BladeOfGod said: for the last 30 years there have been about 1 billion consoles sold (counting Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft ATARI and SEGA sales together) so 1/6 of the Earth's population has console or handheld

Flawed logic.

caio said: deathbleachnarutodbz,  Nintendo has Wii fit, Wii sport, Wii kart as the main reason to own the console, PS3 has KZ2, MGS4, LBP, Uncharted2 and R&C2 in a while, then GT5, God of War3, Heavy Rain, FFXIII and Versus, FFXIV, and so many other games. 360 has Gears2, Forza3 in a while, Left for dead2, Gears3 will come. How can you only think to write something so confusing.   Sony and MS are the ones who provided a real next gen console, with advanced games, superior graphics, more contents.  Nintendo is the one thinking about money, only money, forgetting about the hardcore audience, graphics and sound, tech innovation. Most of Wii games could run on a PS2 !  now, I'm not saying that Wii games are bed, but just don't come here saying Nintendo are thinking about Videogames and Sony or MS not.   IMO, Nintendo made a smart move changing direction and focusing for the majority on casual gamers and "non gamers" who see Wii like a "light fitness machine" / "education machine".  This was the way to move big numbers, slapping the face of most hardcore gamers! Are you happy with Wii game experience ?  me not, I didn't buy Wii though I was a hot Nintendo fan.  I loved Nintendo64 and GC, but I'm not taking this last gen console with graphics inferior to the best PS2 and XBox1 games,together with basic and simple game-play.  Sony game experience ? just a word, Uncharted2

The truth is written above.

Dinomax said: Dgc1808 said: SONY is the company that takes care of the majority of my gaming needs. The Playstation Brand is arguably SONY's biggest branch and has been the backbone of their profits for many year. It wasn't until recently that they were having the profitability issues they have now. Constantly reminding about they plan to keep each system on the market for as long as possible. Willing to lose big to establish technology for not just now but future systems. Focusing on creating new IP's each gen rather than relying on the old to carry the system. Nintendo may care more about gaming, but IMO SONY has showed just as well IF NOT MORE than Nintendo that they're in this industry for the long haul. That's good enough for me. Yeah, the company that develops less games, sells less both hardware and software,  acknowledges there hardware is difficult to work with,  now suddenly rushing out there secound attempt at a motion control sounds like a company that sure got its plans all worked out for the long run and whats best for the industry *sarcasm*   To say Sony have done more now than Nintendo right now with the PS3 than Nintendo has with the Wii is just well...silly.

For years, SONY has been putting out the same amount and often more console games than Nintendo. Look it up. This year is the first time I've seen SONY published games down to so little. "Easy to work with" hardware wasn't their focus and they admitted that. They were more focused on establishing hardware for the future.

That "second attempt at motion control" isn't rushed... it's been in development since a few years after the release of the a PS2. There are video's on youtube dating back to b4 the wii controller was even announced which show early prototypes in action. SONY's a large company. They have tech like this always in R&D. The only thing that can be said is that the success of the wii could have encouraged them to actually release to product instead of trash the idea. Make no mistake, it's not rushed or just a quickly put together rip-off.

As for best for the industry, when did I say that?? I said they were setting themselves up for a long future in the gaming market. I also don't get your last line.... Was that not directed at me like the rest of your post??? I didn't say that. I do think it's true however and you're looking at it the wrong way. I think you missed my point entirely. I'm not comparing Nintendo to SONY at all like you were. 

@Ail: Yes, the numbers are inflated due to repurchases in the same way they are inflated due to people buying new version of the hardware.
This site is only tracking the sales, not why and who bought a certain game or a console.

The growth have been about population growth and new markets. The old markets have been stagnant.

Because the household penetration have been stagnant for a long while, we have two options:
1. New gamers aren't entering the market.
2. Old gamers move away from the market as new gamers enter.

