The game industry isn't just imperfect, it's a terrible industry. If it died and a new industry rose from it's ashes with companies like Nintnedo and Blizzard making games that strive to live off off lasting appeal instead of new technology and hype, would the game industry we have today really be missed? No it wouldn't, gamers deserve better.

How is the game industry terrible? If it was so bad, I seriously doubt we'd all be sitting here and complaining about it. We'd have moved on to other forms of entertainment. But the reason we're even on a site about videogames (much less complaining about them) is because it's such an enjoyable medium, and it continues to pull us in. Call the industry terrible all you want, but they produce games, and the games are great. There are great new games coming out all the time. Not every new game is going to be legendary or have incredibly long lasting appeal, but that's been the case in every generation so far. The reason we haven't seen classics like Tetris or Pac-Man lately is because these games came out at a time when the game industry was small, and great games stood out a lot more. And they've managed to live on because of new iterations and remakes. Modern series can do the same.

"Games" and "the game industry" are not one and the same.

Lets see:

• Lack of financial incentives for 3rd parties to come to systems causes less products on the platform 
• Proprietary memory formats (DS carts, Wii disks) allow for more control over manufacturing process, stymying competition and innovation in media (which allows Nintendo more control and revenue over the system, since they control it)
• Excessive profits on hardware means greater costs to consumers
• Lack of price drops on consoles to keep pace with comparables.

That's among other things. The key to the statement is that Nintendo is fantastic at maintaining strong profit margins. However, such a thing comes at cost to the consumer in some of the aforementioned things. It's not 'good' or 'bad' persay, as Nintendo absolutely has to do it, or else face bankruptcy. I think, in some cases, they could handle it better, but such an argument may come at a cost in another area.

Maintaining profit margins is not the same as screwing consumers. None of those four points are actually negatives toward consumers - Nintendo creates a value proposition and people buy it. They do not try to force anything down people's throats, certainly not in the sense that Maelstrom is talking about.

Nothing that you name has hurt consumers. They do not try to take software rights away, they aren't among the companies leading the crusade against the used games market, and they are not among the companies that actively try to turn their developers into celebrities (Miyamoto's status, at this point, can't be helped, and still is not leveraged).

I don't think you're making a very cohesive argument.

Khuutra -

Less financial incentives for 3rd party developers means less games for me to buy.
Excessive profits on hardware mean the system is more expensive than it should be to buy.

So unless you think that buying something is overpriced with less games isn't a negative for consumers, I think your wrong. Admittedly, such arguments may not prove correct for all consumers, but they are still negatives.

Goodness.

Moneyhatting is not something that necessarily benefits consumers. Lack thereof is not something that harms consumers: the fact that extra incentives have to be leveraged in order to bring third parties to make certain projects on the PS360 speaks as to one of the worse states of the industry.

Profits on hardware are not harmful to consumers. Nintendo has set a value proposition. Over fifty million people have accepted it. That is all there is.

The fact that Nintendo does not meet your value propositions does not mean that they are trying to screw over consumers, much less that "they've done it better than any other company"

"Viral messengers, posing as ‘gamers’, are polluting message forums and comments from various websites in the shape to ‘change public opinion’. Anyone who deserves a place in Dante’s Inferno would be computer virus makers and viral marketers posing as regular people. I want viral messengers *gone*."

Where does he get this from? I think he's overexaggerating this a lot. I've never met a viral marketer disguised as a gamer.

That sounds like what a viral marketer would say...

They're everywhere!!!