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A fine line to be number 1

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thecubedcanuck:

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Yes, which is why the Game Gear and its bigger color screen and vast game library totally crushed the puny black and white Game Boy when it came out.
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Gimme a break, SEGA had no where near the market saturation that Sony does now. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Sony users would definately buy a linkable sony hand held. Why do I own a GBA, because I own a cube, it just makes sence.

Like I said this wont happen overnight, it might take 1, 2 even 5 years, but resting on the laurels of a big lead in a said market is very self destructive thinking.

WindyMan:
Just because someone has a successful console, that does not gurantee a successful handheld.  I already mentioned the PocketStation as proof to this, and I'll mention the Wonder Swan too.  Square did develop for both, so even with big-name developers on board to make games for a new handheld, it's not going to mean success in the short-term or long run.

By the way, you're the one comparing apples and oranges.  You're comparing today's console market leader with yesterday's failed handheld upstart.  If you want to make the right comparision, realize that Nintendo had something like 9 or 10 million Game Boy units installed when Sega came to market with the Game Gear.  When that didn't work, Sega tried to marry its Genesis (which at the time, was the market leader, just like Sony) with a handheld in the form of the Nomad, and that still didn't work.  If you add up Game Gear and Nomad sales, it's still just a fraction of total Game Boy original sales.

Even though the system was better, the fact of the matter is Sega was trying to infiltrate a market that already had a proven leader in Nintendo's Game Boy, and it ultimately failed simply because people went with what they had been going with for the three years or so before it.  You're banking on the fact that PS2/3 users will automatically buy a handheld that can link with a supposed Sony handheld.  Big deal, Nintendo will have been doing that for the year before.  There are about 15 million people in the world with a GBA and no GameCube.  Granted, most GameCube owners own a GBA, but the point is that people buy a handheld first for its own merits, then for all the bells and whistles after that.  That's why every single handheld that is not a Game Boy has ultimately failed.  And that's an almost 15 year history.

What's going to happen in five years?  Who knows?  That's too far away to even begin speculating on what might happen.  Personally, I see no viable way that a handheld will go to a disc format, because a disc can only be so small.  Sony or Microsoft might have some sort of stake in the handheld market.

If you think Nintendo is just going to sit back and let people eat into its handheld position, though, you're crazy.  Nintendo has proven before that just because you're number one doesn't mean you sit back and let the others catch up to you.  If they would have thought that at all since 1989, we'd probably be playing games exclusively on our cell phones by now.

Ian Sane:
"Nintendo doesn't care about being number 1, it cares about making a boatload of money. Remember, even though Nintendo is in a tough spot when you look at the sales numbers, the fact of the matter is that it's still making more money than everyone else is overall."

True.  Nintendo doesn't care about being number 1 NOW because they've making a lot of money.  But in the future will they still make a lot of money if they don't at least TRY to be number 1?  There are people who where "burned" by the N64 who still bought a Gamecube because they felt that without the limiting cartridge format Nintendo had a shot of eventually regaining their top spot.  It's not likely they could do it with the Cube but that doesn't matter.  In the eyes of many fans the Gamecube was seen as the first step where Nintendo would slowly gain more and more market share on the road to catching up with Sony.  Now would any of these people have bought a Cube if Nintendo had said outright "We have no plans on regaining the top spot.  Therefore Nintendo fans can continue to expect minimal third party support and a lack of mature titles and RPGS"?  Nintendo fans want Nintendo to be number one again because we know that with the top spot comes the most games.  We saw that with the NES and SNES and that's largely why those consoles are spoken about so fondly and the N64 not so much.  If Nintendo makes it clear that they have no intention of even trying to achieve this then it's less likely that we fans are going to buy the next Nintendo console.  Why buy another Nintendo console if things are never going to improve?  If fans buy less consoles then GAMES are going to sell less which means Nintendo makes less money.  Therefore if Nintendo wants to continue to make money they HAVE to try to be number one or they'll lose customers fed up with Nintendo's refusal to try and improve things.

Now of course the GBA changes things up a bit because it's so successful.  However any negative aspects of their console business will hurt the Nintendo name which in itself hurts the Gameboy.

As for Sony I believe there is only one way they will ever lose their top spot: they must f*ck up in a way where they will lose most of their third party support like Nintendo did.  Then third parties will flock to another console and with them the games and with those the gamers.  Therefore Nintendo should get themselves in a safe number two spot so that if/when this happens they'll be the first choice for all third parties.  As it stands right now Gamecube would likely only get Capcom and Square if such a thing happened now while Xbox would likely get most of the American third parties and Japanese third parties like Sega, Tecmo, and Konami that have either been bribed or hate the Gamecube.

Infernal Monkey:

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Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck
First of all, what was it that lost Nintendo the number 1 spot in the first place?
Was it refusing to go the CD format, or was it a bigger issue?
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I'd say Nintendo lost their number one with the whole introduction of the Nintendo 64. They made alot of enemies during the production of it. Shunning Sony away, pissing off Silicon Graphics Inc. with the anouncement of the cartridge format, not to mention Square, and well, every other company.
Plus Nintendo were slow. They often boasted how the N64 would be so much powerful than the other two, and they kept pushing the release date back. Over and over. From 1994 to freakin 1996.

Yes, upon release, it stunned everybody. But Nintendo thought Mario 64 would keep them going for quite some time. They got lazy with their releases. Fans had to wait months for a new game. Not to mention all the big 3rd parties avoided the system like it was smeared with dog crap. Nothing from Square, Capcoms first release was a kiddy Tetris game, Namco made a kiddy baseball game as their first and only game (They didn't develop RR64, they licensed it to Nintendo, who destroyed everything that was good with Ridge Racer)

They pissed everybody but the die hard fans off.

And now, it would seem Nintendo have won back 3rd party support... But now they've just gone down the crapper. They're keeping everything hush-hush, everything is a damn secret. It's so stupid. If nobody has any idea of what they're up to, why should people care? Or support them? Telling a mainstream gamer to wait for amazing games in the future won't work. They need to be blasted with hype in order for a purchase.

And personally, I'd like to see Nintendo get serious with the GBA. I'm disgusted by their first party support. Porting over Mario World is a nice idea, but where's the new Mario? And why should I be forced to pay full price for it? It's over 13 years old! All they did was add a save game anytime feature and throw in those voice samples..

EDIT: Can't believe we've still got language restrictions here =/  

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