http://i.imgur.com/eZjThLk.jpg

It's funny, because I've been listening to RFN while reading this article and heir comments on the lack of voice chat in many titles as well as less implementation of Miiverse in a lot of more recent games has been showing through, as well.

I think Nintendo themselves are trying very hard to come up with a title that is just a good game rather than being a big risk with extensive gamepad functionality, mostly because of the system's poor sales. That's a bad sign when even they would rather focus on other aspects, but it's also telling that they came up with an interesting idea that was certainly distinguishing, but lacked some good ideas. However, the one thing that does comfort me is that yes, there are indeed many people who are interested in creating interesting experiences on the Gamepad (like Kickstarter title "Hex Heroes" which is one of the games I'm looking forward to quite eagerly this year) and that the Gamepad has a ton of possibility- there's motion, touch, NFC... a slew of neat features that could possibly be taken advantage of, but I fear the console doesn't have much more life in it for those ideas to arrive. Who knows...

I will say this, though- you want gamepad functionality, look no further than Fatal Frame.

What happened to the GamePad is that the public rejected it. It's hard to justify all the expense and resources to making gimmicky Gamepad-centric games when the gaming audience isn't even buying the more traditional games. Plus, if Affordable Space Adventures is any indication, I don't know that I want more games that have me constantly taking my fingers off the buttons to do some inane B.S. with the stylus.

I find with this stuff Nintendo puts the cart before the horse.  They come up with a controller feature and then presume this will inspire all these great game ideas.  Even though the Wiimote was quite successful the amount of games that really use it for anything more than mapping a button press to a shake are pretty small.  I would say more that Wii Sports was a successful game than I would say the Wiimote was a successful controller.  Even for amazing games like Super Mario Galaxy the concept was tacked on and unnecessary.

The analog stick is the go-to example of Nintendo introducing an unexpected controller feature that immediately took off and became a standard.  But with that it was like Nintendo was making these 3D N64 games and realized that the d-pad wasn't cutting it for movement so they came up with something else.  They didn't sit down with this analog stick idea and then said "okay so let's see what we can do with this."  That's the difference.  The games they were making created a need for a controller innovation.  They didn't come up with the innovation and hope for it to inspire new ideas.

The Gamepad though also had the problem that the basic concept is essentially the same as the DS.  If the touchscreen was going to inspire all these awesome ideas then surely Nintendo would have thought of them during the DS years.  What was so specific about the Gamepad that was going to make it different this time?

And the problem with all of this is that Nintendo now designs their consoles so that the controller is the whole damn point.  What possible selling point does the Wii U have besides the controller?  All of its other improvements over the Wii are things the competition offered years before.  So you have a controller where Nintendo is hoping inspires cool ideas, even though the exact same concept already failed to do so before, and this controller is the sole selling point for the entire thing.  If the controller fails, the console fails.  And Iwata thought that was going to work?  How does this guy still have his job?

This is faulty, closed-minded thinking. Nintendo released a lot successful touchscreen games on DS. You and I may not have liked them, but a lot of people did. Also, people come up with new ideas and implementations of existing concepts all the time. That isn't just gaming. This goes for everything ever.

Nintendo had awesome ideas and they paid off handsomely. I mean, I sure as hell didn't care about Brain Age and whatnot, but no one can rightly claim those games didn't have an impact. It's silly to think there aren't more ideas just because Nintendo didn't think of it in 2004.

Is this a serious question? All those exclusive Nintendo games.

It's unfair to separate a person's failures and successes. If executives from every company were graded on your scale, all of them would be fired. And you're like the harshest, weirdest critic. According to you, Wii U was supposed to be in bargain bins before the end of last year. No one should listen to you.

