Singstar, Ratchet and clank series, Jak and daxter series, hot shots golf series, little big planet series, modnation racers, eyepet series, buzz series, Sly series, sorcery, flower, flow, journey, sports champions series, puppeteer and many more all say hello.

Have a little rationality, Sony focuses on diversity, family focused games to m-rated shooters and everything in between, way to push an old stereotype that has ALWAYS been flat out wrong.

I personally don't see the FPS craze dying down anytime soon, but maybe that's just me. What do you want to see rise again is it dies down. I'd like to see RPGs make a comeback. It's been a long time since games like Pokemon and Final Fantasy were universally loved by gamers.

If Nintendo vanished tomorrow, the industry as a whole would be fine. Whatever void they left would be filled in time. The landscape of the industry would be changed, but the results would be the same.

But I would have almost no games to play. I probably wouldn't own a game console. The amount of money I spent on video games every year would drop from several hundred dollars to...well, maybe zero. Maybe simply less than $100. The amount of hours I spent playing video games every year would drop from about a thousand to fewer than 100. Not out of spite, mind you, but lack of interest. So, for me, Nintendo is THAT important.

In the grand scheme of things, Nintendo is important. Currently. On the hardware side, they command 85% of the handheld market. On the software side, they are one of the biggest publishers in the industry. If they vanished, they WOULD leave a mighty big void. And if, instead of simply vanishing, they were to cease hardware production and become a third-party? Well, their hardware would be missed, but most notably, they would probably be the biggest third-party in the industry. I think you'd have a hard time arguing then that they "aren't that important."

Not sure what planet you were living on when the Xbox 360 launched, as it did perfectly fine, sales for the xbox 360 were strong enough by 2007 to negate any issue with introducing new tech if they had planned on doing - instead they released their additions when the wii bubble had already burst, which if they were doing to "jump on board" would be a huge mistake both commercially and financially if their focus was solely on copying nintendo.

Another point to make is, this is freaking Microsoft, if they wanted to release something they would do, they arent exactly short on pocket change.

additionally, the kinects release in late 2010 was a cut down version of the tech they actually bought, it isnt outlandish to assume that the cut down version (using software solutions to band-aid fix the removal of hardware processing on the first kinect) was a cost saving measure to, along with the 500m in advertising, push the concept to the public to set the tone and sell consumers on the concept knowing that the system that would eventually replace it (xbox one) would be a prime component.

The PSEye is simply an evolutionary step for their existing hardware in the eyetoy which, for a hardware addon, saw relatively high success as outlined by one of the key titles for it selling over 4.2 million, again though my point in going in to these technologies is in response to the frankly shocking generalization that people make to claim the pseye and kinect are "direct responses to the wii", which is actually, genuinely, laughable.

As i have said, clearly, the only "direct response" that makes any sense when drawing comparisons, is the sixaxis controller, despite the dualshock 3 having the same functionality very few games released later in the playstation 3's life actually try to use these features other than to aleviate configurations or free up other buttons.

Claiming the pseye and kinect are direct responses to the wii, is as inaccurate and ludicrous as claiming the wii is a response to the eyetoy.

Also, in your last point, you are comparing CURRENT wii sales to 4 year old periperals when covering the reason for said peripherals release - the wii was hovering around 65m when these peripherals hit the mainstream, and as illustrated in prior posts, development of said peripherals was in progress before the actual release of the wii.

What it boils down to is that there are some similarities between the kinect/kinect2 and eyetoy/pseye, but essentially all three systems use completely different approaches and deliver three completely different levels of accuracy, none of which were a response to one another but simply an end point to different routes of research and development, we just have the unfortunately situation where Nintendo fans (despite not being the first company to do so) lay claim to motion controls with vigour and claim everyone else simply "copied".

The reality of that is simply that the wii's success hinged more on it's lower price point and the glut of childrends tv-show themed shovelware that capitolized on the younger generations that made up a large portion of its userbase, evidence of this can be found in the changing trends of children and what is "popular" in the school yard, the wii had the benefit of being the must-have kids toy for a fair few years, that crown now belongs to minecraft and mobile devices.

So i reitterate that point, a large portion of the Wii's success was down to the price, shovelware and timing, successfully putting it into kids "must have" list, as if kid a at school had one, kids b through d want one too, the "innovative motion controls" us forum goers discuss in ernest mean very little to a large portion of wii owners, who so clearly, by now, have their wii collecting dust on a top shelf or in the bottom of a toybox, because they have either grown up beyond the age of wanting the shovelware kids-show based games that were rife on the system or said shovelwares frequency of release has dropped considerably (which, looking at the consoles decline, curves almost perfectly with the falling sales).

Nintendo fans arent going to like reading that, but it's just the way it is.

Why? Why do people need to stop putting Nintendo on a pedastal. They've earned their pedastal.

I honestly have a bit of a problem with your assertion because I genuinely do think Nintendo is vital for this hobby to remain the hobby I love. Will the industry survive without Nintendo? Sure. Will I still give a shit? Probably not.

Nintendo are one of the oldest developers, publishers, and industry juggernauts still in the game and we need them. Without the likes of Atari and THQ around, and with companies like Atlus, Capcom, Sega etc. either being bought out or shadows of their former selves; we certainly need Nintendo.

Now. I don't want to make any assumptions about you personally, but I am going to be speaking in general terms. The vast majority of gamers on the internet, and the "cash" majority of gamers in general, are not real gamers. Most so called gamers today are American teenage jocks who play Call Of Duty, Madden/Fifa (depending on region), maybe Grand Theft Auto, Battlefield and/or Halo, and pretty much nothing else. They care about sports and shooting. They do not share my hobby...

