Topic: The smartest person on the Internet

[KDR_11k]

I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).

Regular fanboys don't back their claims up with economic textbooks and matching their theories to the talks and actions of the companies involved. He does analyze the strategy Nintendo takes and the quotes from their executives do match the standard definition. Blue Ocean is apparently an established approach and the success of the Wii is not random, it is a planned strategy with a well researched outcome.

[SixthAngel]

Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working.  He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.  He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is.  He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).


I wasn't sure about his new article about the developers being full of themselves and wanting to make "art" until I went to a link in his reply section.  It was to neogaf and many western developers (or people who claimed to be) asked "why should I make a Wii game?" or "Why should I change my game to fit the Wii?" and strangely enough because I never heard it about the ps2 "Why should I go there just because more people are there?"

They really have no concept of the end user.  They are making a game for themselves and by extention people like them.  They are making games they think are "good" or "art" not games that the general public will want.  That is perfectly fine for a few companies to pursue these games but it is a horrible, terrible business strategy that will only lead to a shrinking market when the big guys join in.  Nintendo doesn't think what do I want they think what does the user and even the current nonuser want.  That is how a good business is run, not by creating what you consider "art" now, but by making what most people actually want to buy.  History has shown that what is considered art or classics is never readily apparent.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working.  He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.  He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is.  He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).

Define a upstream game.

[SixthAngel]

Define a upstream game.

I don't really want to look for his exact definition right now because proxy servers are slow, but if you read his articles it is there.
Paraphrasing it is the the group of gamers that buy the more complicated, and most demanding games.  They are typically tech savvy and are basically what malstrom and other people call the "hardcore" gamer.

edit: that is upstream gamer but it is obvious what an upstream game is from it.  Complicated, typically needs a large time commitment, often focuses on graphics.

[Flames_of_chaos]

I was looking for your personal opinion of a upstream game not someone elses.

[Nick DiMola]

He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is.  He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).

All he does with those terms is redefine them and then he takes consistent use of them through the context of his writing.

He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.

Mocking business strategy? Does anyone here legitimately know what these companies make on the games they produce? If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business? Could many companies make more if they tailored games to a different crowd? Sure, but that totally disregards the cost of restructuring their company to make those kinds of games, not to mention hiring people like Miyamoto to direct the company properly. What about companies who like their strategy and would prefer to make less money working on something more meaningful to them? Are they wrong for taking this approach?

[SixthAngel]

Its not my term and his use is probably the first time I heard it.  I would have to agree with his emphasis on upstream being defined by the games being very complicated.

All he does with those terms is redefine them and then he takes consistent use of them through the context of his writing.

He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.

Mocking business strategy? Does anyone here legitimately know what these companies make on the games they produce? If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business? Could many companies make more if they tailored games to a different crowd? Sure, but that totally disregards the cost of restructuring their company to make those kinds of games, not to mention hiring people like Miyamoto to direct the company properly. What about companies who like their strategy and would prefer to make less money working on something more meaningful to them? Are they wrong for taking this approach?

They all make less then Nintendo and Blizzard.  Any stockholder right now would tell you that yes they are wrong.  They want them to be making Nintendo money.  Using the other businesses as a guide he also predicts that companies like Sony and Microsoft are going to all but be pushed out this generation unless they can either drastically change or take big losses.  Will he be correct?  It looks that way now.  Small developers can always do what they want, all two of them, but his point is that big companies are going to be losing marketshare as Nintendo and other companies capitalize on the overshot market then move up to the higher market.
You also miss the end game with this scenario.  The reason that companies like Nintendo actually said they were worried about another crash was because the companies were overshooting the market and continually following the hardcore gamers who purchase a lot compared to their actual number.  This shrinks the market in the long run and allows companies a glut of good business right before the crash.

[Deguello]

I guess I just don't like the fact that he dresses up his opinions and fanboyism as intelligence. It is the "Slashdot Syndrome", where sounding smart =/= being smart. Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).

Zero to Godwin in 2 posts.  Please refrain from sudden Nazi references in the future.  Seriously.  It's the cornerstone of simple debate.

The reason Malstrom is taken seriously is because he's basically been correct for the whole generation.  His opinions are reflected in market performance, as that website is a BUSINESS-oriented website chronicling the business side of the industry, whereas most of the complaints are coming from huffy elitist hardcore gamers who stopped cajoling and berating "casual non-gamer non-human Wii owners" long enough to complain that they are being grouped together, categorized, and painted with a broad brush.