People buy video game consoles to play good video games (!), not fidget around with a really nice controller. Most are far more likely to play good games with a mediocre controller than play mediocre games with a good controller, and it becomes a complete non-issue when you consider the Pro Controller is completely viable and compatible with the majority of worthwhile titles. If they made it necessary in almost every capacity to enjoy the system, I'd get all the hate the Gamepad gets, but again, turn it off and go use the Pro Controller if you don't want the Gamepad. It's more of an add-on to me than anything, and as an add-on it's still pretty cool.

But what ideas for touchscreen gaming does NINTENDO have?  Not that there aren't other ideas other people could hypothetically think of but Nintendo's best ideas for the thing pretty much peaked with Brain Age.  Nintendo had the very same concept as the Gamepad at their disposal for eight years and yet they were resorting to goofy forced touchscreen usage in Phantom Hourglass.  So after all those years Nintendo will suddenly come up with better ideas just because the concept is now on a console?  We saw Nintendo's potential for the concept already.  They wouldn't be sitting on these awesome ideas.  Did anything Nintendo was doing with the DS touchscreen suggest that a console that revolves entirely around the concept was a goldmine idea?  And clearly they've don't have any great ideas or they would be using them right now.

And still it's the same flawed concept of feature first, ideas second.  "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a saying for a reason.  A need creates the invention.  Doing it the other way around is what failed inventors hawking products on infomercials do.  Nintendo's approach should be to brainstorm game ideas and then if the existing controller conventions fail to accommodate these ideas, come up with solutions.  Their current approach inspires shallow novelty games.

Nintendo was doing this on the Gamecube.  They're all hyped about this Gamecube-GBA connectivity and what do they come up with?  Pac-Man Vs., a game with so little depth that they have to package it in with other games to even sell it as a retail product.  They came up with the feature first, then tried to make games for it and then were dumbstruck when trying to come up with marketable ideas for it.  Why put yourself in that position?  Why create that kind of pressure to "prove" the concept when we know that Nintendo can make conventional games that put everyone else's to shame?  These controller ideas tend to result in lots of glorified tech demos more than meaty games.

It's a shame, because I can think of a number of Gamepad-based mechanics I'd love to toy around with off the too of my head right now- but with the situation the Wii U is currently in, Nintendo will most assuredly say "better safe than sorry".

Nintendo has had many ideas for the touchscreen which, once again, have paid off handsomely. You call Phantom Hourglass' controls goofy and forced, but the game sold millions of copies. And it wasn't even a fluke either because Spirit Tracks also sold millions of copies so clearly, some people liked them. Keep in mind that I never really liked touchscreen games. Unlike you, I won't claim they have no merit just because I, personally, don't dig them. The reason these discussions never go anywhere with you is because you can't separate your preference from everyone else's.

And if Nintendo nixed the touchscreen, that means no one can use it. Even if Nintendo ran out of ideas (which it hasn't), why not include it?

I can't even take this seriously. You keep reducing the GamePad to just its touchscreen.

DS is one of, if not the most successful dedicated gaming platform ever. Nintendo was developing Wii U while DS was dominating so I don't think it's that farfetched to think that Nintendo hoped to find success with a similar collective concept. DS was everything Wii wasn't. It gave developers new tools without sacrificing the old tools.

Nintendo doesn't own Pac-Man, chief. It had to take the game to Namco who then decided what to do with it. Namco did none of the work so why wouldn't it package Pac-Man Vs. with one of its own games? Jebus, man. You're not even trying...

Please inform me what the hell else distinct the GamePad offers beyond the touchscreen that makes it different then the Pro Controller.  The Wii U's Gamepad is a normal controller with a big touchscreen in it.  That's it.  What else is it?

So what's the Wii U?  A PS3/X360 equivalent with a touchscreen.  That's its hook.  That's the whole damn selling point.  Everything else was done by someone else a generation ago.  The controller is supposed to be what keeps it relevant.  Yeah the online infrastructure and graphics are all a generation out of date but that's supposed to be okay because the almighty controller with its unique functionality is supposed to make all the difference by offering new gameplay that no one else can.

