Poll: Should Nintendo Stop Making Consoles?

[deadish]

Chances are nintendo will be the last manufacturer of a traditional console, I will bet money that the next xbox and playstation will be pushing the digital route and will be trying to get people to give up physical games all together, I also wouldn't be surprised if they did something to kill the used game market. If anyone is comfortable making a game console that is a game console its nintendo. So really if you like consoles, you should hope they keep making them since they will probably be the last ones doing it.

I don't mind if Sony and MS when all digital. Optical drives are a major point of failure on modern consoles.

I don't see the big deal with needing physical media, at least not on physical media as fragile as optical discs - blurays are OK though, they are almost indestructible, but the optical drives that read them aren't however.

 

[F4LL3N]

Let's just ignore the people who do post on gaming sites and guess what those who don't post on gaming sites think?

Brilliant.

Or we could just ignore the fact 80+ million people own a Wii, and simply go off the few hundred on gaming sites who just so happen to agree with you.

Even more brilliant!

 

[Korolev]

Eh, the Market will decide whether or not Nintendo should stop making consoles. If they want to continue to make them, why not? It's their money. I have a Wii, and no, I haven't used it since... 2008 (although I might get Xenoblade, I heard that's good). I'm not that interested in the WiiU, although I am willing to give it a shot depending on its price (If it costs about 200~300 Australian dollars, I'll definitely consider getting one, but I doubt it'll be that cheap).

The Wii wasn't exactly the console I hoped it would be, but it was quite successful for a number of years. Nintendo definitely have the incentive to produce another console and hopefully make lightning strike twice.

Besides, competition is a good thing. So what if some of us don't like the Wii, and have reservations about the WiiU? It's existence doesn't hurt anyone. And a new Nintendo console will keep Sony and Microsoft on their toes in order to compete for market share. Competition is a good thing. Why shouldn't Nintendo make another console? It's their money. Let em spend it how they wish.

 

[Worgen]

Chances are nintendo will be the last manufacturer of a traditional console, I will bet money that the next xbox and playstation will be pushing the digital route and will be trying to get people to give up physical games all together, I also wouldn't be surprised if they did something to kill the used game market. If anyone is comfortable making a game console that is a game console its nintendo. So really if you like consoles, you should hope they keep making them since they will probably be the last ones doing it.

I don't mind if Sony and MS when all digital. Optical drives are a major point of failure on modern consoles.

I don't see the big deal with needing physical media, at least not on physical media as fragile as optical discs - blurays are OK though, they are almost indestructible, but the optical drives that read them aren't however.

Ultimately its about control, publishers want total control, so not only will they push all digital, they will also push cloud gaming once broadband becomes more wide spread. Right now the one thing that consoles have over the pc is a simple used game market, once you get rid of that, there isn't much point in having a standard console anymore.

 

[Epona]

Let's just ignore the people who do post on gaming sites and guess what those who don't post on gaming sites think?

Brilliant.

Or we could just ignore the fact 80+ million people own a Wii, and simply go off the few hundred on gaming sites who just so happen to agree with you.

Even more brilliant!

So, here we go back to counting ONLY sales numbers again.

Not so brilliant.

Look, it's not in dispute that the Wii sold shitloads but what is in dispute is how many people are happy with their purchase and how many still use the bloody thing. Now, we can speculate about all the soccer moms but it's pointless. Most gamers have left the Wii behind, dusting it off to play Skyward Sword and that's it. In fact, I would bet that most people play Virtual Console or Gamecube games on the Wii more than they play actual Wii games. Ya know, that's when they actually turn the thing on.

 

[Heaven's Guardian]

Why do we need three identical consoles? While I have no intention of buying a Wii U, primarily because I think the new controller is ridiculous, there are certain things the Wii does that neither Microsoft or Sony does or needs to do. It's not as though Nintendo's flagship franchises are improved by putting them on regular controllers, and in Zelda's case they might actually be diminished after Skyward Sword. Also, you're asking them to give up billions in revenue and control over the platform for their games. There is no chance they do that. Other than Nintendo flagships, just don't buy other games for the Wii. Of course those versions are worse; that isn't what the Wii is for.

