First, Microsoft has been making money off of sales of the 360 for quite some time, and would've been making money off of console sales for even longer if they hadn't been so concerned with making a profit off of console sales in the first place (and thus ended up with the RROD). But that's beside the point. The two previous paragraphs of your post are based on a fundamental misunderstanding, a flawed premise. One that I see a lot. I tire of saying this:
LOSING MONEY ON CONSOLE PRODUCTION AND A CONSOLE BEING UNPROFITTABLE ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
You think the 360 and the PS3 are unprofittable for the respective companies? Why do you think they're in the console business? As a hobby? I assure you they make money for their parent companies, and these companies have got a really sweet deal!
Most of their games are produced by OTHER COMPANIES, so OTHER PEOPLE spend THEIR MONEY on producing it. Microsoft and Sony say, "Yeah, we'll allow it to run on our console," and get paid HUGE amounts of money for licensing. All while doing next to nothing, at no risk to themselves.
No risk + no effort = profit
Their investment is in the console, not the game, and that's a pretty safe bet. So please, spare me the "Sony and Microsoft lose money on their consoles but Nintendo doesn't," schpiel, because it's just not true.
I think there's room for everyone in the console pool, but what bugs me about Nintendo's behavior is this. Contrary to your fallacious argument that Microsoft and Sony would've caused a video game crash if left to their own devices (despite somehow being able to stay in the market even WITH the obviously awesome Nintendo still here), I feel that Nintendo is engaging in exactly the same type of behavior that lead to the LAST video game crash.
Cheap consoles that "every family could afford" (i.e. are cheap enough to buy, play once, and leave in the corner, causing unrealistic software sales projections)?
CHECK!
Little to no quality control over third party development houses?
CHECK!
A flood of titles so massive it's next to impossible for the casual consumer (i.e. no one reading this) to differentiate between the sweet and the slop?
CHECK! and how!
So I'm not worried because Nintendo isn't "Hardcore". I just lost a considerable portion of my life getting Master of Galaxies on Mario Galaxy 2! I'm worried because I think their behavior is dangerous for the business.
The X-Box 360 as a console became profitable for Microsoft in its 3rd year. Microsoft could afford that sort of long term investment. Sony as well, and it was a good thing, too. As I said in my original, had the PS3 or the 360 been the primary products of their companies, the companies would not have survived to watch the investment sweeten.
Nintendo is never more than one failed home console away from going the Sega route. So a direction change such as the Wii was a daring plan that worked. As for your three points, Nintendo-
1. Significantly increased the video game market, opening the door not only for more gamers total, but also for more "Hardcore" gamers who got their first taste on the Wii. Everyone starts somewhere, and a LOT of folks have now started on the Wii. As for software projections, expecting Wii sales to emulate software-hardware sales ratios from traditional systems was a failure on the part of people making projections, not a failure of the business model.
2. Far from failing to "regulate" their third party developers, they opened the floodgates, making it easier than ever for upstarts to attempt to design a game. The result is a generation full of crappy games (not unlike the first gen of arcade games... a few gems in an ocean of crappiness,) potentially the birth pains of the next gen of game developers.
3. And any other system is different how? I was just in a Gamestop and the number of crappy titles abounds. "Wet" still got made, after all. The drek will always outnumber the gems, but thankfully we live in the age of the Internet where even the most casual gamer in the world can quickly discover what is playing well and what isn't. Casual Gamer does not equal information incompetent.
PhiMed said:
Only if you exclude
1) R&D for the motion control technology
2) Defense of the 3 (!) major lawsuits that resulted from alleged patent infringement
3) Aesthetic design budget
4) etc.
I assure you. If they had developed it, produced one and sold it, it would not be a profit, so don't compound your economic misunderstanding with hyperbole.
Fair enough. The system was profitable as soon as can be reasonably measured, however.
