"You have to give Nintendo credit for all this -- the biggest coup in the history of gaming. Lots of publishers talk about innovation, Nintendo bet everything on it and won big. I'm proud to say that n-Space understood this from day one."

Ign interview on cancelled Wii game "Winter"

After reading this, I began to objective evaluate the gaming industry as it stands now. If you take a look at my games collection you will see I've been gaming a long time, but I digress. I recently read an interview with a MS spokesperson in Australia, as well as the now infamous Kaz interview done a few days ago. The one theme that continues to resonate with both Sony and MS is that the Wii doesn't count, or is in a different market or whatever the case is. Now I'm not going to go down that avenue as not only is there too much traffic, it is also a dead end with a dead horse beaten to death again after it was ressurected. But I digress.

We also hear the idea that Wii doesn't sell third party software. But what we hear vs what we see can sometimes give us two totally different pictures. Once this has been disproven (with sales) we hear people dice up the kind of third party software that the Wii doesn't sell. We hear an extremely positive idea turned into a negative "Nintendo first-party software is too hard to compete with." We hear all of these things, and my question(s) to all of you is who do we hear these things from? Who is responsible for coining these talking points? and who benefits from having the Wii maintain this stigma?

I am old enough to remember the Genesis/SNES war vividly. I remember when MK first came out and Nintendo sensored the blood, where Sega didn't. That was what helped Sega to begin stigmatizing the SNES as the "kiddy" system. Nevermind that every MK game that followed was uncensored, never mind the adult like themes found in games like Alttp and Super Metroid. Sega needed something to keep the fight close a stigma of sorts to peg themselves as the "cool kid" and their competitor as the nerdy momma's boy.

TheSource did an excellent piece on the history of the NES a while back. But what I can recall of the NES era was eerily similar to what has happened this generation. New input device, buzz words like fad, technically inferior etc. For those who remember the NES era, the ideas and caution that were prevalent then is now present today. An even more recent occurence of this is the DS; again the same buzz words, the same caution, similar stigma's.

Everyone knows the story of how Wii was expected to fail, was expected to be Nintendo's swan song console. What was not expected was the Wii to not just succeed but to control nearly 50% marketshare in two years after launch. EA has said as much (betting on the wrong horse). while for some it may feel like the shift is barely taking place if at all, people forget the N64 era when a similar shift occured..it also took a long time but it did happen eventually. But I digress.

The main point is this, who is responsible for creating these stigma's on the Wii? Nintendo's competitors, and not just Sony and M$. I believe many third parties that invested HEAVILY in the HD consoles also need to maintain this idea that Wii 'doesn't count'. It will be interesting to see which companies survive this console generation in tack. Ignoring the market leader does have consequences. As Take-two said "We just can't ignore the Wii's installed base..we just can't" Maybe the financial situation has finally caused companies to scream uncle.

(Sorry for any inconsistencies, it is my first thread)

I thought Sony held that title, because for a while, Nintendo and Sega were in a gridlock, and then the PS1 not only usurped them both, but it became the first console to reach 100 million sold.

They did hold the title no doubt..but do no longer. Also I just used the sentence that stuck when I read the IGN interview.

Who started the Nintendo is kiddie stigma? Sega. Followed by 3DO and then Sony.

Sega, 3DO and Sony directly targeted Nintendo in attack TV advertisements that asserted Nintendo as kiddie. That's a stigma you can't shake when your demographic is everyone.

Sega railed on the SNES no blood Mortal Kombat. 3DO showed a SNES being tossed into a toy chest. Sony had Crash Bandicoot calling Mario "Plumber Boy" via a loudspeaker in front of the NOA headquarters.

I think the whole problem is that Nintendo stepped in to save an industry that, for all appearances, didn't need saving at all. An industry that was growing under the conventional thought processes that "bigger was better," that more power and sophistication would lead to greater innovation, and eventually to greater marketshare as consoles inevitably diversified into multimedia centers, which was how the whole thing would go mainstream

Nintendo turned that whole philosophy upside down, and it is threatening to quite a few groups out there that had really embedded themselves in the old ways of thinking and doing. Ironically, the groups most opposed to what Nintendo is doing have the least to lose from a total revolution, groups like Epic, Bethesda, and BioWare, which could just go back to PC gaming and be almost as happy

You bring up a great point that I've never thought of before - Sony and MS both thought that the way to increase mainstream appeal and the industry of video games as a whole was to try and make the video game system into the most popular household media center. Never thinking that the actual barrier was "accessibility"

Nintendo saw this and took a chance... and for it, they're raking in billions...

Brainslug has a good brain.

I actually feel the game industry was in need of saving actually from an economical stand-point. The business model of going into debt and relying on the game to bail you out of debt is unsustainable which is why many gaming companies are going under and/or in deep red.

Great OP Arius Dion, very well written in my opinion. Nothing to add here.

I've seen the old Sega TV ads that asserted this, but I don't recall seeing ads from the other companies that did.