 

[Magmarock]

I would normally say yes but the truth is I hate all consoles and I think only the PC should have games made for it because consoles are for babies that can't use a keybored lol,

 

[mega48man]

i kinda wanna say yes because of the huge porportion of console sales are the wii instead of something good like the 360 or something great like the ps3 (i try to persuade parents in the gaming aisle of whatever store i'm in, i feel like i'm fighting 3dog's good fight). but if nintendo stops with the wii, they'll end up getting set back YEARS in terms of software development. Cliff blenzinski form epic games, whom i've been told i look like which is awesome, said something a little while back about revolutionizing the way modern video games are programmed by tricking the software or something. i know epic games has the funding and the know how to do what ever the hell cliff was talking about and this could bring a new wave of technologically superior games in 3-4 years, maybe even 2 years. if nintendo still has a premium console that's cheap and inferior to the 360 and PS3 by then, they will be in for a super mario world of hurt.

 

[TheSchaef]

Voted no. Full disclosure: this has been a Nintendo household since the NES replaced our Intellivision in 1986, but we also procured a PS1 to play FF 7/8, Tekken 2/3, Fear Effect 2 and before Twin Snakes was released, the original MGS. We also borrow the brother-in-law's PS2 to play GoW, Jak, Ratchet, Kingdom Hearts, etc.

I don't understand the notion that Nintendo would ever want to stop making hardware. For starters, they won't stop on the notion that it's not profitable for them. They are the only company that always always always sells their consoles at a profit (don't know if this still applies to the 3DS post-price-drop, but that would be the exception that proves the rule). Between the money they make on consoles and the money they pull down for controllers and peripherals, why would they cut off their own arm?

For another, they won't stop on the notion that it won't sell. The Wii console destroyed the other two in sales, selling almost 90 million so far while XBox and Playstation are still trying to crack 60 million.

Lastly, they won't stop on the notion that nobody wants motion control. Step outside the console market, and you'll see that there is a new generation of gamers and gaming on the rise. People are playing games on a touch screen phone. They're reading books on a touchscreen e-reader. They're loading apps on a touch screen tablet. While motion control is not strictly analogous to touch control, the overarching idea is that people are migrating to intuitive interfaces and - to a point - haptic feedback. We're on the cusp of Minority Report style interfaces, and that's how I expect my two young boys will grow up in the world. In light of that move, it would seem odd and a bit archaic to leave consoles rooted in button controls forever. And anyway, motion controls were such a gimmicky flop on the Wii that Sony and Microsoft only went and ginned up their own versions of it.

The technology is not perfect; it's developing over time. The difference between original Wii controls and Motion Plus is significant enough after only two years from their initial launch. WiiU is going in the direction broader interface technology is going, and I would say look more for the other companies to follow suit than to stick rigidly to button-only controls. Meanwhile, if The Conduit and No More Heroes are not adequate experiences for you, if it's too much to ask to let your hair down and enjoy Kirby or Rabbids on their own charm, it doesn't bother me at all, you'll always have Call of Duty and Madden and Halo churning out the same stuff every year. EA and Microsoft et al are only too happy to oblige you on that front also.

 

[hcig]

(IMPORTANT: the following is a deceptively short read, but should not be consumed by fanboys, as it will induce raging, emotion based arguing, and general butthurt. I like any manner of game and have no hate against any console, i like the same stuff you like, i just also like nintendo games, and admire their contributions old and new to the industry. You have been warned)
Nintendo console dies, nintendo games die with it, when nintendo games die, the console industry stagnates and dies.
this is the ONLY equation, and the only solution, and its because nintendo is the only shepard among an industry of sheep.

Gaming is in DIRE need of another crash, its a stale, boring pile of clones trying to get a leg up one another, and it needs to stop. indie and nintendo gaming are the ONLY places where games seem to be made for fun anymore. mario isnt half covered in blood, holding a chainsaw gun and taking a hand picked team on a suicide mission... but he doesnt have to do that, because the games are fun without it. big stories, gore, teen appeal, they are all compensating for their poor and VERY mortal gameplay, meanwhile, mario, tetris, packman, they will all be played for EVER because the gameplay is appealing, its actually (god forbid) fun and engaging, while still lacking everything the "hardcore" (the rednecks of gaming) deem NECESSARY for a good game.

In 5 years, i want you to play your favorite "hardcore" game of this gen... skyrim, assassins creed, uncharted, mass effect, etc, and i want you to be honest with yourself... does it still feel good to play? do you still feel engaged by it? and how does it stand up next to the games of 2016/7? then do this again in 15 years... then 20... then 25....
few games have stood that test of time... not nostalgia required, your game WILL NOT. you know it right now, deep down. you know it because you already feel uncomfortable playing many of the so called "perfect" "hardcore" games of 5 year gone by.