That was the Wii's whole strategy.  All the out-of-date stuff was acceptable because there are games like Wii Sports that no other videogame system at that point could do.  That's why new videogame systems get made - because they offer something that prior systems couldn't do.  Nintendo has struggled to offer something like that with the Gamepad and the Wii U struggles because that's all it can do differently.

Weird. I missed the part where a game like Nintendo Land was possible on the DS.

I probably spend most of my time with the Wii U in Off-TV play, and honestly there have been times when I didn't buy a game for the system that used the GamePad in significant ways specifically because I wouldn't be able to play it that way.

Good God, Lemon. Did you do any homework before you started running your mouth? It has an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, NFC sensor, camera, and headphone jack. Those are a lot of things the Pro Controller doesn't have, chief.

This thread...

Don't forget the infrared array that simulates the Wii sensor bar and the TV remote control functionality.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/giddy-conan.gif

I feel the GamePad has been put to even less use than the Wiimote was, so it's quite a disappointing controller. Though maybe that's for the best, since I think it's a terrible controller, due to being way too huge and square to be held and used comfortably.

And it has speakers. And it seems to have something else for IR at the top near the headphone jack, not sure if it's an IR camera or emitter.

Ah yes, for the Fit Meter.

Okay I really did forget about a bunch of other things the Gamepad can do.

So if Nintendo Land is the big example of "this couldn't be done on any other system" you've narrowed in why the controller has gone nowhere.  Cart before the horse.  Nintendo throws all sorts of doodads into this big monstrosity of a controller and then when tasked with coming up with something for it all they can come up with, as usual, is a mini-game comp.

If anything pointing out all the goofy features the Gamepad has just reminds me of how unfocused the whole thing is.  "Throw everything into the controller and surely we'll come up with something good for it."  That mentality is what Nintendo has to avoid next time.  This whole editorial is about unrealized potential.  What the hell good is potential as a consumer product?  I'll crap on Wii Sports but at least it offers a tangible selling point for motion control.  "This is what we can do!"  The analog stick wasn't potential, it was something with real benefits from day one because of Super Mario 64.  That's what the Gamepad needed to be - something that immediately demonstrates how necessary it is.  Not some tech demo with hypothetical ideas that might materialize in great games later.

Really though, why would Nintendo want to take design cues from the best-selling game system of all time?

Or you know, you could inform yourself for once.


And now, Nintendo World Report is happy to present:

IAN SANE

in

Other Real Life Situations

Today's episode: The Swiss Army Knife!



Hey, Ian. Check out my new Swiss Army Knife!





*Ian Sane looks at it*

http://images1.miaminewtimes.com/imager/five-reasons-marco-rubio-isnt-ready-to-be/u/original/6523809/marco_rubio.jpg



Ian: "That's stupid! It's just a knife that can fold itself up. That's its hook. That's the whole damn selling point.  Everything else was done by someone else a generation ago. The folding knife is supposed to be what keeps it relevant. And it's not even a good knife. I can buy a bigger knife like a butcher knife from someone else. It may not fold but it will have a cover I can put over it. There's no reason to make this knife either. It's out-of-date technology. Metal knives were acceptable in the 1900's BCE but now everyone should be using lasers to cut things. Please inform me what the hell else distinct the Swiss Army Knife offers beyond the ability to fold the knife away that makes it different from a normal knife. I mean, *snicker*, are you going to cut a pineapple with that? Ha ha ha! I really nailed this Swiss Knife business."



*Everyone else's reaction*

https://41.media.tumblr.com/6d5a62dc9fcc01c171575e9ab9425300/tumblr_mrsl3xwbQx1qfd965o1_500.jpg

Translation: It only does one thing. It sucks.