Now, me personally, I'm an actual gamer. I play RPGs, Platformers, Strategy Games, etc. I have been playing video games for 23 years, and have owned a majority of the consoles released since 1990. I started playing with the Sega Master System, and I've been a gamer ever since. I've owned consoles by all 4 major manufacturers, as well as having a gaming PC from the mid 90's onwards. I am a gamer. I do not need to prove my gaming credentials any further than I already have... I don't give a scuttering fuck about Call Of fucking Duty!!! I seriously don't care. I've never owned a Call Of Duty game, I don't want to play a Call Of Duty game. I give even less of a shit about online multiplayer. This is not my hobby.

The fact of the matter is, video games where a personal endevour. If you're an old school gamer, you remember sitting at home playing Final Fantasy or Zelda; maybe it was Ultima or Phantasy Star. Perhaps it was Baldur's Gate, Mega Man, Streets Of Rage, Sonic or the OG himself Mario. Either way, how did you play. On your own, just the glow of the TV and the sound of the chiptune music. Perhaps if you where lucky you had a friend over occationally sitting with you on the floor/sofa, a bowl of cheeto's and the odd laugh, but ultimately, it was a private endevour. Shared between a few friends/siblings, but very much on the outskirts. Video games, much like comic books, animé, alternative music, or even reading books; was for most kids of the late 80's to early 90's an unpopular "geek" hobby... oh and we're talking about a time where being a geek meant you got beat up, your things stolen, and your life made a misery; not now, where "geek" means you where stupid glasses, pretend you know about computers, spout trendy memes, and fuck the hot goth chick at the weekend. There was NOTHING cool about being a geek back then.

So, what is video games to us gamers. The real gamers, the old "geeks" of the retro age. It's a usurped hobby, filled with pretenders and posers who've decided in their late 20's and early 30's that video games are cool; despite being the very same people who beat up the "geek" for playing them in school. The next generation, without the "geek" identifier being what it was, associate video games with the mainstream now. Everyone is a gamer, so no-one is... and where does that leave the real gamer, stuck with nothing.

Now, I have nothing against the mainstream games industry. Honestly, I have friends who are gamers now, who most definitely where not back in the day. My closest friend is a tech nut, has a £1000 gaming PC, and every console and handheld going today yet hasn't played anything of note pre-PSOne (and very little of note pre-PS3). He loves video games, but he's far more into action games, shooters, and western RPGs than anything. The JRPG makes little sense to him as he never grew attached to the tropes and gameplay style like I did. I don't begrudge him his hobby. Good for him, enjoy away.

My point is that virtual paintball, which let's face it, is what most online FPS's best aproximate, is about as far removed from Super Mario Bros. as you can get. It's not the same hobby and treating it as such is daft. The problem is, this industry runs on an either-or basis. Games are not made because they're not "ecconomically viable", companies that used to make cute platformers and interesting RPGs now make samey FPS games because they're all chasing the CoD dollar. I don't want a video games industry where everything is trying to be mainstream because I'm not mainstream, I'm a gamer. I want quirky adventure games, cute platformers, overly in depth RPGs that require and intimate understanding of the multi-facetted geek culture to appreciate. This is gaming. This is however extremely niche. Now, some could say, "aaah, but games like that are released on PS3, Xbox 360 etc. so why do you need Nintendo". Well, because Nintendo creates them. Would there even be a Ratchet & Clank if there wasn't Mario still selling copies. Would there be a Darksiders if there wasn't a Zelda for someone to look at and go, "let's make that, but darker and more mature", would we have the Persona series in western markets if things like Pokémon never existed. Maybe, but probably not I'd wager. Without Nintendo to highlight that we still exist, the games industry would homogenise. Sony and Microsoft have no ties to the old school. Even the original Playstation, whilst holding it's charm has completely forgotten it at the same time. After all, where's Crash Bandicoot, where's Spyro The Dragon... oh right yeah, they're making Killzone and Uncharted now, games involving mainstream burly men with guns. How thrilling.

We need Nintendo, because without Nintendo, there's no such thing as gaming. Sure there's still interactive entertainment, but it's all online and involves shooting other people with guns... how gaushe.

Nintendo Power

They have those game, sure, but they are not their primary focus. And MS does the same thing, so again, the two have a nearly identical approach to gaming.

None of the big gaming companies are THAT important. If either of them dropped out of console manufacturing tomorrow the gaming world would carry on with almost no disruption.

In terms of global scale, gaming isnt even that important. Consoles can barely reach 80 million. On a planet of 7 billion that is nothing.

No specific genre is Sonys primary focus, you really need to stop projecting, a large portion of the top rated "shootahs" people love to moan about are actually third party, Sony invests just as much focus and resources in to games of varied genres as it does into it's small grouping of shooters, those being killzone and resistance, so what you are in actual fact doing is cherry picking a very tiny portion of Sonys portfolio of games and using said selection to generalize the company as a whole, when the reality is that Sony simply offers a broader range of titles than Nintendo.

Your generalization would have fit the pre-2009 ish Microsoft for the most part but with the addition of kinect they have expanded their library and explored other genres more, not as much as Sony mind, but they have done non the less.

Nintendo sticks with its staple genres and formats and rarely diverts into new territories or tackles existing popular genres, which is why they are different, but that difference isn't necesserilly a good thing as evidenced by the fact large portions of gamers flat out avoid the console completely.

The issue is not however, where a particular company decides to limit its range of titles or expand upon it, the issue is the narrow minded statement of microsoft and sony being "alike" when their first party offerings are completely different, your fixation with what is primarilly a third party contribution to the industry is a warped one at best.

INDEED!