That difference is in nintendo, it always has been, that difference has reached beyond software... nintendo has changed the way we played games not once (mobile gaming), twice(thumsticks), not even three (touch screen),but FOUR times (motion) and they will do it again in a year, where we enter an era of gaming where we are no longer tethered to a tv, we are no longer crowded by menu screens or huds, and where EVERY manner of play is available and encouraged. Nobody can make ideas work like nintendo, because nobody thinks like nintendo, and most importantly, nobody takes risks like nintendo, they can herd sony and microsoft around on leashes all damn day, because they own them, they have the secrets to the big money, and the balls to use them. in the next few years, when xbox and playstation release new consoles using psVitas and tablets as controllers, youll probably do just as you did this year, and pretend like they dont spend every day changing the game... and thats fine, ill laugh while you spend your days hating when you could be playing.

Also, "a real console"? OP must be 13 years old.

 

[Phisi]

Some people are not hardcore gamers and just want to play something with gimmicky controls and you think this is bad and that the company that provides these should stop? Well these people also help the medium and Nintendo has also been producing 'casual' games for a long time, think about Mario for a moment, I have seen many internet flash games that are more complex than it.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

"What? A Nintendo next to my system of choice in the store? BLASPHEMY! IT WILL INFECT MY SYSTEM MERELY BY BEING HERE!"

And then Nintendo digs their money pit deeper.

I personally like Nintendo and their games. The last game I played on my Wii was Return to Dreamland, I don't even remember the last time I turned on my 360 or PS3.

 

[deadish]

Right now the one thing that consoles have over the pc is a simple used game market, once you get rid of that, there isn't much point in having a standard console anymore.

Sorry man, but from the perspective of developers (and the publishers who fund them), that is NOT "one thing that consoles have over the pc".

When you buy a used game, the developers get nothing. Zip, zero, nothing.
From their point of view, you might as well just pirate the game, it's has the same "effect".

 

[F4LL3N]

Let's just ignore the people who do post on gaming sites and guess what those who don't post on gaming sites think?

Brilliant.

Or we could just ignore the fact 80+ million people own a Wii, and simply go off the few hundred on gaming sites who just so happen to agree with you.

Even more brilliant!

So, here we go back to counting ONLY sales numbers again.

Not so brilliant.

Look, it's not in dispute that the Wii sold shitloads but what is in dispute is how many people are happy with their purchase and how many still use the bloody thing. Now, we can speculate about all the soccer moms but it's pointless. Most gamers have left the Wii behind, dusting it off to play Skyward Sword and that's it. In fact, I would bet that most people play Virtual Console or Gamecube games on the Wii more than they play actual Wii games. Ya know, that's when they actually turn the thing on.

Dude. Your argument is flawed. You're saying 80-90 million people have their Wii's collecting dust in a closet, based off a couple of hundred gamers on the internet saying they no longer play theirs. Ten million people could say they no longer play their Wii, and it'd still be an uneducated guess to suggest most owners no longer play it, or to suggest most people are disappointed with their purchase of it.

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games[/link]
[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games[/link]

The simple fact is, it makes plenty of sense to base these sorts of things off of sales figures. Especially when they're so much higher than any other console. I'm not saying the average Wii gets more usage than the average 360 or PS3. But the Wii and it's games aren't designed to be played 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Microsoft and Sony have been trying to crack the same market Nintendo already has... for years.

EDIT: Oh. And even if Nintendo stopped making consoles, Microsoft and Sony wouldn't stop making Kinect/Move hardware and games. They'd probably make even more to fill the gap.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Honestly, I'd have to say the answer is "no".

Sure, I have plenty of problems with Nintendo. They seem to have little interest in creating exciting new anything and instead give me new iterations of the N64 version of their classic games. They create new hardware that gets millions of people who never considered playing video games to go out and buy a console but then can't figure out what to do with that sales base. They have struggled with online anything in an age where their competitors figured it out years ago. They consistently make decisions that are actively hostile to the people who buy their machines and play their games.

But, until recently, that formula has worked for them. So, can I really begrudge them? Nope. All I do is ignore them until they do something that interests me.