Translation: It does too many things. It sucks.


http://i.stack.imgur.com/NTsOF.jpg

Man, things are moving faster than I can post to keep up with them. I know the multiple post in a row thing is kind of frowned on but I can't edit talkback posts to add these points in to a previous post and there's just so many things to work with and my creative juices are flowing. Forgive me, NWR mods, for I am weak.


And now, Nintendo World Report is happy to present:

IAN SANE

in

Other Real Life Situations

Today's episode: The Swiss Army Knife! Part 2!



And so that's what else the Swiss Army Knife can do.





*Ian Sane looks at it*

http://timoelliott.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/perplexed-banner.jpg



Ian: "Okay I really did forget about a bunch of other things the Swiss Army Knife can do. If anything pointing out all the goofy features the Swiss Army Knife can do just reminds me of how unfocused the whole thing is.  "Throw everything into the device and surely people'll come up with something good for it."  That mentality is what companies have to avoid next time.  This whole discussion is about unrealized potential.  What the hell good is potential as a consumer product?  I'll crap on Slap Chop but at least it offers a tangible selling point for cutting food.  "This is what we can do!"  The steel knife wasn't potential, it was something with real benefits from day one because of war.  That's what a Swiss Army Knife needs to be - something that immediately demonstrates how necessary it is.  Not some mishmash of tools with hypothetical situations that might materialize in real life later. And still it's the same flawed concept of tool first, potential second.  "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a saying for a reason.  A need creates the invention. And clearly people don't have any great needs for these tools or they would be using them right now.



*Everyone else's reaction*

http://media.giphy.com/media/n4c3nXK1nyEpi/giphy.gif

The interviewees nail it, the loss of off TV play (love the feature btw, 90%+ of my Wii U game time is off TV) and local multiplayer preclude major gamepad features for most games while the lack if sales cuts off the niche gamepad heavy games at the knees.  The only way the gamepad would have had a bigger showing is if Nintendo made a major sustained push for different gamepad friendly genres and created a market for it by brute force.  Nintendo chose a different path.

I wish they would have, but Sony did and is doing quite well right now thank you.  Unless you meant the 2nd best selling system, the DS, in which case they shouldn't since it is a handheld and the Wii U is a home console.

The DS passed the PS2, and I don't think there's such a difference between consoles and handhelds that they shouldn't be influenced by each other.

All this editorial makes me wonder is "What would have happened if Nintendo abandoned the quirkly input controls, made the Pro controller the default controller, and focused on a more powerful machine in lockstep with PS4/Xbox One?".  Just have some of the Nintendo presentation/Menus/features alongside it.

I love my Wii U and don't pretend to know exactly their way to success, but doesn't stop me from wondering.

Since this doesn't imply that Nintendo makes any other changes policies regarding third parties, online play etc., it would be in roughly the same position except with a more powerful, more expensive console and no GamePad and still no third party support. That is better in some ways, worse in others. If you play primarily Nintendo games, you'd just end up having to pay more.

Who would buy a console that would struggle to have the same games with parity to the newest consoles from the PlayStation and Xbox brands? Who would want a Nintendo system which has predecessors with a history of poor quantity and quality of third party games? And who would want three identical systems on the market? I like the Wii U because it's actually different, and in a fun way, to the nearly identical pair of the PS4 and Xbox One. Being the same power as the next PS and Xbox systems isn't going to magically fix anything. Nintendo's problems as a console owner go much deeper than that, I believe.

Just pondering here....I know a lot of people who like Nintendo games but don't bother with their systems because they also want to have 3rd party games.  My hypothetical is if they were to do this in the first place, not axe the Wii U and do it now. 

If the three systems were all on the relative same page, they all would have most likely started with the same quality of 3rd party game, so it would come down (mostly) to "Do I like Nintendo's exclusives enough to choose this over PS4/Xbox One?"

I get there are other factors (price, what systems are all my friends getting?), but one thing that's clear is Sony's "let's have the best hardware in the console space that's easiest to develop for" has been a winner for them so far, and saying Nintendo wouldn't get better 3rd party support if they'd be literally porting the same game over from Xbox One/PS4 is wrong, IMO.

