Zen and HappySqurriel,do you play SSBB online?....if you do,mind telling me your Brawl FCs?

PS3 hasn't been selling like hotcakes in Japan either.

 Haha, you are delusional, you think Sony and Microsoft are not pissed that they put billions in to R&D developing the console, and nintendo being this small company releasing a cheaper more profitable less powerful console, and its selling lap around thier hardcore gaming machines. Wow, i think you are wrong

kn - It's all entertainment. Since your anecdotal evidence involves elementary school kids I'll note a corollary in the music industry. To wit, how does popularity with the younger generation (pre-teen) translate into continued popularity?

The simple answer is the popularity usually does not carry over. When it does then you get a big winner. For instance The Beatles started out as a "fad" or what I think is better described as a "cultural phenomenon". The Beatles place in history was primarily carved out (IMHO) because they carried over their pre-teen audience into the teens, and from the teens into adulthood. Very few musical bands/groups manage to do that, to keep appealing to a generation as it moves from childhood into adulthood and simultaneously pick up new fans (which keeps it from becoming niche). It's a magic formula. For perhaps the best earlier example see Sinatra and how the bobby soxers followed him into adulthood.

There are several historical examples of how the gaming cultural phenomenons work out. You can look at the rise and fall of the card game "Bridge" in America. Bridge was a staple "party game" from the 1930's well into the 1960's and then started falling out favor for one reason or another. Chess had a huge expansion in the USA starting in 1972, directly attributable to Bobby Fischer, and has had a slow decline since then. "Trivial Pursuit" was one of the big hits of the 1980's and the trivia genre has been present in gaming since then. For the last ten or so years we've had Poker and now more specifically Texas Hold'em as one of the biggest winners in gaming. Things go in and out of fashion... but why?

Nintendo has a history as a consistently profitable gaming company for over 100 years. The Hanafuda cards that Nintendo makes have been declining in popularity recently but you can still find a deck of cards for sale in a 7-11 in Japan. Nintendo is a gaming company and has failed famously with attempts to diversify. Their strength is gaming.

Part of Nintendo's success is the "E" for everyone philosophy. Parents buy games for their kids that they know and trust, a lot of times the same games they played when they were young. Parents will also pick up games that they can play with their kids. That's part of the reason why Hanafuda is still around. In the USA there are similar games like Monopoly, Old Maid, Go Fish and Chess/Checkers. I believe Nintendo's strategy is the same: to make games that have cross-generational appeal and to continue to be a "brand" that indicates to the consumer that it's kid safe.

Nintendo has branched out in certain genres with more sophisticated games with darker themes but that's not going to be their emphasis. The more mature themed games will overwhelmingly be 2nd or 3rd party efforts. Nintendo will continue to concentrate on the cross-generational strategy, and will win or lose based on that.

So to answer your original question, Nintendo does want to have carry over from the pre-teen to the teen and into adulthood. That carry over is a big factor in the short-term. Nintendo's real strategy is longer term than that. What they want is 20 and 30 years down the road those kids that you were polling to be buying a Nintendo product for their own kids.

Wow, that's what i think and i don't care. But yeh...i got my Wii, then i brought a 360 and i still have both.

And no i don't think Sony are Microsoft are pissed because their doing very well.

I like the Wii but i'm glad Microsoft and Sony are pumping out quality games and not competing with the Wii.

I'm not saying i'm right, but i'm not delusional and i truly believe the Wii to be a great complementory system for some gamers, and the core system for others. Sony and Microsoft have both said the Wii is helping the industry by introducing more people into games which will no doubt lead to more sales for Sony and Microsoft too.

Ugh you made me mad on a video game forum, now that is dumb

i have a PS3 and a Wii, both are great consoles, the Wii has a great new gameplay dynamic which works well and the PS3 has loads of features and top graphics, from my point of view i have won the console war, i have the console which is the most fun and i can play my mates on with sports/casual games and i have the console with the best graphics and features so i can enjoy my hardcore games and blu ray movies and stuff on.

Regarding the position of nintendo for next gen, the sales power of a console can vary heavily, look at how the PS3 launched, also if Sony make a new controller or something they could easily take sales away, so its impossible to be sure how theyll do, you would imagine though that the next nintendo console will sell strongly.

Do people that play Wii need another console in the nearby future or will they be satisfied with what they have?

The people that are buying Wii are happy with what it provides, even though there are consoles with more horsepower available, and there is a chance that any improvement achieved in the future by moving on to another console will be just meh for the Wii Fit playing masses - even if it was Wii 2 or some other new device from Nintendo that was on the market.

It's like with the people who bought the PS2 last year to play Singstar etc: they can still use the PS2 for it, and see no reason to invest in a new piece of hardware no matter how many polygons it can bring to the table. They will continue using that device as long as it lasts like they do with other consumer electronics.

So generally, if we don't see a new innovation on the scale of Wiimote for the next generation, the success of Wii will not be repeated for ANY console in the next generation. In fact, we might never again see such success before the introduction of holo-games or whatever.

There is no pattern for the future. Gaming devices up to now have been primarily driven by technology advances - specifically graphics.

But that is now officially over. For the first time, a significant improvement in graphics has been shunned by a major manufacturer - and they are winning. You can blame price, and a host of other things - but there is no disputing this.

Graphics are now photorealistic. If a company wants to spend the resources, they can create some that looks fantastic on the Wii - as much so as the PS3 & 360.

People keep forgetting this is a *business*. People here tend to look upon things from the point of the consumer - what something costs to buy, how many units it sells, what the graphics are, what the review scores are, etc.

The industry doesn't care about this. Like it or not, the games industry is a tough industry. It is littered with the bones of previous companies that misread the economic direction of the industry - and also with "mega-corps" that make insane amounts of money, and drive the industry forward.

Software companies support the Wii out of necessity - not because they want to. Not because they like the machine, the Wiimote or anything else. Because it will make them more money. Only a few companies can afford to not do this, and take some serious risks on other consoles.

The PS1 won because the CD format was cheaper to produce, and easier to develop for than N64 carts.

The PS2 won because Sony gave the market what it wanted, when it wanted - had no competition, and won before either the XBOX or GC launched.

If it wasn't for the Wii, the PS2 would almost certainly be going strong - it will be years before the PS3 is down to a price level that is PS2 consumer friendly (hence replacing units).

The Wii is the new PS2 - and its attracting new consumers to the industry - a lot of them. Like it or not, it has only started getting "warmed up" - and like it or not, its here to stay. Ninty can continue to extend its appeal by releasing *lots* of new peripherals for it - they have turned this into a key feature of the console. Its only been 1.5 years, and we have the Wiimote, Nunchuck, Wiigun, WiiWheel, WiiFit board, and so on.

Ninty could continue doing this for 5-10 years - the only thing that would force a refresh of the Wii tech, is price. When its retail costs drops to $99, its worth releasing a souped-up version of the Wii for $249 again - with refreshed tech. But this is 5-10 years away.

In the meantime, its going to take something revolutionary to unseat the Wii. Handheld is a definitely possible direction - but battery power is a real restriction. And would a portable Wii be more popular than the current Wii? I doubt it.

It may well be 3D or true "VR" before the next generation is upon us - unless Ninty manage to release decent VR goggles for the Wii :P

  This sounds like PR spin way too much.  Hasn't it been proven that there is very little overlap between console owners? As in people very rarely have more than ONE console per generation?

by your logic, the Wii should not have had a chance against the PS3. Neither the PS1 against the N64. Nor the NES against Atari....