But, in the larger sense, should they stop? From a business perspective, they should stop when they can no longer turn a profit on the endeavor. The better question one ought to ask is simply if it makes sense for nintendo to be making the Wii U. That is, after all, the question being asked if we get right down to it.

I'll simply throw my cards on the table right now and say that I do not think it makes sense for Nintendo to make the WiiU.

First of all, there is an underlying assumption that, thanks to the overwhelming success of the DS and the Wii, that Nintendo will simply surprise us all. But consider the 3DS as an example - while it is undeniably a more powerful piece of hardware the one feature it currently has that is really worthy of a bullet point is 3D - a feature that tells me Nintendo doesn't really know what they want the device to do.

What Nintendo has done is create a platform that can deliver 3d visuals without glasses - a neat party trick to be sure. But the problem with 3D was never in the glasses. Those that get headaches when watching Avatar will generally run into the same problem on the 3DS because the problem isn't the device but rather your own body. Worse still this trick only works when you sit holding the device at a fairly precise position. Considering that this headline feature of the 3DS requires you to maintain a fairly narrow angle with respect to the screen, the inclusion of motion controls seems baffling. You can have one or the other but not both which begs the obvious question: why include both? There really isn't a good argument to be made for 3D. The tech in the 3DS is a neat way to drum up excitement and little else. Sure, the technology might allow for some game mechanic that no one has seen before that justifies it's existence but I can't help but feel the move was made because of the public buzz surrounding 3d.

If you step away from the 3D aspect, we run into other problems. The network connection is a nice touch but Nintendo still has not sorted out how to deal with online anything in a fashion that is anything but frustrating or simply hostile to the consumer. Why must I purchase points in different stores to use on different handhelds? Why do I have to purchase that NES game yet again if I want to play it on my 3ds?

The 3DS paints a picture of a company that is following buzzwords. It has 3d and it hypes how you don't need glasses and yet produces an experience that is exactly as likely to produce physical discomfort all while failing to demonstrate why this feature is necessary. They put this feature on a platform with motion controls that directly interfere with that primary new feature. They tack better online on and yet still have no unified way of playing with others, or managing friends and so forth. These are not the actions of a company that knows what the device should do, these are the actions of a company that is terrified of the App Store. Sure, the device might be a success in the end but that will only be because of the games. The hardware itself is confused and rife with problems at least a handful of which Nintendo simply will not be able to resolve entirely (the motion controls interfering with 3d might be a problem that can be mitigated with future iterations but the 3d causing discomfort is, with current technology, seemingly not solvable).

This leads us to the WiiU - a device that appeals to exactly no one. It is touted as either being more powerful than or at least as powerful as the 360 and PS3. This strikes me as odd given that the Wii's success was owed largely to the selling to people who did not care about the difference in power. The people who wanted such power have long since purchased a 360 or a PS3 and, at this point, a surprising number have purchased both. While this presumably places the device on at least an equal footing, we still find a problem: developers are not, by and large, going to choose to make the WiiU the primary platform for the next big game when there is an install base of well over 100 million 360's and PS3's to cater to. Even if the WiiU were as successful as the Wii, it would take years to make any sort of headway to overcome that gap.

And, if power isn't relevant, consider the online functionality. Nintendo has, simply put, not only never gotten online right, they've seemingly only aimed at doing it wrong. While this is a problem that can obviously be solved, Nintendo has only shown us that they are either incapable or otherwise unwilling to solve it. Given how increasingly important the online space is, without significant proof that Nintendo has finally given us something that is far, far better than anything they've shown you're going to miss plenty of sales.

If you then consider the new feature of the tablet controller you have to ask yourself this: so what? Why would I look away from my Tv to look at a smaller, crappier TV? Other than piping relatively minor features (maps, inventory, etc) to that screen, what good does that device do? Sure, it could allow for interesting things to be done with local multiplayer but currently the best information says the console likely only supports one such device and there are plenty of rumors that say getting an extra one will be prohibitively costly. Combine that with the fact that the device simply seems like it would be incredibly uncomfortable to play with and you have a recipe for a giant "meh" from the gaming community.

That leaves us with the obvious question: if this device is not positioned to retake the core audience by storm, will it appeal to the everyman who made the Wii and DS a success? My guess is no. Nintendo couldn't convince that audience to regularly purchase new games and with rare exception neither could third parties. Without software, all the WiiU has is that tablet to distinguish the device from the Wii. And when you consider the various tablets and phones that many of these people game on, I'm confident that most people would simply say they don't need another device that does the same thing as a device they already own.