I think here he may have gotten his point across wrongly, in that he changes his language from "your game being broken" to "your game is likely broken."  I'm sure he doesn't mean a game is broken simply for having a intro stage that SERVES as a tutorial, and he even says as much when he says "If your game *has* to have a tutorial because it is too complicated, then your game is the problem."  But when your game DOES absolutely requires it (like Splinter Cell) then it's gone too far off the end.  The limit is debatable, but it can clearly be seen in the sales patterns for the particular series in question.

I'm also not sure he ants every game to be a Nintendo-formula game, or whatever, because that isn't reflected in the words he wrote.  He mentions SMB1 and Zelda 1, but only because those games have sold so much and are so revered.  It's not "Nintendo fanboyism" to simply point out that the best selling games of all time happen to be made by them.  That kind of attitude was rampant on vgchartz when simply stating the facts as they are (Wii selling out) was called "fanboyism."  I never knew so many Nintendo fans could sprout overnight.

He writes intelligently because he is intelligent.  He uses old literary references and witty turns of phrase, and long texts that require massive reading comprehension and logical skills.  If that's a bit much, then perhaps he could "dumb it down" for "casual readers" and then everybody could feel like Wii owners do whenever a third party makes a casual Wii game. 

I always take accusations of "pomposity" with a grain of skepticism, mainly because growing up in my school's gifted program I was subject a lot of it.  I was ridiculed simply for having the correct answer, or having an opinion that was unpopular, even when it turn out true.  They didn't like that it was me who said it.  So yeah Malstrom has some pretty harsh words for the "hardcore." (not to be confused with regular core, who simply play core games and enjoy them)  Hardcore make petitions about Diablo III graphics.  Hardcore whine and moan about Wii Fit and Brain Age being the "end of gaming."  Hardcore bargain with the market to please please pretty please don't swing Nintendo's way.  Hardcore picked the PSP in 2004.  And every step of the way, they have had nothing but vile words, assuredly typed with such greasy vigor from their parent's basement, for the new gamers coming in: Children, Women, Elderly, Lapsed.  So why should they get anything less in return?  And this is no conclusion jumped to about their meaning.  One only has to log in there to see the very same pomposity, the very same elitism, and the very same disdain.  One only has to quote them directly.  And they react like Bill O' Reilly does when people quote his craziness accurately.  That act like they've been attacked... ATTACKED!!!  for just displaying their words.

And Mr. Jack, if you are looking for the source of the "hardcore/casual" ****, you need only look in a mirror.  WE HAVE DONE IT.  The Games Press.  We drew the lines separating them in 2004 when Iwata and Reggie talked of disruption and "non-gamers" (being people who haven't begun to play games yet for whatever reason.)  They never said word one of "casual gamers."  IT was us who stated Nintendogs was only for girls, despite it being only 52% so.  It was us who proclaimed the touchscreen a gimmick to attract casuals.  The blood is on our hands for this one.  The very same hands that point fingers at Blizzard and tell them they are making Diablo III more "casual" despite Blizzard never saying or hinting as such and the "evidence" being MORE COLORS. 

IT's almost shameful to be a games reporter now.

[Nick DiMola]

Sure they make less, and of course stock holders want to make more, or else why would you hold their stock, but what does that mean? I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up. Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.

Nintendo knew they lost the hardcore market, so they cut their loses and found a new demographic, the same demographic that paid their bills when they got into gaming. When and if the market totally dries up we'll see what happens. I predict more acceptance of the casual crowd where the companies cater to both similar to what EA is doing. The answer isn't as black and white as this guy wants it to be.

[SixthAngel]

Sure they make less, and of course stock holders want to make more, or else why would you hold their stock, but what does that mean? I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up. Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.

Nintendo knew they lost the hardcore market, so they cut their loses and found a new demographic, the same demographic that paid their bills when they got into gaming. When and if the market totally dries up we'll see what happens. I predict more acceptance of the casual crowd where the companies cater to both similar to what EA is doing. The answer isn't as black and white as this guy wants it to be.

It doesn't need to "totally dry up."  I already made a joke about the fact that there are fewer and fewer developers and you didn't even blink.  The price of the games is skyrocketing as well and soon it seems there will only be EA and Activision as 3rd parties.  Such unhealthy behavior is another warning sign of things going badly.  EA has just basically adopted Nintendo's strategy, even hearing Peter Moore use some of their exact words.  Malstrom never said that upstream gaming or "hardcore gaming" would disappear, it will just change and have the new values of the Wii incorporated.  Nintendo will be making these games (see Mario Kart Wii). Some of the old guard will not cross over and some will making it seem like very little changed to some.

