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My Nintendo Confusion
By Corvus | June 18, 2007
Nintendo is dominating the market right now. Not only is DS and Wii hardware at the top of the charts, but the top of the software charts are heavily slanted in Ninty’s direction as well.
EA is throwing support, not only behind the Wii, but behind casual games to boot. Ubisoft has learned from their early adoption mistakes and plans on improving their approach, not getting out of the game (as it were).
The 360 marketplace is going gangbusters, with quick simple games and non-cutting-edge graphics ruling the day. I know more people who spend the majority of their 360 time with Uno, Settlers of Catan, and Geometry Wars than I know playing actively Oblivion.
Yet, industry pundits are expressing concern over the Wii’s longevity. “The Wii is doomed without HD graphics,” they wail. “The Wii remote is too gimmicky to be sustainable,” they shout from their pulpits.
My confusion is thus–weren’t these the exact same things the nay-sayers were waving their little the End is Nigh signs over when the DS was newly launched? Wasn’t the PSP’s graphic superiority touted as a sure fire hand-held-market killer? Wasn’t there much beard tugging and chin wagging over the stylus as they concluded that it was a non-sustainable and gimmicky controller?
And don’t we learn from the lessons of history? Sure, Halo sells. So does Gears of War and DOA and Forza and Madden and all the other ‘hard core’ games. But you know what sells really damn well and doesn’t require grotesquely inflated budgets to prop up inflated attempts at photo-realism? Casual games. And Games that place an emphasis on having fun and highly polished uncluttered gameplay. Games which are easy to pick up and play thanks, in no small part, to an intuitive controller.
Am I mad? Am I missing something? Or are these people hopelessly out of touch? Should I be tossing my spare change into their lattes when I pass them on the street corner? I mean, honestly, if they don’t start paying attention instead of reinforcing broken models, I don’t see how they’re going to keep their jobs. I might as well start buying their little photocopied manifestos for a quarter and clicking ad links on their GeoCities web pages, or their kids are going to going to go hungry and have to wear last decades fashions to school next year (as opposed to the fashions of two decades ago as they should be).
Bah. Welcome to my Monday!
Tagged:Industry. | 7 Comments »
June 18th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I had a similar thought this morning when I finally looked at the NPD numbers. The Wii and DS are simply leaving the rest of the pack behind at this point – it’s literally off the charts. I think the analysts are looking to closely at the funky controller and not enough at the simple numbers: the Wii is cheaper to develop for and there’s going to be more of them out there. Any game developer not trying to cash in there is simply blind – and with enough developers the future is pretty set.
I don’t have a lot of gloom for the 360 or PS3 though. I’ve said it on CT plenty of times – this generation is too complicated to simply count units. If Blockbuster maintains the Blu-Ray announcement from today – Sony will be plenty happy with their fate. And if Microsoft is going to be willing to spend $50 million on exclusive deals … they’ll make plenty of happy 360 owners.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Absolutely, I don’t see any gloom or doom anywhere in this scenario for Sony and Microsoft either.
I also see none of the dangers alluded to by other pundits in relation to the fracturing of the market. After an initial upheaval, developers will settle into the platform that most closely aligns with their design goals. If anything, the Wii and DS are not only rapidly expanding our audience(s), they’re also generating a lot of space for more developers to jump into the fray.
Now if we can just convince all three to really open their arms to the indie developer, we’re set!
June 18th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
It kinda reminds me of the Fox news pundits on Ron Paul; sometimes experience can be a liability.
I bet the look on their faces when the read the Dec ‘06 NPD report was not unlike the reactions in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB1laGq62Ac
June 18th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The success of the Wii creates backlash in people who linked themselves to either of the power consoles publicly or personally. I suspect this backlash is a cause of some of the sour grapes. Also, people who just don’t *get* the Wii probably feel the need to pick on it to alleviate their own cognitive dissonance. There’s even an insulting nickname for Wii owners: wiitards. Cultural lines are being drawn!
June 20th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I went thorough the PSP vs DS thing, and for a while (after getting a PSP for myself, and DS for my wife), I thought about getting one game for each of us from GameFly, and reviewing them, head to head. I never did it, but I thought about it. Part of why I didn’t do it was that I was a Sony Fanboy, and really liked a lot of things about my PSP.
But the things I liked had nothing to do with the games on it. The DS games were fun, they were easy to learn (and some where hard to master). The PSP games were annoying retreads of PS/PS2 games that weren’t as fun as their originals. (I distinctly remember that the PSP Katamari was the only version of that game I didn’t like.)
I wound up selling my PSP back to get cash to buy myself a DS. Our extended family owns 5 DS’s at this point, and no PSPs — and no real regret.
I was in a local gaming store of the EB/GameStop variety (is there another kind?) and someone was there giving the “hardcore gamer”’s anti-Wii attitude. I just shook my head, and though that we need change — the gaming market needs casual games, and, for that matter, fun games.
The only thing I regret, the only bad thing I can say about the Wii is that I can’t find one;(
June 20th, 2007 at 10:30 am
One is bound to show up eventually, Joe. Keep up the hunt! I think everyone I knew who has been searching for one now has one.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
InnerBits has a great post about this very topic (link).