Third party support would likely be better in that scenario (though honestly, could it really be worse?) simply based on the fact that it'd require less effort. It'd be basically GameCube level, where it got most things, but they were usually inferior in some way. Honestly though, I'd rather have the GamePad, but that may just be because I own other consoles and don't really need the Wii U for third party games.

1) I'm operating under the assumption that the costs of developing the Wii U Gamepad & connectivity between it and the system was a relatively costly endeavor.  Google search puts PS4 at a $384 cost of production, i'm guessing Nintendo could probably get to a fairly competitive price point.
2) If Nintendo's system would be nearly the same as PS4/Xbox One, what would really stop 3rd parties from doing what they do with the Xbox One/PS4, which is develop it primarily on one and port it to the other?  Most articles i've read is that the systems are different enough between the specs and gamepad that it makes no sense to port them.  Assuming they all started out the gate with similar specs/control schemes/limited technichal differences, doesn't this lower the barrier to entry for development on the Wii U and invite more ports?
3) Educate me on this one - what in itself is bad about Nintendo's online policy? 

Personally, as much as I like the PS4 for some reasons, I would have held off on buying until I found a good bundle or a price cut if Wii U had a good 3rd party line of games.

I like the Wii U as well, and appreciate the gamepad for some of the things it can do, but utilization is really half-baked.

I understand that feeling. I basically bought a PS4 just for remote play in FIFA, so if the Wii U had continued to get sports games I probably wouldn't have bought a PS4 yet.

I think a system similar to PS4/X1 with a "standard" controller but the same Nintendo antipathy towards 3rd parties would be worse than Wii U. It doesn't matter how close the specs are to each other, companies aren't going to budget for Nintendo ports if they have to face the same scrutiny, lack of hardware documentation and tech support they've had to deal with in the past.

Would the situation from their perspective really be that much different from the early years of the PS3?

Probably. I don't have any evidence but I'm guessing Sony was a lot better at communicating than Nintendo. Hardware revisions on dev kits would have notes stating what changed from the previous version, actual documentation devs could use without having to play a game of telephone between NOA and NCL that took weeks. The kinda stuff that doesn't get fixed just by throwing out a machine with better specs.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-secret-developers-wii-u-the-inside-story

The issue with third party support is that multiplatform is now the norm and Nintendo doesn't offer comparable enough hardware to do that.  So if they had that you figure things would certainly have been better.  Ubisoft and EA were at the very least on board at the beginning so you figure if they would be porting their XB1/PS4 games if it was technically feasible.

Though hardware architecture plays a part.  A lot of devs use middleware engines and the popular ones have to be supported on Nintendo hardware.  Nintendo's own policies also have to be friendly enough that it is worth the effort for the third party.

Having underpowered hardware however is an immediate dealbreaker.  If Nintendo does that again it makes no difference how they try to court third parties.  That one thing makes multiplatform support impossible.  Is it ALL that matters?  No, but it is absolutely essential.

If that were true the Wii would have been in the same situation the Wii U is now, and the DS and 3DS would have been destroyed by Sony. Really, if you look at history, with the exception of the SNES, the least powerful system has tended to be the most successful. It's a factor, but far from the only one, or the biggest.

I was under the impression that $384 was the estimated cost of PS4's collective components at launch which didn't include things like manufacturing. Therefore, Sony wasn't losing $16. Comparatively, Wii U's components cost roughly $230 at launch (the GamePad clocked in at a little under $80 of that sum). Nintendo was losing money on at least the Basic Set and probably less than Sony per unit sold. All hardware requires research and development so I don't know how much more costly it was for Nintendo.