The DS proves much of your point wrong about Nintendo.  They risked an incredible amount with the DS, they still had the best name in handhelds and they risked it all before even losing any market share and seeing what would happen with a direct battle.  They could have lost more but Nintendo took the leap before it was necessary.

You can always say that "maybe things wouldn't have gotten so bad" because you can't have 100% proof unless Nintendo didn't change things.  The amount of success that Nintendo is having with an overshot market, the previous slowdown in Japan, and the incredible rise in the cost of making games shows that Nintendo could have been and very likely was right.

Deguello, I get the feeling the Mr. Jack and Flames are angry because they are the people Malstrom's attacks are directed at.  Malstrom often rails against gaming journalists as being the typical "hardcore" and that is why their reviews and articles are often scared of the Wii or put it down.  They are simply in the awkward position of being big Nintendo fans at the same time.  It burns even more when the person you want to argue with is right almost all the time.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"I don't believe for a minute that the market will totally dry up."
Of course not.  Nintendo rescued it.  We're all past this and it's old news anyway. -- the mega-millions hardcore blockbuster market is still in danger.

Mr. Jack and Flames of Chaos, he isn't talking about which games you think are best or which games he thinks are best, he is talking about a business strategy and why it is working.  He completely knows the the upstream games should exist and will continue to exist, he simply is mocking the business strategy of letting the upstream gamers control the direction of the companies.  He also wrote quite a bit about how the "hardcore" and "casual" are simply mental constructs and have no definitive meaning and how the most popular meaning now has nothing to do with how casual or hardcore a player actually is.  He often uses quotes because of this but sometimes he doesn't(I especially liked how he says the industry uses casual to mean retarded).

Define a upstream game.

The term is "UPMARKET".  Games don't upstream, users do.  After all the criticism and reading of the articles, is it too much to ask for the elite readers to get the vocabulary right?  And there shouldn't be any confusion as to what it means since it's a defined business concept that Malstrom repeats over and over again and over and over again (oh lord there's too much to read! -- but if one read it, one would already understand it since it's just repetitive casual writing after all, amirite)

Malstrom admits to being an old-school hardcore, so he shouldn't have any trouble spotting the modern hardcore.  He also knows the comedic value in simply pointing out the current hardcore, and, hilariously, it's apparent there are those who take offense to that.  It's wrong when hardcore make fun of other hardcore?  Is this supposed to be some Magician's Guild where we can't roast one another and reveal their secrets?  Did I miss something?

Malstrodamus' blog/news posts are geared for entertainment (at the expense of the hardcore and their birdmen) and show tidbits of new research morsels he's found.  They're more blunt, less structured, and he doesn't mind letting loose on some of his feelings and reactions.  The business strategy articles he's been writing since pre-Wii launch are the real deal, detailing what happened in the industry, and where it might go, reference after quote after sales chart after quote after historical analogy after quote.

[Urkel]

I'm almost positive this is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.

For those of you confused about "Upmarket" and "Downmarket", go here. Don't worry, it's not a long read.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"These meltdowns are getting more and more severe"

Isn't it just fabulous?

[Nick DiMola]

The biggest problem I have with this guy's writing is how he seemingly ignores the fact that games are multifaceted. He simplifies it all to the point where games are business and if you are lucky enough one day they will be considered art. I agree that art happens unintentionally in many cases, but that doesn't mean that you can't make games with the intention of creating art.

He also makes it seem as if gaming was facing certain death if Nintendo didn't come along and fix it all and I'm not sure that is necessarily true either. It seems every argument made in his defense takes this point into consideration and I'd love to see definitive proof of it before moving on.

The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.

EDIT: Also wanted to add that no one seems successful in copying Nintendo's success with intro-level games with the exception of the Guitar Hero games. Most of the games being released are "birdmen" games, so where the hell does that leave us? Left to wade through the onslaught of garbage until companies figure out a way to appeal to the newcomers properly? I'd prefer companies stick to what they know and let some newcomer companies approach the newcomer gamers.

[Deguello]

The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.

It is true.  If you are to excise the Wii and DS's figures, the market would be in deep ****.  Especially since all those new gamers would not have bought a 360, Ps3, or PSP as an alternative.  They would have chosen nothing, and the 360 and the Ps3 would be left explaining how both of their consoles combined haven't outpaced the PS2.  Nintendo saved the industry from serious shrinkage.