The "18-35 years old male core" indicates to the option number 1. This is the age group that came into picture with Atari 2600, NES and Super NES/Megadrive. Why aren't we talking about a core of 5-17 years old kids, as we 20 years ago did?

And it's not about profit margins, it's about value to the customer. PS3 and 360 has higher production values, but they don't offer the same value to the customer. Putting a BD player to the console and ramp up the price to 599 is what you'd call fucking your customers.

@Mr Khan: It's not a twist. The decline is happening already in Japan. And, there's another thing that should look at, when looking at revenue, which is rising expenses.
As an example, look how well PS3 is doing , it's creating big revenue.

@dharh: Yes. That's what i'm talking about. And i've saying it for a long time that Wii is selling because of its software.

It is innovative from the tech side aswell. Innovation is as much making something new, as it is making something differently. For example, Cell is innovative processor by its tech, but because it offers very little benefits over the non-innovative tech, its innovativeness is perceived being very little.

For the online part, online this gen is incremental innovation because it's just making the old system better and adding features to it to improve the service.

@WereKitten: I'm not saying here that online wasn't an innovation. It was, but it wasn't Micro$ofts innovation.
We have had online play for ages, only after broadband internet it has caught on. As an example, even XBL was an incremental innovation over Dreamarena, Dreamarena from SegaNet etc.
The thing is, that Live wasn't born out of someone having an idea of "hey, let's make online play", but "let's make online play better".

And also, out of the three online services, WFC is the most user friendly.

mai said: BladeOfGod said: for the last 30 years there have been about 1 billion consoles sold (counting Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft ATARI and SEGA sales together) so 1/6 of the Earth's population has console or handheld Flawed logic.

flawed replay

*Looks over the trenches* Is it over?

Pretty interesting.

What's with these pointless essays people have been writing lately. This is the second or third one like it in the past couple days, just trying to say Sony and Microsoft don't care about gaming and Nintendo is the only one that does.

If Sony didn't care about gaming why would they keep coming out with new IP's quicker than Nintendo as well as great sequels all the time. All Nintendo has given you this gen is motion controls, the Wii series and sequels to all their classic series from back in the NES days. Its like they know Mario is awesome, so they're scared to try to make a new game that's as good as Mario in case it fails or in case its better than Mario.

And if Microsoft didn't care about gaming why would they pay $50 million for exclusive GTA episodes? And why would they extend their RRoD coverage to 3 years to make gamers happier? I know its all about money but they obviously care a lot about the gaming industry and know theres money to be made in it.

Now I like Nintendo too, i play my sister's wii from time to time, but really its Sony who keeps coming out with new great games as well as Microsoft. Nintendo did a great job making gaming more accessible to the casual audience like woman gamers, and older people, but in the process they forgot about their core audience whose stuck with them all along.

"What's with these pointless essays people have been writing lately."

Have you forgotten the pointless anti-Wii essays for the past few years?

@Chairman-Mao: I do agree that the OP was pointless (as in "white horse has white colour").

Don't you think you contradict yourself by saying at the same time that they've been making sequels to their classics and forgot their core audience? If Nintendo didn't do the sequels, then they had forgot the core audience.

Sony is making new IP:s for the sole reason that they don't have core IP:s. With Uncharted 2, Resistance 2, Motorstorm sequel, GT5, R&C, they obviously are forgetting their core audience.

M$ isn't in the industry for gamers, but because to protect the operating system business from being disrupted by livingroom multimedia devices, such as PS3. After all, Ken Kutaragi said 15 years ago that he's going to destroy M$, which definately would have eventually happened if nobody had interrupted Sony (in this case, M$ and Nintendo did it).

M$ also didn't make any gamers happier with the warranty extension, what they did was that they tried to fix something that made gamers very unhappy, which was the faulty hardware.

How is women and older people casual audience? As far as i know, they play like other people just aswell, if there are games they like to play. I'd like to know the logic behind your assertion.