With the reveal of motion controls at E3, and price cuts from Microsoft and Sony, many are saying Nintendo might be done. Many are trying their best at saying that right now with the way things look, Nintendo should be worried. We are here to tell you that even with price cuts and new motion controls, and with the gaming press suggesting otherwise, the Wii will be a hard one to take down.

I want to say, there is no taking down the Wii at this point. It's over, unless Nintendo does something stupid like make the Wii 2 next year MS and SONY combined will not gain more than 66% (33% each, thus clinching one of them over Nintendo) of the market.

Many gaming press and analyst sites around the internet seem to think that motion controls are the main reason why the Nintendo Wii is actually selling as much as it is. While this may be true, a big part they are forgetting is how motion controls are just an easier way of controlling what is being played on screen. Ease of use is one of the biggest factors that separate the Wii from the Xbox and Ps3. This factor seems to be hugely over-looked, but it does seem like Sony and Microsoft are catching on. So should Nintendo be worried? The answer is no.

The 'ease of use' is a complete byproduct of the wiimote. There's no getting around the fact that a pointing device (be in the body ala Natal or wand ala wiimote or the sony dildo) lends itself to easier control. The problem I see with the wiimote is that it is limiting. It opens up all sorts of games never doable before, it opens up new controls for old game genres, but also inhibits and is counter intuitive to other genres.  

With Nintendo following the Blue Ocean Strategy so closely, we have to assume that they know how to handle imitators. Ease of use with the Wii remote is being copied, will be available on the Ps3 and Xbox, and will allow new gamers to play on the hd consoles. This will happen, but what Sony and Microsot don’t know is that following the disruptor in a blue ocean isn’t as easy as it might seem. Sony and Microsoft have many barriers to face in this blue ocean, but there are a couple they should really be looking at.

The motion control tech coming out from SONY and MS is better than the Wiimote. There is no doubt that we see PS3 and X360 getting motion control now because of the Wii. I think they would have done it eventually anyway, but probably not until PS4/X720. Lots of software engineers have known (myself included) that motion control was going to eventually become a part of gaming, and both companies have not been exactly secret about their R&D of such things even before Wii came out.

The first is one we see all the time from other companies, but rarely ever take notice of. Brand loyalty. This attribute for a company is very important, and being the first to value innovate in a blue ocean brings with it very loyal customers. It is very hard for a competitor to go into a blue ocean and face this barrier as it is very hard to change the perception of the buyer the value innovator has created. Brand loyalty, or “brand buzz” is a hard barrier to cross as usually big budget marketing will not even work. Apple is an example of a company with “brand buzz”, and Nintendo seems to be garnering this same type of following. This is bad for Sony and Microsoft as loyal buyers usually dismiss new products in the same market from imitators.

There are always going to be these kind of fickle fans. Every fanbase has them. They will scream murder over the fact that SONY and MS now have motion control, but in the end they will continue to play games, whomever's side they join for that gen. The rest of the HD fanbase will be perfectly happy to accept motion control, as long as it does not become the only viable way to play games.

That is the fundamental flaw of the Wii. They do not have a good traditional controller for their games and thus they drive away a certain segment (besides high def fanbois) that do not want to play their games with a motion controller like the wiimote. I myself find it rather dumb to play RPGs with a pointer. If they implement both a good traditional controller and a good separate motion controller (or come up with an ingenious combo (and no wiimote+nunchuck dont work) then we will love them for it.

The second barrier and probably most important barrier to cross is the brand image Microsoft and Sony have already established. Not only do the public view Microsoft and Sony differently than Nintendo’s Wii, but the whole industry does, from the gaming press to third party developers. The hd consoles are filled to the brim with avid core gamers that actually hate the Wii just for being different. This mentality will actually turn against Microsoft and Sony if they try their best at turning Nintendo’s blue ocean red.

I don't really agree with the premise that if SONY and MS try to beat Nintendo at its own game (casual and motion control) that they will burn. They will attempt to do both casual and hard core, motion and traditional gaming all at once (at least SONY will definitely try that). 

A major shift in who is being targeted by Microsoft and Sony could put an invalidation on their current business model and could potentially destroy their current userbase, core gamers.

Regardless of how successful Microsoft and Sony are at pursuing Nintendo’s blue ocean, Nintendo can change everything again just by looking at the shift in value curves that the market makes. This will give Nintendo clear views on when to pursue another blue ocean and abandon the blue ocean they have created that has turned red from competition.

Here is my final gripe. First its not certain that they need to target solely the casual/motion control segment at the detriment of the hard core/traditional segment. Heck, there is all reason to suggest both can be targeted, or that there can be such a segment as hard core/motion control. We have even seen Nintendo attempt to target the hard core audience with 'mature' games.

I take issue with the notion that there is any more blue ocean strategy left for Nintendo to do. You can boil the blue ocean strategy down two ways. One is 'disruptive' the other is 'good enough'. In some ways both are saying the same thing. Keep it simple stupid. There is a large audience that does not want to deal with complex gaming or complex precision controls. If you want to completely segmentize the current market (although obviously there are wii owners who have PS3/X360s and vice versa) then ~50% of the market is receptive to the KISS gaming philosophy while ~50% are not. That is far from decisive.

It will get even more muddied when SONY/MS uses motion control and more casual games to appeal to the KISS crowd and as Nintendo create more complex hard core games.

Nintendo will know this when Microsoft and Sony start becoming more like Nintendo, and less like themselves.

As you can clearly see at this year’s E3, Nintendo wants to keep this blue ocean theirs for a very long time. You may ask, “how will Nintendo do this?”, and I tell you to look at peripherals. Look to what the balance board has done, what MotionPlus is doing, and what the Vitality Sensor is going to do.

Keeping it fresh in a blue ocean makes you a moving target for competitors, and although Sony and Microsoft are pros at putting together good products, we expect the Wii to be the hardest target yet for both companies to hit.

==> I completely agree with the article

Wii is far from being dead

and ninty can drop the price at any moment

Wouldn't a dust storm mean that Wiis are finally being used again? Finally all the dust that was collected over the last months/years gets blown through the room and out of the window.

So do you like Cursed Mountain? It's a 7/10 survival horror game, that is better than a 10/10 game in nearly every other genre.