@Bored4Life : I'm heavily amazed because I think exactly like you. I've made the exact same analysis, except in some cases that you analyzed more than me.
It's really amazing! So I completely agree with everything you said of course.

What's interesting too, is that you're the first person I remember besides myself, that said that Nintendo's online interface is actually better than those of the competitors. I already said it here, it's even better than XBL. But people won't believe it or even see it before it's too late. To most "hardcore gamers", best online means what XBL provides. Of course, I disagree. But for now, I'm in the vocal minority about this.

I've thought about it a little, and to me, Nintendo's online is genius, because it involves upstreaming too. In the past, Nintendo went upmarket too fast with their online interface. People fled it in drove. What I find genius with this one, is that they're very slowly and sneakingly going upmarket even with the online.
XBL is scary to non-hardcore people, so it can't be better than Nintendo's interface.
First, Nintendo try to make people want to go back to their console every day. This is the first step : giving non-gamers reasons to go back to the console every day. They accomplish this with a familiar interface. Like the wiimote, there are channels on the Wii, and people are familiar with channels.
Then, they introduce small packages you can buy from the comfort of your home, to get familiar with downloading and similar tasks.
Then, they introduce upstreaming, but not scary ones with voice chat or all kind of obnoxious friend notifications, no, just the basic, in non-scary matches in Mario Kart. They're not scary, because the system is made so that you don't have a sentiment of loss if you lose a match.
Only thing I wonder, is why Wii Fit doesn't have an online component. Perhaps they couldn't do it in time, or plan to introduce it later.

Also, you're talking about 2 upmarkets. I don't think that was part of their initial strategy to go this route with 2 upmarkets. Surely Nintendo included this branch of possibility in their original strategy, but I think that was the worst path for them. Not that they are worried, but I think they would have preferred to have only 1 upmarket to conquer. I also don't think their primary upmarket include only mythic Nintendo's loyal fans. I think it just includes regular gamers that have enough picture culture, so that they're not blinded by the HD marketing from Sony and MS. The rest are not necessarily graphic whores, but they are easily lured by "high end graphics".
I think Nintendo didn't want to take that worst path of having to expand their own upmarket, because it's harder to do, takes more time, and the worst, is that it means destroying a lot of the other upmarket, including the 3rd parties that went full head into it. Well, their mistake, too bad for them.

That's why I said Capcom are the only smart 3rd party, because they are the very few that actually covered Nintendo systems all these years. But like I said in a post long ago, they wanted to even let this go and leave Nintendo behind this gen. They nearly went the downward spiral, but thanks to being conservative last gen, they could escape the bad route by releasing RE4 and REUC.

Up til now, I had a hard time understanding how 3rd parties could manage to hold their position so well. Up to the latest FY reports. That's when I saw that some have already started digging into their assets to get going. They post bigger and bigger revenue, which is good for their stock, but in the same time, post lower and lower profits, and some are posting big losses now. Several third parties have started going the downward spiral already.
And I agree Sony have started going upstream, which was amazing to me. Because they follow very accurately the behaviour of disrupted company.
MS is also exactly in the behaviour predicted. That's to a point it's scary. They're trying to copy Nintendo and get their market. But they're several steps too late, and they don't even realize that their supposedly downmarket games are actually pretty upmarket already (like their japanese offerings were), add to that, that there is no XBL for the downmarket, so it just can't work against Nintendo's offering. To me, this means a big hard failure awaiting, and then they will flee upmarket too. Actually, they're fleeing upmarket already with other games at the same time, so I don't understand how they can hope their "supposedly downmarket games" to win anything. They also already started alienating their userbase, and they started giving up on Japan, which to me is also fleeing upmarket (JRPG -> WRPG that rely more heavily on gritty graphics).

So everything is going as planned.

ookaze said: Also, you're talking about 2 upmarkets. I don't think that was part of their initial strategy to go this route with 2 upmarkets. Surely Nintendo included this branch of possibility in their original strategy, but I think that was the worst path for them. Not that they are worried, but I think they would have preferred to have only 1 upmarket to conquer. I also don't think their primary upmarket include only mythic Nintendo's loyal fans. I think it just includes regular gamers that have enough picture culture, so that they're not blinded by the HD marketing from Sony and MS. The rest are not necessarily graphic whores, but they are easily lured by "high end graphics". I think Nintendo didn't want to take that worst path of having to expand their own upmarket, because it's harder to do, takes more time, and the worst, is that it means destroying a lot of the other upmarket, including the 3rd parties that went full head into it. Well, their mistake, too bad for them.