[Nick DiMola]

The market may have been shrinking slightly (I'm not even sure if this is true) but I don't think there were any signs pointing to collapse.

It is true.  If you are to excise the Wii and DS's figures, the market would be in deep ****.  Especially since all those new gamers would not have bought a 360, Ps3, or PSP as an alternative.  They would have chosen nothing, and the 360 and the Ps3 would be left explaining how both of their consoles combined haven't outpaced the PS2.  Nintendo saved the industry from serious shrinkage.

I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?

[Kairon]

I'm almost positive this is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.

This guy's feelings are exactly what I felt during the N64 and GameCube days. I fully admit that I'm a fanboi, and during my fanboi career I openly disparaged the PS and PS2's userbase and their taste in games. I see this whole thing as perfect revenge for the things Nintendo fanbois suffered through during the last two generations.

It's nice to be on the winning side for once.

EDIT: Also wanted to add that no one seems successful in copying Nintendo's success with intro-level games with the exception of the Guitar Hero games. Most of the games being released are "birdmen" games, so where the hell does that leave us? Left to wade through the onslaught of garbage until companies figure out a way to appeal to the newcomers properly? I'd prefer companies stick to what they know and let some newcomer companies approach the newcomer gamers.

I don't know. There are some key games that actually come close in my experience in not succumbing to "Bird Men" thinking. Carnival Games is one, a surprisingly simple, straightforward, but AUTHENTIC experience which I only bought because of GP's recommendation, though now I see what all the hype is about. Another example might be We Ski, which is sounding more and more like a Wii Sports of Ski-ing, and at just $30! My little cousin got it, but I wasn't able to play it over 4th of July.

Boom Blox actually had loads of energy put behind it and is actually an impressive piece of technology as a result. I think if it can consistently sell over a stretch of time, it'll give EA a chance to advertise the concept to the broader Wii audience instead of only the young children that the commercials zone in on exclusively. Honestly, at the Media Summit, there was a crowd of adults around that game and enjoying it.

[SixthAngel]

I'm almost positive this is aimed at Malstrom. These meltdowns are getting more and more severe, but at least he's being honest here.

For those of you confused about "Upmarket" and "Downmarket", go here. Don't worry, it's not a long read.

If I lived off rage I would be immortal right now.

He can't even comprehend that people could possibly have a different taste in games then him.  If it isn't some big high concept game it is crap.  He is in the mindset that "casual" means retarded and people like him are the reason that companies aren't replicating Nintendo's success.  They don't understand that people still want quality experiences but want different types of games.  Some guy in the replies even calls Wii Sports crap.  It is one thing not to like these games (I don't like Nintendogs) but another thing to not understand how it could be appealing to other people.

I already read the article, I said I didn't want to go back to it when I wrote since I need to use proxy servers.

[Deguello]

I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?

Because they're all new expanded audience gaming grandmas, right?

[KDR_11k]

Talking about "making art" seems silly to me, were the great artworks in the past really created just to be art or because there was a different purpose behind them and their artist was just so good he created art in the process? Shakespeare, for example, made plays for the drunk masses yet they are considered some of the highest art. Bach worked for the church and produced a HUGE amount of work that is now held as some of the greatest music there is. Most artists were comissioned for jobs. There are many games that aren't good at being games but are considered art because of their story, graphics or whatever. I consider these bad art, if you don't employ the strengths of your medium you chose the wrong one. In fact "art" is one of Malstrom's examples, it's treated like a mark of the elite, art is expected to be unappealing for most people and only a few "get it". Art can have mass appeal, a truly skilled artist does not need to work for some kind of elitist niche to make art.

Upmarket = high-end, downmarket = low-end. For games the upmarket includes things like 5/600$ PS3s, 400$ 360s, games with budgets of several millions and a sales goal of at least one million to break even, etc. Overshooting would be e.g. a market consisting of bucketloads of multi-million games attempting to sell to a userbase that won't allow many to break even. That's what gaming is going towards at the current rate of "OMG HD!". The industry growth would slow down and go negative as it becomes harder to make a profit. Obviously making games that are not copies of successful games would be even less popular with publishers due to the expenses. The Wii went the opposite route, allowing profit with fewer sales and even making sure to get a userbase that doesn't need "AAA" games to be happy (turns out it's the majority of the market) so low-expense-high-profit games become possible again. There was too much money spent on things the industry considered important but noone else did.

Also the Wii changed the rules by pushing forward in a direction the people actually wanted (better interaction) instead of one that only a minority considers really important (HD is probably the epitome of this, most people don't even have a matching TV for it and many who do can't even tell that stretching a 480i image to 16:9 doesn't constitute HD).

