perfectchaos007 said:
Has Nintendo won this gen yet?
Most assuredly. This should have been clear around March last year when the Wii was still not available in stores, or after that, during the 87K NPD month (which was epic), then in June, when the Wii was not available in stores, then in September, when the Wii was not available in stores and finally in December, when, well, you get the idea.
I have to say that the first time I saw the Wiimote unveiled (then the Revmote), I felt what the Hyksos warriors must have felt when they saw a wheeled chariot for the first time. So elegant, so daring and so genius, I felt that I was watching the future unfold before my very eyes. It was then that I knew that with this one idea, the undefeated armies of Egypt would be broken and a new age would dawn.
It was an epiphany. Gaming would never be the same ever again and it was
exciting. Gaming could once again be fun, inexpensive and dare I say it? Mainstream. I do remember though, that my euphoria was short lived, since
that was when the trolling began. The genius and outrageous potential of this idea was ridiculed and worse, ignored by the GAF hivemind. I began to have my doubts the future success of the idea in the face of mocking from tech-obsessed "hardcore gamers".
I held my opinion more or less constant, until Sony's E3 2006 press conference and the words "Five Hundred and Ninety Nine US Dollars" were uttered. My heart quailed, for I believed the PR about the PlayStation brand. The technology arms race had already priced me out of the 360, and if GAF was to be believed, the future consisted of hyper-powerful, too-expensive consoles with nothing of note on them but FPS games, sports and racing games.
If they believe this machine can sell at the price they are asking, I reasoned, then the potential of the Revolution would be lost forever. Apparently, no one wanted a less powerful console and certainly not one made by Nintendo. When they announced the name of the machine, I was almost certain the Wii was d00med.
But then the sales figures started rolling in. It makes me happy because it means that the "more of the same, but bigger and badder" attitude that had infected gaming since the PSX generation had given way to something new and fresh. Something that would take gaming out of its FPS rut and onwards into the future.
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