Moral of the Story:

Just because someone is a seemingly anonymous writer on the internet doesn't mean they won't take exception to you attacking their work.

At the same time just because you're a writer on the internet doesn't mean I won't ban you for attacking/insulting someone on our furums.

Cheers~

Wise words.

How will the next generation of consoles be received, I wonder... since they may be the first generation to be less powerful than the last?

Sony and MS cannot "up the bar" on themselves for eons, due to the huge costs involved in creating a console, let alone one superior (and cheaper) to the X360 or PS3. Sony and MS are very likely (IMO), to release the same hardware, or even lesser hardware tailored to the "blue ocean", in the next console generation, thanks to the Wii's success.

I sincerely doubt even the Wii's successor will be more powerful than the PS360. The Wii has a LOT of room to grow before needing to pass that threshold. How will the next generation be perceived by "hardcore" gamers, if my statement turns out to be true?

 Back in 1988, PC gamers were wondering similar things.  The NES was proving insanely popular, and it was obvious that there were going to be more low-end systems made for use on TVs.  The sentiment in the PC gaming sector was that consoles would never be able to match up to PCs, that PCs would always rule the roost hardware-wise, and that sentiment held true enough.  For the most part, PC gaming just stayed stagnant during the years of the NES and SNES; sales didn't really peak or drop off significantly, they stayed low but steady.  Around 1996, of course, the PC industry got their first big break in a decade in the form of Id Software's original Quake...  But that's another story entirely.

 It's fairly likely that the self-proclaimed "hardcore" of the NES era (NES through 360/PS3, excluding Wii) will take up PCs to get their "old-school" gaming fix.  That's what quite a few Atari gamers did when the NES showed no signs of reverting back to the standards of the Atari era.  And of course, there will always be a few clingers-on who will refuse to move on past the 360 and PS3, but also refuse to move onto PCs.  Whatever the case, you can be sure that a certain "left behind" sentiment is going to pervade a fair few long-time gamers in the coming years, probably bitterly.

My take on this whole phenomena is that there seems to be an inordinate number of these self proclaimed "long time Nintendo hardcore fans" who claim that Nintendo has abandoned them with the Wii. I call BS, if there were as many of you as a random sampling on message boards would suggest then the Cube would have sold alot better than it did. So i ask, who abandoned who first?

@hsrob
That's a ridiculous theory. How many people have you read claiming that they were long time nintendo fans? Perhaps 1,000? And their being Nintendo fans is disproven by the fact that gamecube "only" sold 21,000,000 units?

Random samplings on message boards are not going to get you to 21,000,000. How in the world are you doing the math to figure out that there are too many people claiming they are Nintendo fans, is it buy percentage of people that bought a Gamecube in that generation? Look, if you don't want to believe that these people are long time Nintendo fans because of what they are saying go right ahead, but don't try to prove your reasoning with faulty math that you'll never work out to anyone's satisfaction.

One, i never stated a theory, merely an opinion and i'm well aware of the maths.  That is the point about me using the expression random sampling, i wouldn't have to get 21 million.   It's extrapolating a finding about a larger number from a smaller number.  Anyway, i wasn't meaning this in it's purest mathematical sense, rather that i wasn't making any claims above random observation.   There is no maths in my post and i never claimed that there was but if you feel the need to jump on me because of the use of one expression then

" I don't want to believe that these people are long time Nintendo fans because of what they are saying"

There, is that better?

Works for me.

It just annoys me when people use faulty reasoning. If you honestly think that these people aren't Nintendo fans because there weren't enough GC's purchased to make up for all the people you see claiming their fandom then you can't possibly prove or argue that. If you think they aren't Nintendo fans because their claims sound ridiculous and seem exaggerated then you have a decent argument.

Is anyone else not able to load the page; I want to read it, but my computer apparently cannot connect to slapstic's server.

These articles need to exist. Not only because HD fans need something to make us feel better, but actually because a lot of us feel the same way as the writer. I'm certain Nintendo fans would be doing exactly the same thing if the Wii had never taken off as it has done.