Is it worth making the WiiU? Probably not. Without a radical change in course, the WiiU seems destined for failure. It is set to launch with the power it always needed far to late to do any good hoping to penetrate a market that largely sees no need to upgrade and is competing on the software front with games that cost a dollar all while failing to tell anyone why we might want to shell out money for the thing. Sure the vague promise of mario will get some to buy the device but that isn't what the WiiU needs. Nintendo is more or less betting their console business on the WiiU and the device I've been shown is not a device smart money would bet on.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Nintendo console dies, nintendo games die with it, when nintendo games die, the console industry stagnates and dies.
this is the ONLY equation, and the only solution, and its because nintendo is the only shepard among an industry of sheep.

Were Nintendo to die, I would agree that that would not bode well for the Japanese game industry but I remain relatively unconvinced that the game industry as a whole would collapse. To boldly claim that Nintendo was the only company to change the face of gaming is, in a word, false. Nintendo may have revived the industry from the dead but their status of savoir is a legacy that is decades old. I'm not going to say that Nintendo is a bloated monstrosity stumbling around and stinking of hubris and past glories even if that's what I believe because that isn't what I need to say to prove my point.

Entire genres of game were created by others. Either methods of playing were carried forth into the main stream by others. Entire philosophies of what gaming as an artistic medium means are explored by others.


This Shepard you speak of has proven to be nothing more than a false prophet for well over a decade - but that is something we will get into later.

Gaming is in DIRE need of another crash, its a stale, boring pile of clones trying to get a leg up one another, and it needs to stop.

I'm not convinced it is possible for the industry to crash as a whole. Gaming is too much a part of the every day lives of too many people. Industry giants can collapse, certainly, but the industry itself is to diverse, to distributed to collapse as a whole. I'd like to see something rock the foundations of a giant or two in the business so that I can get a few new things rather than the current model of old thing plus some polish but that is a feat that can be accomplished by simply producing a new line of consoles and starting the rush to convince people they need to buy in with new and exciting software.

indie and nintendo gaming are the ONLY places where games seem to be made for fun anymore. mario isnt half covered in blood, holding a chainsaw gun and taking a hand picked team on a suicide mission... but he doesnt have to do that, because the games are fun without it.

Just because Mario is fun without that does not, by any stretch, imply a game cannot be fun with such things.

big stories, gore, teen appeal, they are all compensating for their poor and VERY mortal gameplay, meanwhile, mario, tetris, packman, they will all be played for EVER because the gameplay is appealing, its actually (god forbid) fun and engaging, while still lacking everything the "hardcore" (the rednecks of gaming) deem NECESSARY for a good game.

I don't disagree except with the underlying notion that you seem to think that a game is only defined mechanically. Also, I would stay away from inflamatory rhetoric (calling core gamers rednecks for example) because it will do you cause no good.

In 5 years, i want you to play your favorite "hardcore" game of this gen... skyrim, assassins creed, uncharted, mass effect, etc, and i want you to be honest with yourself... does it still feel good to play? do you still feel engaged by it? and how does it stand up next to the games of 2016/7? then do this again in 15 years... then 20... then 25....
few games have stood that test of time... not nostalgia required, your game WILL NOT. you know it right now, deep down. you know it because you already feel uncomfortable playing many of the so called "perfect" "hardcore" games of 5 year gone by.

I'll go one further and simply point out a few things. First, there are precisely two games I'll still sit down and play that are ancient. Doom and Pac-Man. In the case of the former, nostalgia is the key and in the case of the latter nostalgia and a solid game are to blame. I grew up with Nintendo and my formative gaming years were spent on the NES, SNES and N64 and yet even the best games in that catalog do not hold my interest. Sure, the Legend of Zelda is my favorite Zelda title but that doesn't mean I'm going to go back and play it again. There are other Zelda games to play.

That difference is in nintendo, it always has been, that difference has reached beyond software... nintendo has changed the way we played games not once (mobile gaming), twice(thumsticks), not even three (touch screen),but FOUR times (motion) and they will do it again in a year, where we enter an era of gaming where we are no longer tethered to a tv, we are no longer crowded by menu screens or huds, and where EVERY manner of play is available and encouraged.

