The console wars are generally determined by which company sells the most consoles thus becoming the market leader. It would also stand to reason that by selling the most consoles you have gotten that superlative amount of consoles into the hands of the most gamers but what if you're not targeting gamers? What if, much like Nintendo, you're actually targeting people who aren't gamers already? If you can attract a ton of new business from people who traditionally do not play consoles games, like all the old people, soccer moms and urban hipsters playing the Wii in all of Nintendo's advertisements, are you truly the market leader? Or, possibly, are you more like the summer blockbusters in the movie industry? You make the most money and get the most hype but, at the end of the day, the people who know the industry the best, the "hardcore" gamers, will never respect you enough to truly be in control of the industry.Nintendo may in a precarious situation when it comes to it's strategy with regards to the next generation of video games. They have sold a lot of consoles, admittedly a lot went to the true Nintendo fanboys who wanted to play Twilight Princess, but they are going to, and probably have already, sell a lot to non gamers. So does this, somewhere down the road, put them into an almost new category of the video game industry? Do they fall into some new category between cell phone gaming, which is amongst the easiest and most casual gaming, and pure console gaming, which Sony and Microsoft are fighting ravenously over? It could just be the case.
To be the market leader you'd have to be the one dictating trends in both what gamers want and what developers make. For the most part, Nintendo has no chance of ever being that. Hardcore gamers will not want every game experience, especially the most technical and skillful like real time strategy games and first person shooters, to feature controls which are not anything they are used to and may not apply to those genres and companies like Capcom, Square Enix and Bungie will not start making mini game filled fodder instead of deep, technically impressive games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy and Halo respectively.
So, while Nintendo may not necessarily lose the console sales battle, they may lose the war over who controls and sways the video game industry in general for the near future.
Do you think that Nintendo can sell the most consoles but not be recognized as the console war victor?
The Simpsons: Hit and Run, The Legend of Dragoon, and Chrono Trigger would benefit substantially from a modern remake.
The Xenosaga trilogy, the Wild Arms games, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis, Suikoden. The Warriors game I know nothing about but it looks interesting. Anybody can do a list of games they want to see get modernized I would lose my shit if Namco brought the Xenosaga trilogy to modern consoles.
Modders have cooked up something pretty special – a Wii console which is small enough to fit on your keys. A wee Wii.
The motion-controlled maverick of a console that had everyone from age 9 to 99 swing a TV remote to bowl and painstakingly recreating themselves as Miis, had its share of hits, but even so, some titles didn’t quite get their due.
Love this game (played on Vita) and i think i got pretty far, but never finished because i refused to look up a guide 😎
Same with me, played for like 50 hours, found a puzzle I just couldn't crack and decided to let it go. Great game
way to spin selling alot of consoles into something that's not good... that takes work to make it sound like a bad thing. You know what people will soon learn? 1080p is a gimick. That's how they can release the same game with less features for more money. I'm suprised they haven't made "Tetris 1080p" for 60 dollars, but for 70 dollars you can get it with Marathon mode! Then a month later they'll release a patch to fix the online abilities....
Absolutely. Unless the console industry completely changes course, the battle is really PS3 vs 360 for the title of king of next-gen consoles. Meanwhile, Nintendo makes a ton of money on the Wii.
Think about it like the auto market- PS3 and 360 are the exotics. They're expensive, but have incredible performance. Nintendo is, comparitively, a Honda Civic. Fun to drive? Absolutely. Relatively cheap? Absolutely. Does the new model of Honda Civic ever scare Ferrari into changing its gameplan? Er, no.
[And technically- by price, the Wii costs nearly as much as an "exotic" in this model, but comes equipped with hydraulics so that you can lean into the turns. Or something.]
you are right, nintendo had no choice but to go another direction. developing something to compete with the ps3 and 360 would have cost them a fortine and another loss would have knocked them out for good.
nintendos problem is once the wii gimick is over people won't continue to buy games. casual gamers do not buy games like regular and especially harcore gamers. after the initial sale how many people will keep buying new wii games every month,,, not many.
Just take it as it is. They pretty much invented the game industry we know of as today with the NES. I might not be there biggest fan but I sure the hell respect them. Read the game "Game Over" if you ever get the chance. It's great for any videogame fan.
He doesn't make a very good point because as with the DS mini-game fodder is just made to get a feel for how the system works. the better games will start to be released after that when the developers have gotten the hang of developing for this new control method.
That point also might be when the attention of hardcore gamers will be drawn to the wii.
Nintendo could also have made a console like the X360 or the ps3 but they just decided that they wanted to do something different. They have enough money to cope with a failed console with good specs but they decided they first want to try and expand the market. Casual gamers might become hardcore when they realise how fun games are.
Also the hardcore crowd is not what developers develop for, they develop for the majority. Hardcore has always been a bit bigger than casual because they buy more games, but if you have 200.000 hardcore gamers and on the other side 2.000.000 casual gamers focus will shift to them.