Ever since the cautionary tale of the PSP, Ive been skeptical whenever game industry watchers line up in universal praise of anything. Its not that I have a contrarian streak. Its because when everybody seems to be on board with a new product, that means it is too understandable to them: Its exactly like what is popular now, but better, therefore it could not possibly fail.
Hmm.
I think this is a mistake a lot of us make. We hear one side of the story and we make that the foundations for our opinions.
How many times have we (a purposeful word choice that includes me, I'll point out) gone "GAF WAS WRONG ON THIS ONE" or "GAF THOUGHT THIS WOULD FAIL AND THE GAF CONSENSUS IS ALWAYS WRONG" or "GAMERS ONLY LOVE THIS CERTAIN KIND OF THING?"
But even in the microcosm of this board alone, ascribing any singular opinion to X number of thousands of people is silly. Similarly, I have not heard "universal" praise of the 3DS since E3. Yeah, a bunch of people at the 3DS event were hot on it. Hype is funny that way. There are also people who, in this very thread, have been vocal about how little they want it or how they're more than willing to wait 12 - 24 months for a revision. If that is universal praise, then my high school play reviews were in retrospect
fantastic.
Ultimately this isn't about whether it's praised universally or not, a position where either extreme could be just as wrong as the other. The problem comes from whether that assumption of what praise means actually means something in and of itself. At E3 2006, there were stories of people literally stampeding past Sony's booth to try the Wii, anecdotes of long lines, etc. The Wii was praised and ended up leading the generation in sales despite being lightyears behind the competition in features and hardware. It had that wow factor, that spectacle that turned a segment of the population on. You would not find a "The Wii is our future and I love it!" majority on GAF, I assure you.
But thats not what succeeds in a fast-changing industry like videogames. Disruptive products succeed. And nobody sees them coming, because theyre so different that the establishment doesnt understand their appeal. This is the lesson of the blue ocean that Nintendo kept hammering back when it was the plucky underdog. Now, Nintendo is the establishment. With 3DS, I dont know if the company is looking to open up more blue ocean or just defend the great big one its already got, which is starting to turn a little pinkish if not blood red.
I take issue with the idea Nintendo was an underdog in 2004. In home consoles, sure, Sony was clearly the establishment. They had been dominating in the handheld space long before the DS and, while I agree they had to do something drastic, the DS isn't as drastic as you seem to think. Some of the most amazing, most innovative titles for the system such as Ouendan, The World Ends With You, Ghost Trick, etc. were not huge sellers. The titles that were huge sellers were things that did appeal to the gamer that wants something popular but better; Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros., etc. There were also the expanded audience games that did well, too.
The DS didn't succeed because it was the anti-PSP, it succeeded because it competed directly with software and looked outside that direct competition, too. This is what the Blue Ocean analogy misses. Nintendo wasn't just the lone shark in a blue ocean, it was fighting right there with Sony as competition, as well. To paint Nintendo as the underdog in 2004 and the establishment now misses that nothing really has changed. The expanded audience titles are still there, the hardcore titles are still there. If the ratio changes drastically toward the latter, which is impossible to tell at this juncture, fine, point conceded. But we have no way of telling if that will happen.
But what happens then? Where will 3DS sales figures be trending in two or three years, once Apple and other smartphone makers have introduced their own hardware innovations and come up with new ways of siphoning gamers cash and attention, a few dollars and a few minutes at a time?
One thing you don't address here is the possibility that things will reverse. What about kids who got iPod touches that want to move to more complex games, genres that you yourself explained need buttons? What if they don't want to play Mario clones but are totally willing to use their parents money to buy actual Mario? What if the iPhone market slowly begins pulling prices up so $15 is the average and not the crazy outlier?
These are a lot of hypotheticals, but I don't think they're impossible by any stretch of the imagination. I do agree with you that smartphones will inevitably suck away former "hardcore" gamers in to the realm of pick up and play cellphone titles, I've seen it happen and it probably happens a lot. I think there is a small window of opportunity for Nintendo to do the reverse, however, and get those gamers upstream. Whether they can do that or not is up to Nintendo and is not something that anyone can guess at, especially not with authority, before launch.
