RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:
Investing in gimmicky ideas isn't a bad strategy at times. Everyone does it, Sony and MS have their share too ... VR, touch panel on the PS4 controller, Kinect, Move, Wonderbook.
The problem is when you try to base your entire platform around a gimmick. Sony isn't relying on the PS4 touch-panel and Tearaway to sell the PS4. It's a nice little bonus, that's all.
Nintendo is guilty of the former and they are paying a dear price for it, but it is pretty much exactly like the Vegas gambler ... sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's not smart taking your life savings and investing it at a casino though. A mutal fund might be a better (albiet more boring) idea. But sometimes (a lot of times actually) "boring" is good.
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You know, even if I were to take your gimmicky reasoning seriously, it still contradicts itself. The N64 and GC didn't have what you would classify as gimmicks; and the GC, in terms of software lineup, is the closest Nintendo ever got when it comes to being like a Sony or Microsoft console; the very thing you say is a good approach has proven to be unsuccessful. So you lack a consistent explanation for Nintendo's failures and successes.
You didn't address your error with Microsoft's market share. Normally you try to backpedal, but it looks you realized that there was no way out of that.
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The thing you don't want to admit to yourself is the Wii U/3DS IS part of the Wii/DS cycle. It's simply the other side of it.
There's nothing inherintely wrong with this business philosophy, it's fine. But you have to be prepared for high highs and some low freaking lows.
That's the inherint nature of position yourself in a "trying to catch lightning in a bottle" formula. There are ups and downs to it. We're just seeing the down side to it.
Microsoft is doing OK, they made a mistake (similar to Nintendo) of betting too heavily on a gimmick. Had they not done this they would be fairly close, perhaps even leading Sony in North America and Europe right now because Sony's first year of software has been sh*t quite frankly.
There's nothing special that Sony did, they just watched the other two implode on themselves by banking on gimmicks.
Having said that though I notice you don't want to touch any part of the Apple part of the equation here. I don't care how novel Wii Sports was, even if Nintendo came up with 50 of those games today, they would run into a brick wall called smartphones/tablets. Nobody needs a Wii today ... it was neccessary when the only thing a casual could play games on was a PS2/XBox/GameCube and there were no games being made for their needs at all.
Today there are hundreds of accessible games as simple or even simpler than Wii Sports to play available in everyone's pocket all day long for free. As such the Wii's original "mission" has been taken to its logical endpoint, it just so happened that Nintendo couldn't take it all the way there. They never would have the forsight to make a phone like Apple did and get the jump on that before anyone else. It was always Apple that was going to win the race, no matter what Nintendo did.
The GameCube didn't have a gimmick, but it had plenty of bad execution, like I dunno, who's genius idea was it to make a PURPLE lunchbox as the design? Who was that supposed to appeal to? The gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) Ikea-chic art house crowd? Just because you don't rely on gimmicks doesn't mean you can abandon common sense.