Nintendo indeed popularized many of those concepts but lets go down the list:

Thumbsticks - certainly not created by Nintendo though they are certainly important in popularizing them. It is notable that their attempt resulted in a controller that is generally poorly regarded, both in terms of ergonomics (you were forced to hold the controller in such a way that a button and a directional pad were non-usable) and mechanical reliability. Still, a worthy prototype. I'll give you this one.

Mobile Gaming - Likely a reference to the Game Boy. I'll give you this one as well.

Touch Screen - The 3DS. The touchscreen offered nothing more than a mouse provided decades prior. Partial credit for being on a mobile platform.

Motion - An input mechanism that has only demonstrated a limited set of cases where it is integral to the experience (various sports games, exercise games) and countless examples where it directly detracted from the experience. I'll give you credit but I don't think you really want it.

Other companies have notable contributions as well:
Apple: Mobile gaming for the masses
Valve: Online game distribution
Id: creating FPS genre, pushing technology forward including (importantly) online play.
Blizzard: Popularizing the RTS genre to the point that several of their games are used for professional play and their most popular example is synonymous with professional video game playing. Also defined standard for MMO that has held for the better part of a decade and has produced untold billions of dollars.
Mojang - Successful use of pre release sales of game that may provide an income and distribution model for other small games.

There are others I could list I'm sure but there are other things to get to. The last presumed advance is a reference to the WiiU. I would point out several things: First, the WiiU tablet currently remains largely a mystery but we do know that it does not, itself, play a game. Second, if all we are concerned with is not being directly attached to a TV, I'd point you to the PS3's ability to stream games to the PSP. Or my iPhone. Or any other handheld device in the last few decades. Or the fact that we currently have an insubstantial body of information regarding what the hell the tablet can do.

Nobody can make ideas work like nintendo, because nobody thinks like nintendo, and most importantly, nobody takes risks like nintendo, they can herd sony and microsoft around on leashes all damn day, because they own them, they have the secrets to the big money, and the balls to use them.

Aside from the issues above, only one of which currently applies to Microsoft, how precisely has Nintendo been leading? Nintendo found a market in handhelds and motion controls. Apple could be said to dominate the handheld space and even though both Microsoft and Sony have produced motion controls only one of those companies simply copied Nintendo. Sure, the Kinnect is effectively a motion controller and for all its failings you cannot claim it is a copy.

in the next few years, when xbox and playstation release new consoles using psVitas and tablets as controllers, youll probably do just as you did this year, and pretend like they dont spend every day changing the game... and thats fine, ill laugh while you spend your days hating when you could be playing.

I don't hate the Nintendo. What I do think of Nintendo is less than glowing praise.

I think that Nintendo has been stuck in a rut for a decade. I think Nintendo has consistently produced nothing more than iterations of N64 games for three console generations and they still expect me to keep buying them. I think Nintendo has captured an audience that it couldn't sell software to. I think Nintendo is facing the only real challenger it has ever seen in the handheld space and I think that Nintendo is going to lose. I think that Nintendo is a company that is running scared without a plan. I think that Nintendo is the company that is now following the crowd. And I think that we will find that Nintendo will demonstrate that ignoring what people say they want in favor of selling a new piece of hardware every year is a policy that is at long last coming back to bite them in the ass. I think that Nintendo has spent too long focused on how to disrupt the industry with bold new ideas to know how to capitalize on a new trend at the right time.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Dude. Your argument is flawed. You're saying 80-90 million people have their Wii's collecting dust in a closet, based off a couple of hundred gamers on the internet saying they no longer play theirs. Ten million people could say they no longer play their Wii, and it'd still be an uneducated guess to suggest most owners no longer play it, or to suggest most people are disappointed with their purchase of it.

Actually, when dealing with a large set of data (like tens of millions of consoles) you do not need to poll every data point to get a reasonably accurate picture of what's going on. A few thousand well chosen data points are all that are required.

Of course, the problem here is that I'm not convinced I've ever seen such a study done. Sure, a site can run a poll and get a few thousand responses but generally said site will generate an inaccurate picture because of audience bias.

