Too much talk about "perfection". Both the MS quote (from Legend11) and rickthestick2's observations revolve around the idea of perfection.

You can please some of the people all of the time (1) or all of the people some of the time (2), but you can't please everybody all of the time.

(1) MS and Sony's approach
(2) Nintendo's approach.

Though MS trying to get casuals to buy the 360 shows a lack of focus.

I think that both Wii and atleast one of the HD Consoles can be popular and successful at the same time. Both Sony and MS could make a profit if they focused on their own business instead of killing the other's.

steven787, while i dream of a "perfect" console, that's not what i expect. What i expect from Nintendo is for them to not focus on just expanding the market and on the casuals. They've stepped to far in the right direction. If they continue with this they might potentially "hurt" the industry instead of helping it. They are replacing the hardcore with the casuals and not trying to add the casuals into the equation.

If Nintendo sees casual as the future of gaming and not the expansion of gaming then the whole industry will be shot down, until someone corrects the problem. Wow i'm not even sure what i'm talking about...

I've been gaming for a very long time, traditionally core (and most "hardcore") gamers are tools who will buy what ever the marketing machine tells them is cool this season. I include major magazines and website in that group, because they are all basically paid one way or another to cover certain games. They make the people believe that they actually came up with the idea to buy the games.

The only thing Nintendo has done different this time around is instead of keeping EGM and G4 in their pockets, they decided to go after the today show and the NYTimes. Seems to be working pretty well.

Shhh, don't disturb the peace of the people who want to ignore the fact that Nintendo has been making casual games for decades.  That isn't nice.

The line between casual and hardcore doesn't exist.  Games (even non-games) are all part of the same industry.

Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros,  Pokemon, Halo, Final Fantasy, Madden (all sports games?), GTA, Brain Age all got popular because they appeal to more than just the "core" gamer.  Whoever that is.

What separates a Core gamer from a Casual Gamer to the publishers?  How many games they buy.  I buy 20 games a year (that's $1000-1200), most will buy one to three: maybe a sports game, one triple A title, and one more triple A title in the bargain bin.  I only mean this for the business side of casual gamers to core gamers, not the social side.  I was "hardcore" back when I could only afford one new game a year.

Why does it show a lack of focus?  They have the hardcore covered so what's wrong with them trying to expand their market, you know exactly what Nintendo is trying to do.  Microsoft was completely focused on the hardcore last generation and look where that got them, they learn from past mistakes each generation, this generation's lessons are to make damn sure the hardware is well built and to expand from a hardcore audience.

Also I have no clue what you're talking about in your two sentences, you feel Microsoft and Sony should leave Nintendo alone to dominate the massive casual market, that's idiotic.  Just look at what RolStoppable wrote in their last post in this thread, it's exactly the same thing that Microsoft is now trying to do (maybe to a far less extent and success than Nintendo but you can bet they're going to work on in from this year forward).

Yea sure, after they said they didnt expect the wii to sell even half of what it did at this time period.. YAY!! NINTENDO WON BECAUSE ITS NOT EVEN BEEN A YEAR YET AND ITS OUTSELLING STUFF!!!( 2 years later.. the wii is selling horribly while the 360 alone outsells it.) Nintendo have'nt won yet.

Publishers were making profits on big budget 360 games in the first year of it's life.  It's not just the number of consoles that matters, otherwise Viva Pinata would have been much more successful considering it's a great game, it's the audience itself on the console that also matters.  You tell people not to look down on casuals but lets be honest, how many of the casuals are going to buy the big budget story driven games when they bought their system and use it for games like Wii Sports?  I'm betting very few of them.

I also don't see why we have to be thankful to the casuals.  So the publishers devote more of their resources to casual games, find it far more lucrative to make cheap party games or other budget titles, what exactly is going to make them want to continue with their big budget games if they weren't making a profit with them in the first place?

Yeah. but it's dominating now, and how do we know what's going to happen in two years. I think that PS3 will get a boost from the price drop and AAA titles. It will sell 150k a week, but nintendo will keep the lead with averaging 70-80k more than the PS3 a week. That's my forecast for 2008. We have no idea what's gonna happen in 2009 due to barely any news for that year so far.

 Don't misunderstand me. I know Nintendo has been making casual games since the begining of NES, but that's not the point that i am making. And when i say hardcore games, i say it because i thought that because we are on a gaming forum that to you guys it would mean a game with depth in many aspects of play. I am not talking to publishers i'm talking to people who post of video game forums. When i say Hardcore/Traditional gamers i mean gamers who don't just settle with games like Mario Party 8 and such. I don't care about popular games, i'm talking about your "Traditional" games. So fine, from here on out i won't use hardcore i'll simply use traditional.

Now there is a very fine line between traditional and casual games, and they don't cross each other much. This is the difference between games with depth from games without depth, whether it be depth in story, gameplay, meaning, music, graphics, art etc. There is also a section of Traditional gaming called Hardcore, which could either mean "Mature-like" titles or "Fanboy" titles. Though for the purpose of my post i won't use this. So to conclude, Casual games are pick up and play, easy, intuitive, less of a challenge (in a certain sense), simple games. Traditional games are games with depth like i said earlier, ranging from Pikmin to Metroid to Final Fantasy, from Halo to Madden to Mario and so on.

Ok so now on to my point. What is Nintendo focusing on? The traditional games or the casual games? And i mean focus. They've made so many casual games before i know that, but have they ever focused on them like they do now? What new IP's do we have to look forward to? What classics do we look to now? 

Maybe i am a little too worried. I mean, Nintendo has never truly failed me/us in any regard. I used to always argue with people making arguments like i am now, so i guess i understand now what they are thinking. But don't attack me like i'm some kind of idiot. I know what i'm saying and i'm not bashing Nintendo blindly. If Nintendo truly is changing thier focus, that will spell trouble for us. It would of course, be great for the industry i guess. But it would be good for us and the industry if Nintendo focuses on both. 

The whole industry is in the hands of the Wii. It's future depends on whether or not the Wii is a big success, and if it is a success, it depends on how it succeeds. As gamers we should all hope that Nintendo succeeds with traditionals as well as casuals as thier focus, and not have an extreme favor on either of the two. If they can do that and succeed, then i'm sure the next generation will be great. Man i'm filled with alot of talk...

I'll second Rolstoppable on this one. The only thing I would add from a what Nintendo should do now perspective is perhaps Nintendo should consider buying more 3rd party devs. Especially 3rd parties who would fill a strategic niche for Nintendo like Codemasters for Euro games, Eidos for boob physic heavy games, or one of the millions of FPS makers.