In a vacuum, nothing is stopping third parties from supporting Wii U. Third support involves far more than just hardware. In fact, hardware isn't really an issue. Notice that many third parties are still supporting PS3 and Xbox 360. Some third parties are scaling their games. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain uses the same engine across PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Other third parties contract developers to handle ports either by scaling or just building assets specifically for older hardware. Apparently, Wii U hardware is close enough Xbox 360 in terms of architecture that porting shouldn't be a problem. Third parties are actively choosing not to port. There are a great many things Nintendo is just not doing. Paying for support and/or subsidizing development with upfront payments is one. General basic courtesies that Soren touched on is another. It doesn't stop there either.

Nintendo doesn't (or refuses to) offer the same online features as Sony and Microsoft. For example, Wii U doesn't include universal voice chat. If you've seen voice chat in Wii U games, third parties had to include that themselves. Nintendo Network and the eshop are vastly superior to Nintendo's previous efforts (sadly), but neither are really where they need to be.

If it worked once, it should should twice!

How many did you not buy? Like 2? 3?

Yeah, but if great exclusive software were the deciding factor, the Wii U would be doing gangbusters.

I'm not saying it was the most effective strategy, but it's pretty easy to understand why they went for it.

LEGO City Undercover and then recently Affordable Space Adventures are the only ones I remember offhand, but there were others.

My point was that there's no one deciding factor, it's a product of a whole bunch of different things.

I dunno.  The Wii was never the most sustainable strategy.  It was mostly a fad.  Nintendo wasn't getting long-term customers.  Or if they were, they had no clue how to keep them.

That reminds me, I never got LEGO City Undercover.

Yeah, the horsepower isn't the one true decider, but it does create a very large barrier.

I was talking about the DS. Some of that's still true, but not to the same extent.

Yeah, handhelds are weird.  People are likely own multiple units (especially with the revisions), so the number of buyers might be obscured.

With the rate at which they were selling in Japan for a while I think they may have been using them as some kind of construction material.

They were probably used to build some sort of touch screen Gundam.

But the Wii's third party support was absolutely terrible - easily the worst by a wide margin for any console that sold the best of its generation.  Certainly all those great games of last gen for literally every non-handheld platform BUT the Wii would have been ported to the highest selling console if it was feasible but it wasn't.  Instead we usually got Wii-exclusive spinoffs handled by the b-team with some half-baked motion control in it (or the dreaded on-rails shooter cliché).  I'm not even giving a shit about sales.  Yeah, the Wii U isn't selling well but that isn't why I don't think it's a good system and the Wii's high sales never made me like it.  Nintendo's third party support is terrible and that makes their consoles a lot worse than they need to be.  The Gamecube was the one time in the last 20 years that they didn't put a major technological roadblock in the way to completely destroy third party support and sure enough things noticeably improved.  Things weren't perfect but they were getting better.

A game being released on every non-handheld platform BUT Nintendo is an inexcusable failure on Nintendo's part.  It should practically never happen and yet it practically never DOESN'T happen.  And maybe if the Wii U sold better it would get the PS360 ports that are still showing up.  Sure but what's the appeal in that?  I already have a PS3 if I'm content with getting the "lesser" version of a game.  I'm going to buy a whole new console for those?  If I'm going to buy a new console why don't I get the PS4 or XB1 and get the spiffier versions?  And those last-gen ports will eventually fade out as the PS360 sales dry up and no one was ever going to keep the last-gen versions going for JUST the Wii U.  The Wii U would certainly better if it was getting those games but that wouldn't be a valid substitution for having the same versions as the other consoles.

If you buy a Nintendo console you pretty much just get Nintendo games and NOTHING ELSE.  Only the most die hard Nintendo geek would ever deem that acceptable.  Buy a Nintendo console and you can't play 90% of the games being made while it's the exact opposite if you buy one of the other ones.  The decision for most consumers is obvious.  Even as a Nintendo fan it's a big compromise to make.  Either miss out an almost anything Nintendo themselves doesn't make or buy two consoles.  That's idiotic, particularly when the only reason Nintendo is anything is because of the NES, which had 90% of the games being released and thus ironically resembles the PlayStation experience a lot more than it resembles the current Nintendo one.