The simple fact is, it makes plenty of sense to base these sorts of things off of sales figures. Especially when they're so much higher than any other console. I'm not saying the average Wii gets more usage than the average 360 or PS3. But the Wii and it's games aren't designed to be played 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Attach rates are a tricky thing. They seem fairly high on the Wii but then we run into a curious problem. First, the numbers are off given that the Wii has the advantage of 1 game over its competitors (on average). Second, there is a problem getting reliable sales data since this information is controlled by publishers who generally don't like to share unless a game does absurdly well. Finally, attach rates ignore a few things. The first is that with rare exception, even if a third party game was profitable this was largely due to low production costs rather than high sales figures. Nintendo was the only company to reliably produce games that sold well on the Wii. Just as important is that the Wii has two distinct audiences: the core gamer and the casual gamer (or upstream/downstream or whatever other term you might use). While core gamers are inclined to purchase the new version of Zelda or Mario as they come out, there is no evidence that suggests the casual gamer does. The question that really needs to be asked is simply this: Nintendo managed to break into a massive market (demonstrated by sales of consoles) but did they manage to exploit that market (i.e. did they continue to sell games to that market). My money says that, by and large, Nintendo was not very successful in getting a significant portion of it's presumed market to buy new games regularly.

 

[F4LL3N]

SNIP

But if you look at the links I provided (Wiki, but still a decent source), the Wii still sold far more games than Microsoft and Sony. I doubt you'd ever get an exact figure, but it's a decent guideline I think.

Total Xbox 360 games sold as of December 2009: 353.8 million.
Total Wii games sold as of March 31, 2011: 716.09 million.
Total PlayStation 3 games sold as of June 30, 2010: 315.3 million.

Add ~100 million for the 360 and PS3 (maybe 150 for xbox). I'm too lazy to do the working out, but the Wii looks like it had a better ratio of consoles sold to games sold. I'd say on average 7-8 per console sold, possibly for all three consoles.

 

[Grygor]

Wow, I'm impressed with some of the lesser known ones there. Good job.

Of course you know you are wrong on a couple of those right?

Dualshock 2 didn't have analogue shoulder buttons, it was in or out. I know, I had one. The Gamecube was the first console to have them, followed by the XBox 360 and then the Playstation 3 (Sixaxis).

The shoulder and face buttons on the DualShock 2 are all pressure-sensitive analog devices.

When I said 3D graphics, I meant true 3D, as in the 3DS - sorry if that wasn't clear. I don't remember the Jaguar having that...

As in stereoscopic 3D? The Vectrex was the first. The 3DS was the first system with glasses-free stereoscopic 3D.

Essentially, however, this is all irrelevant. The point is you had to dig into some pretty deep, dark and mostly unknown history to prove me wrong, which means that Microsoft and Sony are hardly likely to delve into the failed gimmicks to base their designs on, surely? What prompted Sony to make their analogue control sticks for the Dualshock 2? The N64 or the Atari? Which prompted the motion controller movement? The power glove (hah!) or the Wii-Mote? The point I'm making is that, whether they base it on a previous idea or not, Nintendo always seem to refine the idea and advertise it better than previously... plus they make them work.

I'd wager that the Dual Analog for the PS1 (Sony's first dual analog stick controller) was inspired more by their own Analog Joystick.

That's said, I'm not arguing that Nintendo wasn't the first to do several of those things well, just not the first to do them.

 

[Grygor]

SNIP

But if you look at the links I provided (Wiki, but still a decent source), the Wii still sold far more games than Microsoft and Sony. I doubt you'd ever get an exact figure, but it's a decent guideline I think.

Total Xbox 360 games sold as of December 2009: 353.8 million.
Total Wii games sold as of March 31, 2011: 716.09 million.
Total PlayStation 3 games sold as of June 30, 2010: 315.3 million.

Add ~100 million for the 360 and PS3 (maybe 150 for xbox). I'm too lazy to do the working out, but the Wii looks like it had a better ratio of consoles sold to games sold. I'd say on average 7-8 per console sold, possibly for all three consoles.

It's bad enough to use outdated numbers, but using numbers that aren't even from the same time period?

Using current numbers from VGChartz (not a perfect source, I'll admit, but at least their numbers are relatively current and all the same age):

Wii: 717.33 million games, 89.77 million consoles, tie ratio 7.99
XBox 360: 556.11 million games, 58.41 million consoles, tie ratio 9.52
PS3: 448.52 million games, 55.79 million consoles, tie ratio 8.04

And don't forget that Wii Sports' status as obligatory pack-in in most of the world means the Wii's tie ratio is inflated compared to the other consoles - there's no way of knowing from the data we have how many of it's 78.68 million copies sold were actually wanted.