Does that graph include Sony and Nintendo's massive R&D expenses? That would be part of their games division's profit and loss statement, I would assume. Of course Nintendo is making a ton of profit...they basically re-packaged the GameCube with a new controller.
Condescending and inflammatory. Are you sure you're a journalist and not some sort of GameFaqs denizen that took over Lindy's body? And... if you HAD READ THE CHART, you'd see it was just for last fiscal year beginning April 1st 2007 to March 31st 2008, and has no bearing on any R&D that MS and Sony put into their respective current generation entries.
There's minimal R&D expenses for Nintendo on the hardware side, aside from maybe Miyamoto sitting on the crapper thinking up the Wii Remote.
Irrelevant, inflammatory. Is this how to build trust with readers?
Now theoretically, yes, Sony and Microsoft could cut and run (GP: Yes, I realize that these companies have other divisions...I GET IT). However, my point was that that is so remote a possibility that there's virtually no chance of that happening.
Funnily enough, Nintendo detractors from 5 years ago said Nintendo would pull out and "go the way of Sega", even when they were making $500 million a year. Why is saying the same about divisions that are hemorrhaging money any less possible? Because they say so? (Hint: Corporate suits come equipped with Kool-Aid)
Both companies kept tossing money at their games division even when it didn't make "business sense" to do so.
Oh the business sense has little to do with games. Microsoft was trying to defend against Sony's inroads into home computing and Sony was trying to get their media formats accepted. Both have somewhat happened, at the expense of billions. Good magazine reviews, though. Notice how none of these missions have anything to do with the "Art" of "making games."
And don't even bring up Sega...they were so mismanaged it isn't even funny. You may disagree with what Sony and Microsoft do, but you can't accuse either company of being mismanaged **in a general sense**.
Why not? Up until 2001 every Sega news story was predicated on the fact that "they would never die!" And then oh oops shock horror they left, after several quarters of losses. And now they are a footnote in history, despite having made some of the best games ever.
Sony and Microsoft have just as much interest in the game industry's health and future as Nintendo does. Just because they aren't making Pikmin 3 and Wii Music doesn't mean that they're bloodsuckers parasitically feeding off the industry (which seems to be the general consensus around here).
Not true. Sony and MS, by default cannot care as much about an industry in which they only have relatively (to their parent companies) small videogame divisions as Nintendo, whose whole company is dedicated to the research, development, and marketing of video games. That's true of, say, a day care specialist versus a parent. they may even care equally, but if the child gets cancer, the day care specialist has other children to attend to. And good job putting words into other peoples mouths. Nobody said they were parasites.
Sony and Microsoft did much more for the game industry from 1995-2006 than Nintendo did, that's for sure.
Whew, spicy! Hey,
speaking of that period, do you know who you sound exactly like? What with the claims of innovation and who "did more" for the industry instead of this new popular upstart? Yep! N64 fans! And this can be objectively challenged, what with Nintendo basically inventing the very models of 3D Game design and unleashing Pokemon on the world, which is still the best selling and most recognizable RPG in existence. But I digress, this usually boils down into "who did what first" and is basically pointless.
Before the Wii, Nintendo was bordering on irrelevancy (a downslide which, by the way, could be attributed to their greedy move of going with cartridges over CD-ROMs for the N64, which was done to fatten their bottom line because they could charge developers a royalty fee for the cartridges. So much for helping the industry).
More Spice! I can't tell you how wrong you are about Nintendo's "irrelevancy" before Wii. You were on this site then, right? Didn't we cover this? Unless of course the whole GBA platform didn't exist and the huge megahyped battle between the DS and PSP with the DS coming out the supreme victor and the PSP relegated to "second handheld mainly bought for media and PS2 ports" status. (And most of NWR picking the PSP. Oh deary dear, will they ever trust us again?)
And humorously enough, the GameCube and the Xbox Sold about the same units, especially in comparison to the PS2. So, readers please note: The difference between 120 million PS2s and 24 million Xboxes is a rough fight for supremacy! But the difference between 24 million Xboxes and 21 million GameCubes is the difference between relevancy and irrelevancy.
Also, if "Sticking with carts" was bad because of the refusal to accept an open standard and to charge royalty fees, how does one reject this and accept Blu-Ray, which is basically... the exact. same. thing. Sony choosing their own format so they can charge royalties (and with the UMD on PSP too). And what's the point of digging up this ghost of an old PS1 fan talking point anyway? It doesn't seem relevant in 2008 how much impact a choice made in 1995.