So the Wii is: cheaper, better (from the view of most people) and more profitable to make games on.

[Urkel]

This guy's feelings are exactly what I felt during the N64 and GameCube days. I fully admit that I'm a fanboi, and during my fanboi career I openly disparaged the PS and PS2's userbase and their taste in games. I see this whole thing as perfect revenge for the things Nintendo fanbois suffered through during the last two generations.

It's nice to be on the winning side for once.

That's how I felt during the N64 era, too. Except I was, like, fourteen. Most of these angry "hardcores" are well into their 20's.

What's their excuse for acting like a bunch of children?

And the greatest irony of all is that many of them are the very people Nintendo fanboys made fun of for having "no taste" in games. I can't wait until the 40 year old soccer moms being introduced to gaming via Wii are 60 year old hardcore gaming grandmothers who will deride the new new casual gamers. It's the great circle of life.

[Shift Key]

Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).

You get points for working Slashdot and Hitler into the same post, but you don't do anything constructive.

As KDR said, he sources a lot more than anyone I've come across in the "gaming-journalism-slash-rant" field. And he's actually looking at this from an industry-wide perspective, rather than rooting for the home team. Throwing stones only looks cool when everyone else joins in.

If their business strategy was so bad, how are they all still in business?

This comes down to the "smart third party survives, dumb third party gets caught in the headlights or consumed by the third party food chain". Sony and Microsoft have lost billions in recent years. Analysts are saying the industry is stagnating. Doing "more of the same" is asking for disaster. You could draw parallels with other industries (Microsoft's attempted takeover of Yahoo is a recent example), so why is there this overall feeling that the gaming industry is in a bubble safe from consequence or responsibility?

I use the term bubble because it is fragile and finite. Think about it.

Nintendo saw their marketshare diminishing and acted, they considered this fact before considering the market as a whole.

Bullshit. I'm calling this out right now. The Gamecube generation showed Nintendo is willing to stick to its guns, irrespective of criticism. They remained profitable during their lowest ebb, while bringing up the rear in the marketshare stakes. And most analysts said Nintendo's stake in this gen would be "more of the same", even after the Wii's unveiling.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it discredits and over-simplifies the hard work of people who are innovating in the industry, irrespective of their chosen field.

The biggest problem I have with this guy's writing is how he seemingly ignores the fact that games are multifaceted. He simplifies it all to the point where games are business and if you are lucky enough one day they will be considered art.

Hate to break it to you, but the games industry remains a business at its core, no matter which products are churned out or the sentimental value attached to them. You can look at the luminaries like Kojima, Miyamoto, Dyack, or whomever else you choose to put on a pedestal and try to think it is more than this. But ultimately, if the venture is not a profitable one, then the investors are pouring money down a hole. You can cite marketshare or mindshare here as *things* of value, but these both pale in significance compared to cold hard cash.

I'm reminded of a discussion I had at uni with a lecturer about software engineering. He compared his appreciation of fine wine to an appreciation of cola by talking about a friend who remarked, after drinking from a can of cola, described it as "great". Who's place is it for the lecturer to discredit the person by saying that he's an idiot and has no taste? Trying to claim games as artwork at any stage of time is just as pretentious, because, like art galleries, some people just don't get it.

I disagree, how can you remove those sales and just assume that every dollar spent there wouldn't have been spent on some other gaming item?

Do you see the casual gamers flocking to the other systems? I'm with Deg on this, I feel that the Wii's and DS's successes have helped stave off the inevitable, and distract from the real issues.

this seems to be an anti-mr-jack attack, but its really just me highlighting how stupid some viewpoints are. i have no beef with these viewpoints, but i feel they deserve to be challenged

[Nick DiMola]

Anybody can write a damn dissertation on why they know the best, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do (see Mein Kampf).

Bullshit. I'm calling this out right now. The Gamecube generation showed Nintendo is willing to stick to its guns, irrespective of criticism. They remained profitable during their lowest ebb, while bringing up the rear in the marketshare stakes. And most analysts said Nintendo's stake in this gen would be "more of the same", even after the Wii's unveiling.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it discredits and over-simplifies the hard work of people who are innovating in the industry, irrespective of their chosen field.

Here is my point, I don't believe for a minute that Nintendo looked at the industry as a whole first. Nintendo looked at their own situation and said, "Hmm, it seems that we keep losing more and more ground to our competitors with each passing generation, what can we do to change this?" Exploring those options perhaps created some revelation that the only way they could be profitable again was to regain lapsed gamers, and lower the bar for new gamers. Nintendo has always done this with their games, but never seen the success until the creation of the Wii.