PhiMed said:
The most accomplished publisher of GAMES isn't making games for either console, but I still like them okay. I get the feeling that if developers take the tehcnology seriously, I'll enjoy third party motion control games for the 360 and PS3 A LOT more than third party motion control games for the Wii, just like I enjoy third party GAMES IN GENERAL for the 360 and PS3 A LOT more than third party games for the Wii now.
You're making an assumption here that feels premature to me. Motion Control games are different from button mashers, which I feel is the most strongly proven by Wii games that try to treat particular motions as elaborate buttons. I think the most sensible route would be to treat motion control games as a distinct genre, requiring experience to make well. Higher dev costs will keep the raw number of titles down, but we are about to get a load of crap from the other companies as well, unless you think Nintendo was actively suppressing good games in favor of crap.
PhiMed said:
Okay, that's just not true. Until the Wii, the history of Nintendo is not one of experimentation and innovation. I'll leave their well-discussed software franchise mining out of this discussion, and focus on hardware. Over the course of 2 console generations (N64 and GCN) they lost over half their market share at least partially because of their refusal to abandon a proprietary media format. Sony brought us the first viable CD game console (other than PC, of course) while Nintendo clung to cartridges like a child holding on to a security blanket. Even with the GCN they refused to get the point, with those infuriating tiny little discs. Once they joined the party that everyone else had already started, SURPRISE, they win the console market back.
Their successes with consoles (handheld, too) has always been the result of being the least expensive, the most difficult to break, and the most child-friendly (including the reason for the GBA's success... battery life). Their failures have always been associated with wild-eyed innovation. Power glove, virtual boy, R.O.B. They learned this lesson years ago, which is why they've been THE MOST conservative console company in the world for the past few decades (at least until the 3DSi. We'll see how that works out)
Ok, so making an electronic game that is A)Fun B)Rugged and C)Affordable DOESN'T count as innovative if one doesn't use an optical disk? How does that make sense? The Original NES reinvented the industry. The SNES raised the bar for graphics and Sound. The N64 pushed existing cartridge tech to its limits and did so very well, albiet with some sacrifices, and also made some steps forward (along with some critical errors) which led to modern day button masher controllers. (The N64 controller, so many good and bad ideas rolled into one.) With the GameCube Nintendo made it's first "safe" move media wise, mostly over developer demand for a CD medium, and showed that, done right, a CD game could be made seamless. (It's hard to find a loading screen in any Nintendo-made game.) Now the DS has gone back away from Disks and is doing quite well for itself.
Combined with all their miscues, Nintendo has been VERY innovative. Following someone else's trick (or, in the case of the Playstation, returning to their abandoned trick) does not equal innovation.
PhiMed said:
They will not push the envelope again, but you can keep on dreaming, dreamer.
I'll answer your question for you, though. The reason adults who play games don't like Nintendo is the same reason adults who like movies don't like the new Veggie Tales movies.
Nintendo, for the most part, is not in the business of catering to us. They make a few for us, but they've decided that video games are toys, so they will design them as such.
They make toys. You said it. I didn't.
I don't think they suck. I think they're very good at what they do, but what they do is ignore me as a consumer. Anything they make that I enjoy is a complete coincidence.
I seriously doubt you (or anyone) will read all of this, but I've made my points, so I'll let the interwebz do with it as they may.
They make toys. I did say it. So does Sony, so does Microsoft. The better analogy would be like saying that Adults don't like Disney Movies because they make kid movies as well as movies for adults. The reason you wouldn't use it is because it is so patently untrue.
Nintendo knows that the gaming market it basically created is getting older, and while it is still important to cater to those of us who played Super Mario 2 as a new release (geez, I'm old), it's also going to actively court the kids for whom Super Mario Galaxy will be their first Mario memory.
They will do this as they have always done, by pursuing and perfecting their craft on their own terms, and in their own ways. As Bioware and Rockstar are so fond of telling us, game making is not a democracy. Both of those companies succeed by creating their games the way they want to create them, secure in the knowledge that people will buy them.
That's a trick they learned from an old master.
Good post, by the way. I'm one of those people who loves a good argument, seems I might find a home here.
