I didn't realize that DoA was such a blockbuster title. I'll concede that one.

I think by "videogames" you meant console games. I only know about one popular blizzard series which is an MMo that people subscribe to. I don't know how to compare that to console games. I'll agree that people seem to put valve on a pedestal as well. However, I don't think valve games have the breakaway sales that nintendo's games have. I'm not sure though so feel free to prove me wrong.

I don't mean this in a rude or mean way, even though it will inevitably come across like that, but...if you think that that type of attitude would last long, you're horribly mistaken. You're probably a student, huh? Never had to fully support yourself? I ask this because I know that if you did, you wouldn't say anything like this. People do what they have to to eat and pay their mortgage, dude, and if they keep cranking out crap that no one buys they won't be able to do either. You'll find out soon enough that if you want to make good money, you'll do your job well, no matter how much you detest it, or you won't be doing any job at all.

Life kinda sucks, y'know.

He made Dead or Alive, for starters...

You'll find that Itagaki is widely considered to be "accomplished," at least amongst those who pay attention to devs. Or do you reckon Tecmo just give him their most talented dev team for giggles?

Go look at a list for the 50 top-selling games of all time, on all systems. Tell me what name takes up two-thirds of that list. Shoot, I posted that info in this thread. Do you think that might play a role in this? Maybe?

Apparently...

I will pay you actual money if you can prove this is happening.

Jesus Christ dude, it's not 1996 anymore.

Well no wonder your posts smell like s***: you're clearly pulling things out of your a**.

Fair enough. I'll concede that I overreached with that statement, and that there are plenty of folks who enjoy HD games. But two points: the first is that few HD games seem to have any appreciable "legs," and that it seems to be very hit-or-miss in terms of which games sell. In other words, there seems to be a voracious core of gamers who buy the big games, but that there are not enough of them to support a wider variety of games. Put alternatively, the big-games are very big, and the small games are very small. For that reason, I don't think we can use just the platinum-sellers to gauge appeal. But that's an assertion that will require more time to defend than I have at the moment. Perhaps another time?

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Regarding Mario 64, I'm not sure I agree. Remember, it's been re-released for the DS, and it's sold millions once again. More importantly, it's done so by selling small but steady amounts, which to me means it's spreading by word of mouth. I've no doubt some of those were because of nostalgia, but I have a hard time believing even a fraction of the total is from nostalgia.

I appreciate your example about Killzone 2, though. My own example would have been Dead Rising, which (demonstrably) can't be replicated on the Wii. But your point is well-taken. It just doesn't seem, from my interpretation of the data we have, that immersion is as big of a selling-point with most people as "easier to control." But as you pointed out earlier, there are tens of millions who feel otherwise, and I don't begrudge them for that. I just wish more developers would be willing to try something different this time, is all.

And I fully intend to play Flower in the next round of Console Swap. My Wii is going on loan in a few weeks: a few weeks after that it will be my turn to try the PS3, and you can bet I'll make him download the game first, as I'm quite intrigued by it. Thanks for the discussion, though: I enjoyed it.

Starcraft sold something like 10 million copies alone, Warcraft 3 also sold an absurd amount... and Valve? The first Half-Life alone topped over eight million copies.

Okay, here's what I think.

Nintendo should just expand and improve their output. Third parties don't "get" it, they cannot create nor sustain success for Nintendo consoles. It is because of their own games that Nintendo is where it's at now with the Wii and DS, and it will continue to be about their own games.

Their big mistake is the exact opposite of what people think is the problem. They are leaving too much room for third parties to thrive on their systems, they need to take hold of that and expand their output.

This focus on third parties in the industry is becoming completely irrational. Third parties have made their choice generally speaking, some of the top developer circles in Japan would like gaming to sink before supporting a Nintendo dominated future. This can be seen expressed literally. Nintendo needs to expand and make more software. They need to speed up their innovations and excite the market with new things more quickly.

I do agree that there is currently too much emphasis on 3rd parties, but thats merely the result of the fall of most of the software-oriented manufacturers, like Sega, Hudson, or SNK, who, like Nintendo, dominated the software lineups on their own consoles, whereas you can certainly say that Halo is huge, as is Gran Turismo, and both Microsoft and Sony have cultivated some great games over the years (though Sony seems determined to abandon their mascot titles every time they get huge: Sly Cooper, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Jak & Daxter), but the companies themselves are not about making games. 3rd Parties are what gave the PlayStation it's true strength, and since then it seems 3rd parties have been set up on a pedestal, that their support is key to a successful console, an idea that the Wii has thoroughly trashed, and slowly seeing 3rd party sales despite their efforts to ignore the platform.