Azih said:
I've always figured Sony's problems this generation stemmed from their Ken Kutaragi driven obsession with hardware and neglect of software. That was fine for the PSX and fine for the PS2 but not any longer since the world had changed. It took TONS of firmware updates for Sony to get PSN on an equal footing to the Xbox live that the 360 launched with. They're painfully learning the extra skills they need to keep up with the competition.
Nintendo doesn't have this exact problem as just like Apple they've always built their hardware with the exact kind of software they want to run on it in mind. They're incredibly similar companies that way.
What's different though since the iPod+iTunes is that Apple has gone a step further. Not only do they design their hardware with their software in mind but now they design their software (and hardware) to push through online services like iTunes and then the App Store. Apple is the best company at the world in doing this and they've created a whole blue ocean of portable gaming through the App Store that competes directly with Nintendo's old sea gameboy style of doing things on the DS.
That's where the challenge is. Nintendo knows hardware, they know software, they don't know services and they have an oddly bunker mentality insistence on creating online services *their* way which are oddly Japanese and doesn't learn from the best examples in the business.
thank you for clearing that up. i knew someone with a Raz avatar wouldn't be a crazy. i would guess then that you would put Microsoft as being a hardware software and services company too.
i don't disagree with those descriptions. DSi ware does demonstrate that Nintendo don't get what makes the app store good, and while their multiplayer on DS and Wii has been 'good enough' for it not to hurt their sales i do think they made a huge mistake by not pushing further into that space.
Nintendo could have made something unique and fun, but they just made something barebones that didn't seem to comprehend why people want to play online.
i don't think that Apples blue ocean competes directly with Nintendo's old sea though, and i don't think that the DS does things in anything you could call 'Gameboy style'.
i do think the days of selling puzzle titles of the Tetris/Puzzle Bobble for full retail price are over, but i think those days were ending before the iPhone showed up due to casual gaming on the PC and with the XBLA and so on.
i think the issue with DSi-ware was the Nintendo didn't want to undermine the level of pricing they have on the virtual console. if they let anyone on, and anyone sell their games at any price, then theres no way that they'd be able to charge what they do.
that's very obviously the wrong way of looking at it though. open it up. make something browseable. price GB and GBC competively, and that service could really take off.
that won't happen though.
it's one reason why it's actually a good thing for the App ecosystem that Apple don't make games themselves. they don't care what games are selling or how much they are so long as they get their cut. for Nintendo selling one of their own games gets them a lot more than selling someone elses.
they could do better with better pricing, but again, i doubt they will.
when you think of how successful the virtual console on the 3DS could be... when you think of all the games on the N64 on down that could probably run on the 3DS... when you imagine them for a couple of bucks each with large chunks of the library available from the off instead of a trickle feed...
i'm sure people would spend more money overall.
but casual gaming vs core gaming isn't any different to how it was on the Wii or on the DS or on the PC. it might steal a few dollars from some hardcore gamers that would otherwise have gone on hardcore games or hardcore systems, but it won't stop the hardcore gamer wanting hardcore games and hardcore system.
the markets have some overlap, but both have plenty of space outside of that overlap to remain large and healthy. even if Apple take all of that overlap i think the hardcore gaming ecosystem will remain viable for plenty of publishers and plenty of platform holders to keep thriving.