You have to understand why Nintendo did something as drastic as this.

Look at last gen.

Contrary to popular belief there have been reports that the GC when pushed was on par or even more powerful than the Original Xbox.

You have to look at this:

Most powerful console

at cheapest price

with lowest dev costs

and still they coulcn't win last gen.

MS stifled many games that were going to the GC(something that coincidentally is happening to Sony now).No matter how good their console the bigger companies could easily stop them from gaining any ground.This is why they focused on building their brand and a new market and thus lessen the influence of third parties in the industry.

Imagine this scenario:

All the consoles are the same power at the same price with the same third party games.What would be the deciding facto when purchasing one?The first party games.

Many analysts think that third parties are the deciding factor for winning a console cycle because it has been this way for a while without ever studying why.

Third parties weren't very important until an incident with Mortal Kombat on the Home consoles.Sega then made their challenge by declaring that they had the better version.The mistake Nintendo made was by participating in third party fights which made customers focus alot more on the third parties(where the drama occured) than either of them.This is why when Sony came in Sega got raped and Nintendo left struggling, because people would rather play the games they were publicising rather than their own games(This is why to this date no matter how good a Sonic game it is alwys hated on by the majority).

Now look at the DS while people go on about third party total software outselling Nintendo's.Most don't look at the ratio of the number of Nintendo titles to third party games that are out there. Another mission of theirs is to make their games the most wanted.People buy DS and Wii to play their games first and then third parties come second(as seen by the sales),something that would not have occured if they didn't go this route.

Since they're a hardware/software company anytime someone wants their(own) games they are then forced to buy a console .This is where they know their true strength lies.They know they have the strongest first party brands.

I don't think Nintendo has a huge secret weapon to announce at E3. I mean of course more about Pay and Play will surge. I'm sure a voice mic and a HDD will be announced or something along those lines but yea.

Main thing I see from them at E3 is them talking about software. Pikmin 3, Kid Icarus, ect.

Zucas said: I don't think Nintendo has a huge secret weapon to announce at E3. I mean of course more about Pay and Play will surge. I'm sure a voice mic and a HDD will be announced or something along those lines but yea. Main thing I see from them at E3 is them talking about software. Pikmin 3, Kid Icarus, ect.

2 years ago Nintendo brought up an enevitable scenario that was to occur with the DS.At it's current sales it would sooner or later end up being in every household in Japan and sales would drop off instantly.Nintendo has been researching on making a social game that if successful would force people to buy 1 DS per person(so as to privately manage their affairs; think of pdas and cellphones).

Given the new surge of the PSP it is a better time than ever to bring it out.The weapon could be this or a new DS version or both.

I believe that there will be something big from a third party for the Wii that only the upmarket cares about and that's it however.Nintendo isn't even trying anymore with the Wii for now(wrt titles) and I believe this is the main factor for Disaster being delayed(they don't need to release it any time soon).