And what justifiable reason does Nintendo have to not even TRY to fix that situation?  The Wii U makes no effort to correct it and if Nintendo thinks it does they're out of their minds.  Not having a technological roadblock is step one and they pretty much put the roadblock in on purpose.

You do remember why the NES had 90% of the games being released right? I'm going to assume you do because the post up until this moment was such a wreck of words. A verifiable crash.


Technology means nothing if the company can't fundamentally change how it communicates with people outside the company.

So Nintendo shouldn't bother to fix anything because they'll just fuck something else up?  Underpowered specs should remain the status quo because Nintendo's shaky relationship with third parties will doom them anyway?  Having industry standard specs next time around might not turn things around but going with outdated specs absolutely WON'T and I'll take possible failure over assured failure any time.

The Wii U is disaster for Nintendo.  I don't get this need to defend their decisions with it.  Practically everything that could have gone wrong for Nintendo on this console DID and yet if you suggest they should have done this or that differently you get swarmed.  How was something like going with outdated specs a good thing?  How does Nintendo or Wii U customers benefit from that decision in any way?

Or alternatively what SHOULD have Nintendo done that would have resulted in a successful console?  What they did clearly didn't but all suggestions to have different specs or a different controller get crapped on.  So what the hell should they have done?  Nintendo themselves should be trying to figure that out to avoid this outcome next time around.

I would rather have the Wii U we have now than a less powerful PS4 with a standard controller assuming Nintendo's third party relations were handled the same way there are now.

Well for starters the system shouldn't have been $100 more expensive then the Wii was at launch since the 3DS already showed them this is a bad idea.  Then they shouldn't have taken all the hype away from their biggest launch title by releasing a similar experience on a much cheaper system only 3 months earlier, resulting in every who wasn't a hardcore Mario fan to have no reason to buy the system.  Finally you don't let the system have a 9 month drought with the next big being Pikmin 3, which was the sequel to a series that hadn't had a new installment in 9 years and wasn't exactly a huge seller in the first place.

Seriously, do you think a PS4 power level system would have solved this?  It would have just made the biggest issues the system faced worse since it wouldn't have been even more expensive, with games taking even longer to make.  Yeah Nintendo might have gotten more ports but that wouldn't have done much when people could have gotten the same games on the 360/PS3 during that same time.

Sorry I'm a couple days late, I have precious little free time and as fun as this is I can't devote much to it.  Anyways, I went looking for official info that the DS passed the PS2 and found none, the PS2 was 1 million ahead and still selling 3 years ago and both no longer sell.  I looked up "DS outsells PS2" and found the source, VGChartzzzzzzz requoted by multiple Nintendo fanboy sites and blogs. 

Well, I would hope NWR was above that but either way, for the sake of argument it doesn't matter.  What matters is Sony took cues for their console from the most popular console of all time, and Nintendo from the most popular handheld of all time.  We're seeing how that worked out for both. 

Such a juicy thread, I really wish I had the time to go bull in a china shop in here.

I would bet a whole lot of money Nintendo sold well over a million more DS units in the last three years than Sony has. I'm pretty sure they're still producing them, which Sony is not with PS2.

Of course they did, sony doesn't sell DS games.

So Nintendo copied from the most successful handheld of all time for their console and it didn't work.  Prior to that Sony copied the most successful console of all time for their handheld and the PSP didn't do all that well.  So if you're going to copy the blueprint of a successful videogame system it appears you need to stay on the same format.  The formula for success with handhelds and consoles is clearly different.  Nintendo made size and power consumption a priority with the Wii U design - two essential concerns for handhelds that mean jack squat on consoles.  Sony, and practically every other attempted Game Boy competitor, pushes for spec power on a handheld and never come close to Nintendo's success.