Nintendo isn't competing, they're dominating!

Historically speaking, consoles have always been the obsolete and inexpensive brother to the PC that people buy because it is simple to use and fun; processing power and multimedia features never really factored into the equation because (after all) the PC dominated in this market space anyways.

Sony was probably the first (and only) company to ever break with convention and produce a multi-media focused home console that was ever successful; the PS2 was unusually successful because Sony was able to produce and manufacture the PS2 at a price which enabled a conventional price ($300), it was the sequel to a remarkably successful platform (the Playstation), the main multi-media functionality was just hitting the mass adoption point, and its only real competition came 18 months after it was released.

The PS3 and XBox 360 represents the mistakes that have been made by countless manufacturers before under the belief that processing power or multimedia features matter; they (not the Wii) is the unconventional console which is doomed to failure.

Yeah I forgot to write about the price, I wanted to write that it helps a lot that PS3/360 are that expensive.

I didn't know that 90 % of the Wii owners owned a 6th generation console, I expected this number to be high but not that high. But I still think that most of these don't belong to the group I'm talking about, they are probably more the Singstar people than the GTA people.

Probably the gamers I am talking about are interested in motion sensing gaming, but I think their fear that this feature leads to more kiddie games is bigger than their hope that this will add a new way of playing to the games they like. This is also were the recent wii critic (Nintendo is leaving the hardcore!) came from.
The gamers I am talking about also really are interested in graphics I think.


But anyways, I see that my theory is a little incomplete, but altough I think almost all of your critic is valid, it does not make my conclusion wrong:

If Nintendo had concentrated on the gamers that were the most important group last gen, they would not have succeded. But because they have found a new audience and are selling the best, those gamers are becoming much less important than they were. They have never loved Nintendo and they are pissed of now, at least a little.


btw, I enjoy this discussion!

The X360 and PS3 have no greater appeal to a PC gamer then the Xbox or Ps2 had, we have already have better graphics and more importantly the mouse is greater then the gamepad.
Honestly this is something hardwired into many PC gamers.

Playing some dreadful Ps2 ports like - FF7 really entrenched a dislike of consoles in my mind.

The Wii broke the mould. I've seen many former PC only gamers post on the boards about how ground breaking and fun the Wii is.

It will never be my main gaming platform, but I'll never put it away, it's always there for the next great game release, or for a party.

It's not that new people are buying Wii's. There were 110,000 PS2 out there, that is a lot of households.

The difference now is that the whole family is deciding what games to buy. They tend to pick games that are a lot more profitable.

Which is why I find it so strange when people are making such claims such as a system being "kiddie" when a system is nothing more then a peice of hardware with a GUI OS, sure the Mii's are cute looking fun little  characters but are totally optional when it comes to creating actual games and the rest of the system is clean and easy to control.

Do you think the dev's claiming they couldn't compete with Nintendo games last gen (even though they didn't create that many games) was because they didn't really try  hard enough and were just using it as an excuse?

It seems a very lame attitude for a Dev to have, if they really believed that there would only be nintendo making games.

The idea that a first party not creating  "hardcore" games some how destroys them is against any kind of logic. As long as there is a demand for something that demand will be met, if one dev doesn't provide it another one will.

In my mind there is Nintendo the hardware creator and Nintendo the Game developer. These are two completely separate things, I think some people forget this, it's not a Nintendo Wii, it's just a Wii.

It's success isn't going to be based on how good the First party games it creates are (it does help), this was proved by the GameCube. It's the Hardware, the vision, how the well the 3rd parties support it and one last really important thing, how high it's profile is in the gaming and wider community.

I hardly even knew of the game cube last gen, but i knew all about the Xbox even though they sold about the same.

By all these factors - 3rd party development, high profile, interesting hardware and a great vision for fun games, the Wii is going to do great.  

Really the Wii does not Compete with 360 or PS3 not a fanboy thing at all. The Wii does what it does Very well but Clearly it designed for Fun less complex quirky fast games. The 360 and PS3 are designed for a much larger type of game fun in a different way and perhaps not as fun for traditional non gamer. The Wii to me for the most part is the 21st century's version of the family board game while 360 and PS3 are more like a Movie experience. Both are Fun in thier own ways but I wouldn't think many people out there are saying should we go get 300 this weekend or wanna just play Monopoly. I really don't see the guy that wants a PS3 or 360 saying nah i would rather get a Wii. I do however see a PS3 owner and a 360 owner both getting the Wii since it is such a different experience, whereas the PS3 and 360 are very similar in the experience you get playing the games. 

Everything costs money. Is not everything then in competition for our money. My car payment means I can spend less for games or game systems. I am sure if I did not have a Wife I would definitly have all 3 systems but as itv is only 2 can be in my house and like I said the 360 and PS3 are too similar to have both but the Wii is different enough to warrant the purchase. I definitly see me buying less Wii games than PS3 games in the forseeable future. Nintendos hardest job will be keeping the motion sensing stuff feeling new.

Just like it was hard to keep analog control feeling new all this time?

I wonder how developers will ever keep games fun with just buttons to press?

When you look at things from the other side, it's not so dire.

As Nintendo has said before, the real competition is the numerous options people have to spend their 'free' time. Until someone invents a longer day, there will always be a limit on how much time you can spend doing anything.

It's similar to the PS3/360 vs. PC market. So yeah, it's a new division in the market. Fanboys will always be doing comparisons. Much like PC gamers vs. Console gamers. Japan looks to be the one place where Nintendo is replacing the other markets completely. Final Fantasy, MGS, GT, etc. fans will get the PS3 there, but it doesn't look like the trend.

I'm hoping another company will go in to compete with Nintendo (maybe Apple or Google).