ookaze said: @Bored4Life : I'm heavily amazed because I think exactly like you. I've made the exact same analysis, except in some cases that you analyzed more than me. It's really amazing! So I completely agree with everything you said of course. What's interesting too, is that you're the first person I remember besides myself, that said that Nintendo's online interface is actually better than those of the competitors. I already said it here, it's even better than XBL. But people won't believe it or even see it before it's too late. To most "hardcore gamers", best online means what XBL provides. Of course, I disagree. But for now, I'm in the vocal minority about this. I've thought about it a little, and to me, Nintendo's online is genius, because it involves upstreaming too. In the past, Nintendo went upmarket too fast with their online interface. People fled it in drove. What I find genius with this one, is that they're very slowly and sneakingly going upmarket even with the online. XBL is scary to non-hardcore people, so it can't be better than Nintendo's interface. First, Nintendo try to make people want to go back to their console every day. This is the first step : giving non-gamers reasons to go back to the console every day. They accomplish this with a familiar interface. Like the wiimote, there are channels on the Wii, and people are familiar with channels. Then, they introduce small packages you can buy from the comfort of your home, to get familiar with downloading and similar tasks. Then, they introduce upstreaming, but not scary ones with voice chat or all kind of obnoxious friend notifications, no, just the basic, in non-scary matches in Mario Kart. They're not scary, because the system is made so that you don't have a sentiment of loss if you lose a match. Only thing I wonder, is why Wii Fit doesn't have an online component. Perhaps they couldn't do it in time, or plan to introduce it later. Also, you're talking about 2 upmarkets. I don't think that was part of their initial strategy to go this route with 2 upmarkets. Surely Nintendo included this branch of possibility in their original strategy, but I think that was the worst path for them. Not that they are worried, but I think they would have preferred to have only 1 upmarket to conquer. I also don't think their primary upmarket include only mythic Nintendo's loyal fans. I think it just includes regular gamers that have enough picture culture, so that they're not blinded by the HD marketing from Sony and MS. The rest are not necessarily graphic whores, but they are easily lured by "high end graphics". I think Nintendo didn't want to take that worst path of having to expand their own upmarket, because it's harder to do, takes more time, and the worst, is that it means destroying a lot of the other upmarket, including the 3rd parties that went full head into it. Well, their mistake, too bad for them. That's why I said Capcom are the only smart 3rd party, because they are the very few that actually covered Nintendo systems all these years. But like I said in a post long ago, they wanted to even let this go and leave Nintendo behind this gen. They nearly went the downward spiral, but thanks to being conservative last gen, they could escape the bad route by releasing RE4 and REUC. Up til now, I had a hard time understanding how 3rd parties could manage to hold their position so well. Up to the latest FY reports. That's when I saw that some have already started digging into their assets to get going. They post bigger and bigger revenue, which is good for their stock, but in the same time, post lower and lower profits, and some are posting big losses now. Several third parties have started going the downward spiral already. And I agree Sony have started going upstream, which was amazing to me. Because they follow very accurately the behaviour of disrupted company. MS is also exactly in the behaviour predicted. That's to a point it's scary. They're trying to copy Nintendo and get their market. But they're several steps too late, and they don't even realize that their supposedly downmarket games are actually pretty upmarket already (like their japanese offerings were), add to that, that there is no XBL for the downmarket, so it just can't work against Nintendo's offering. To me, this means a big hard failure awaiting, and then they will flee upmarket too. Actually, they're fleeing upmarket already with other games at the same time, so I don't understand how they can hope their "supposedly downmarket games" to win anything. They also already started alienating their userbase, and they started giving up on Japan, which to me is also fleeing upmarket (JRPG -> WRPG that rely more heavily on gritty graphics). So everything is going as planned.

Hey, i too said it a long time ago.

The two upmarkets fails in the sense, that there is only one market. We could make an "upmarket" for every developer, genre or franchise out there if we want to, but that would just be distracting from the matter. If we start splitting up the market, we would eventually end up having everyone in the upmarket, since from everyones own personal view, the person in question is always in the upmarket.

With the momentum Nintendo has now, anything they announce will automatically be a gigantic AAA world-changing bomb. Their whole keynote will porbalby just be Reggie walking on water and pointing at sales figures and laughing, while Iwata and Miyamoto choke on money and tickle each other.

@bdbdbd: sorry I missed it when you said Nintendo's online GUI was the best.

@Bored4life: well, I don't blame Nintendo at all for going this route. To me, it's very vlear that they took the best option they had. It's obvious, because it's crystal clear from the behaviour and reactions of gamers and 3rd parties, that if they had done anything else, they would be doomed nowadays. I see constant irrational behaviour, like gamers saying that people buy Nintendo console for Nintendo games, and at the same time that 3rd party games are crappy. I mean, it's obvious that if the Wii sales would have been left to 3rd parties, the Wii would be dead by this time. What I find the worst, and that I really can't accept, is the attitude of 3rd parties devs, which want to go as far as destroying themselves to not support correctly a console maker. This industry was really going down, with such mentality.

LOL 4 posts already cheering for bored4life, and the other 3 except ookaze have nothing to say because they cant counter him anymore. Just like me... >.< I just read the posts like everyone else does, as you can see, even with these many posts only few members are participating.

Anyway, I post here just to bump this thread. This thread is too good to just forgotten.

Yeah, Nintendo will probably talk about boosting DS sales in Japan, since they've reached 1-per-household saturation levels at this point.

I think Nintendo's going to completely change what a "game" means...again.

Also notice in the downmarket (or new gamer) games, some have common bonds to make new gamers feel more "at home". For an example, just look at the interface to Brain Training, and then compare it to Wii Fit. Very similiar menu structure and feel. I think (well, I KNOW) this is done on purpose to make first time or infrequent gamers feel right at home with the game, and more importantly, gaming in general.