital. Seriously, it holds massive amounts of information.

Motion controls will take the back seat to a newer gimmick which is the Nintendo is using. Nintendo is always trying to use something new and fresh to keep pushing gaming in a new direction, but nothing will stick with the wii-mote. Im sure they will have one or two games, but they dont want to segment their crowd. Nintendo wanted to make the Super NES  a CD based console but their contract with Sony failed so I believe they sided with Panasonic. Anyway, that was more than enough fuel that Sony needed once the gig was dropped and Nintendo walked out on them at CES. A legitimate CD based console was what the world was looking for in the 90's and Sony gave it to them with a wealth of games to boot. Third parties took the risk on Sony because Sony let them make what they wanted to freely without as much oversight as Nintendo and gaming is being taken to another level. When Nintendo was the hottest console on the planet it was still under ridicule from PC gamers and Arcade fanatics because of how low the quality of the graphics were but in the end Nintendo had the games. Now it's competitors have those and are pushing consoles power.

Of course disc-based systems were a value-add to games because of higher capacity and price of manufacturing, but they didn't need to be DVDs or Blu-Rays, and if they were either, they didn't need to guarantee movie-playback, which cost money to secure. But if you're going there, might as well make it able to play movies, but that's just a gimmick still (movie playback that is).

Motion controls as in the Wiimote will not take a backseat, as they are fully part of the WiiU strategy. You are aware that the WiiU largely supports only one tablet. As such, the WiiU's main multi-player controller is the Wiimote. And plus, even if that were not the case, motion controls would have only taken a back seat in the theorhetical scenario had Nintendo itself abandoned it. So no they don't inherently take a back seat, that end would have to be fabricated artificially.

Sony trolled Nintendo so Nintendo had to go with Panasonic. You don't take the rights to games made by Nintendo because that's sleezy and unethical. The rights belonged to Nintendo, and Sony tried to dishonestly steal what was not theirs from Nintendo. Now, and for hopefully as long as they continue to behave anti-Nintendo, Sony will pay the price for their shameful decisions.

3rd parties moved to Sony because Nintendo was being unfair to them, and Nintendo got what they deserved. I'm glad it happened, and I hope it happens to all companies that become bullies like that. I'm glad it also is happening to Sony today.

Nintendo brought a measure of quality assurance in the time of the NES/SNES. Thanks to Sony, Nintendo has no way to eradicate shovelware anymore and the industry is nearing collapse. How long will people want FPS and will the industry rest on unsure foundations? Even Nintendo has fallen prey to Sony's schemes of releasing "whatever you want" with 0 concerns for quality and depth. They had to, otherwise they went under.

PC gamers were still playing cinematic games and Worms when Nintendo released the N64. As far as I remember, console games were always regarded as graphically superior to PC games, as they were mostly japanese and supported by japanese game makers, who injected great amounts of visual art into their games, and PCs were not progressing as fast as today especially not at today's prices. Back then a regular machine that could play microsoft flight simulator could cost thousands and did not offer anything close to the compelling qualities of Mario 64 and all the Nintendo 64 games. Even the SNES was leaps beyond what we were seeing on PC from a Software point of view.

Arcade fanatics were a dying breed so nobody cared about them. All the games that arcades could only have were coming to the consoles, so the edge was no longer there and there was little point going to the arcades except for the arcades that had HW value-adds, those that you call gimmicks.

I never knew a format for playing movies was a gimmick. Thats not an argument. I'll let you believe that.

In terms of gaming, it is. It's a value-add for consumers, but as far as a gaming consoles go, it's a gimmick.

S.T.A.G.E. said:

If you believe that theres nothing to argue, at that point its a lost cause. 

Theres zero difference when all brands changed to disc based formats. It's called evolution, which is why Nintendo was left behind by the third parties when Sony entered. Natural transition.

I felt the same way about people who say "Motion controls are gimmicks" a long time ago, but something in me still holds hope.

If anything is not a gimmick, it's motion controls.

Rumble you could say it's a gimmick, yet you never said that about the dualshock. No you didn't.

Nintendo wanted to get CDs, it's Sony that blocked them. Then came Silicon Graphics and history is the way we know it.

Had Sony not pulled a fastball on Nintendo, things would have been much different today. It does make me kind of sad that Nintendo gets reduced to making fucking NintendoLand and shit like that, but hey "THANKS SONY! THANKS A CRAPTON".

That's how I feel about that in case you were curious.