Like I said above, all of Malstrom's work and all of the opinions surrounding operate on the assumption that the industry was crashing, I don't really believe that to be true. You CAN NOT excise Wii and DS sales from the industry and assume all of that money would have been lost to the gaming industry.

The DS would've still been immensely popular if it did nothing more than upgrade the Gameboy, if you don't believe that you have blinders on. The Wii of course would have diminishing returns had it not reached out to a new marketshare but still would've sold regardless. Would there be less money than there is now? Surely. But crashing? Somehow I think this point is overstated.

You mentioned Sony and Microsoft losing billions, yes this is true, but it is also the start of a new generation. That has been par for the course for years. They will eventually turn a profit, there is no question about that. If these companies plan for this generation to be a long one, creating the games won't have as a high a cost because the technology will catch up with them. Sure if they make a move to a stronger console too soon I can see that spelling out serious problems.

Again, we are operating under an assumption that costs are astronomically high for everyone creating blockbuster games, and that these costs are consistently high. I believe this is somewhat of a fallacy as well. With the creation of today's middleware, people are able to license out all of the engines necessary to make a game. Just because people have made statements that games are costing more in the past, is that cost today still what it once was?

We can agree to disagree, I just think that Malstrom's arguments operate on some points that are a bit overstated. Was the industry shrinking, sure, but to the point of crashing, well there is no way to prove that at this point. Are costs for making blockbuster games high, sure, but are they still high and do they remain consistently so after a studio produces its first game? Well I guess that's something we need to find out.

The article on Destructoid is pretty funny, I laughed. He is obviously being a bit melodramatic but I think his point to a degree is valid. Wii Sports is not a crap game, but Deca Sports is. We need to challenge crappy games, not casual games. If we allow crappy "birdmen" games to take over the industry, we are the lapsed gamers of tomorrow.

[KDR_11k]

Aren't Jack and Flames our resident PS3 fans?

Of course Nintendo looked at its own situation, why would it care about the rest? They noticed the NES was a breakthrough success and so was the GB, they heard about an economic theory that explained both their past successes and gave them a chance to repeat them in the future so they got Reggie who had experience with pulling it off.

The industry wasn't really crashing but his claim is that Nintendo will destroy the old industry.

The DS wouldn't have been as popular as it is without games like Nintendogs and Brain Training (these really are the core part of the strategy, hardware does not sell by itself, it sells through software), it might even have lost to the PSP. The analysts predicted the way a fair fight would have gone: Sony leveraging their brand and power to pull ahead and eat Nintendo's mostly hardcore userbase. Nintendo avoided that fate by introducing a demographic the PSP had no chance to take.

Again, we are operating under an assumption that costs are astronomically high for everyone creating blockbuster games, and that these costs are consistently high. I believe this is somewhat of a fallacy as well. With the creation of today's middleware, people are able to license out all of the engines necessary to make a game. Just because people have made statements that games are costing more in the past, is that cost today still what it once was?

The engine is but one part of a blockbuster game. It's turning into a smaller and smaller part of the overall game. What really eats the money is the stuff to load into the engine, the levels, characters, music, movies, ... Increased complexity increases the time needed per asset and thus the cost, a popular cost cutting measure these days seems to be shortening the game with many big games barely lasting four hours (but of course having extremely detailled everythings in the process). There is no way you can deny that Wii Fit was cheaper to make than, say, GTA4. Technology reduces costs a bit but only a bit.

Don't worry about birdman games taking over the industry, they are birdmen because they fail to grasp the important parts and thus fail overall.

[Kairon]

I have to state that I believe that Nintendo DID look at the industry as a whole. They looked at Japan, and treated Japan as an early predictor for the rest of the world. Yes, Nintendo's marketshare was shrinking, but even more importantly Nintendo realized that the Japanese Game Industry, the market outside their front doors, was undergoing drastic changes.

Of course Nintendo was motivated by the desire to escape their shrinking doldrums. BUT, I remember that Iwata once stated that if they merely outsold the GameCube, they would not succeed. Nintendo's success is in reinvigorating and revitalizing an industry that was facing drastic changes in the Japanese market, and Nintendo believe would be facing those same changes in the rest of the world as well.

It may be a little too much kool-aid to drink at once, but what they're doing with the Wii really reminds me of what they did with the NES... only now they got to the market before it crashed, not after.