In addition, Nintendo does not counter immediately by introducing Wii HD.

without confidence you could never run a company

1) Nintendo isn't alpha and omega of gaming, but it's an oldest console manufacturer that's still alive and kicking. What did you expect? Oldest = more time to do smth in favor of gaming in general =) I feel your pain, it's incredibly annoying when ppl say that Sony are a bunch of copycats. But trying to discard obvious achievments isn't a good answer.

2) Nintendo execs always say - come with new technology when the time is right. Obviously when industry evolves it needs more and more capable data medium. But speaking of 5th gen, CD wins over cartridges not because industry wasn't able to evolve without it, clearly not as I've already stated earlier, it lost in marketing. Current gen proves it, no need in BD for gaming, but it will come in handy in future generations.

//BTW cartridges are still used, and very successfully. DS anybody? But why do companies, i.e. Sony in those cases, are still keep pushing new formats on the market? Well, as you know Sony isnt' strictly a game company, they always trying to derive benefit for their core business from smth they do in other sectors of their busineess. And sometimes they fail. For example, UMD was total abomination, greatly increases in weight and noise of PSP, drains battery life, made PSP bulky and decrease console reliability, insane load times (really, cartridge format could have been useful for PSP). And all in favor of corporate interests, not gamers. As I've said, not strictly a game comapny, so that's expected. But as a consumer I can't tolerate this.

To those who are talking about the past

I believe the D-pad, as it is laid out on the NES, is a Nintendo IP. No one directly copies that layout, though the concept has become universal.

The D-pad was not seen in consoles which I am familiar until the NES. Most had variations on a joystick. The nearest was the Intellivision's nearly-universally-lamented directional disc (which interpreted 16 directions in 1979).

As for analog, it was tried in the Atari 5200. It was also non-self-centering and unreliable. Those are thought to be the worse controllers ever for a mass marketed video game system.

Meanwhile, consoles were out there prior to Nintendo, but they were not as popular. The Atari 2600 sold 30M units worldwide before the video game crash -- but no other system topped 6M units (achieved by the Intellivision and Colecovision). And many sold much much less.

After the crash, Nintendo reintroduced the product outside of Japan. But it (and its consoles) have always had more products in Japan than in the rest of the world. The Famicom (NES) had a computer disk system in Japan (I cannot remember if the SuperFamicom/SNES did) while the N64 had a CD add-on. A Vitality Sensor predecessor was sold with Seta's Tetris 64 in Japan. So those of us in the rest of the world don't always see its offerings.

Mike from Morgantown

Just remember that history does not always remember the initial inventor, it remembers the who made things work/made them practical.

Yea! But wasn't the cd base that Sony used in the ps1 originally designed as a cd add on for the snes? So if Nintendo wouldn't have becked out on Sony, a cd add on for the snes would have beat the saturn to the market. So they would have been the first to use a cd base console and there wouldn't be a play station brand from Sony. All you Sony fan boys can atleast thank Nintendo for something.

WereKitten said: bardicverse said: staude - innovate != invent, don't get the words confused. Example - Nintendo did not create Bluetooth, but they used the technology to be the way the Wii remote communicates with the console, thus innovating a new type of controller. Regarding D-pad prior to the NES, I can't recall ever seeing one before that, got any documentation on prior versions? back to OP - Nintendo buys Sony confirmed? Wasn't the Intellivision control basically a d-pad, even though it was shaped as a disc rather than a cross?

A precursor to the standard D-pad was used by the Intellivision console, which was released by Mattel Electronics in 1980. The Intellivision's unique controller featured the first alternative to a joystick on a home console, a circular pad that allowed for 16 directions of movement by pressing it with the thumb. A precursor to the D-pad also appeared on Entex's short lived "Select A Game" cartridge based handheld system; it featured non-connected raised left, right, up and down buttons aligned to the left of a row of action buttons. Similar directional buttons were also used on the Atari Game Brain, the unreleased precursor to the Atari 2600.

The first "connected" (pad) style D-pad appeared in 1981 on a handheld game system: "Cosmic Hunter" on Milton Bradley's Microvision. The pad was operated the same way today's D-pads are, using the thumb to manipulate the onscreen "hero" character in any of four directions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad

@aquietguy. But they didn't. I'm not really a fanboy either. Fanman maybe. :p

@mai well.. I do think that cds were important back then. And blu ray can be important now.. with all the HD stuff it's pretty nice if you can get the stuff less compressed.. And with the cds back then. Command & conquer isn't command & conquer without the fmvs :P

No they didn't. But it was their intent to which lead to the innovation.

bardicverse said: staude - innovate != invent, don't get the words confused. Example - Nintendo did not create Bluetooth, but they used the technology to be the way the Wii remote communicates with the console, thus innovating a new type of controller. Regarding D-pad prior to the NES, I can't recall ever seeing one before that, got any documentation on prior versions? back to OP - Nintendo buys Sony confirmed?

Actually it's funny you should say this

Because wii doesn't use blue tooth. it uses a camera and 2 lights. Sensor bar imits 2 lights that the wiimotes camera picks up.

It's sonys ps3 controller that uses bluetooth to communicate with it's console. This innovating a new type of controller :P

And read my last post for the d-pad part.

Staude said: bardicverse said: staude - innovate != invent, don't get the words confused. Example - Nintendo did not create Bluetooth, but they used the technology to be the way the Wii remote communicates with the console, thus innovating a new type of controller. Regarding D-pad prior to the NES, I can't recall ever seeing one before that, got any documentation on prior versions? back to OP - Nintendo buys Sony confirmed? Actually it's funny you should say this Because wii doesn't use blue tooth. it uses a camera and 2 lights. Sensor bar imits 2 lights that the wiimotes camera picks up.     It's sonys ps3 controller that uses bluetooth to communicate with it's console. This innovating a new type of controller :P   And read my last post for the d-pad part.

The Wii Remote is connected through BlueTooth. I'm sorry but you sound like a Sony fanboy who doesn't know anything that isn't about Sony. Nintendo has innovated a lot more than Sony in the gaming business, accept it.