OK, time to derail the derailing of the derailing of this thread.
Deg, you calling me "condescending and inflammatory" is the pot calling the kettle black if I've ever seen it. Heck, other people on staff have noticed how personal you get with your insults.
Hey if I only tick you off it's better than you trolling and flaming the entire board, calling them children, morons, uneducated, unserious, because they don't like the same games you do and suspecting THEM of fanboyism. What. Ever.
I think that saying Nintendo was going to "cut and run" 5 years ago is as silly as saying Sony or Microsoft will today or in the near future. They're entrenched as entrenched can be. It's like saying Honda is going to drop their car division, or Apple is going to drop their iPod division. Is it in the realm of possibility that that could that happen with Honda or Apple? Absolutely. Will that happen? Hell no. Now, Honda's cars and iPods are ridiculously successful so of course they won't get dropped, but the 360 and PS3 are both successful in their own right (not in terms of profitability, but definitely from a strategic standpoint; they also have millions of loyal users).
The thing is I never said that Sony and MS WILL pull out. They are just more likely to because 1) They are losing a lot of money in this industry and 2) It's not really getting them anywhere other than "having a lot of loyal fans." Then you use two companies that are making a lot of profit, Honda off cars and Apple off iPods, and say that they are similar to Sony and MS. Being "entrenched" means nothing if keep bringing in red numbers and fail to grow. As an example, Stage6, a popular DivX service meant to challenge Youtube through high quality video. They had 17.4 million monthly visitors, and were going strong. Then suddenly and unexpectedly to their loyal fans, they shut the service down, citing hemorrhaging money costs. This all despite their assertion that they would "live forever." (and speaking of which, that number is more than two million more than "loyal PS3 owners")
And again, Sega is one of the most mismanaged companies in the history of the gaming industry. The only thing they proved is that, yes, if you release three failed consoles in a row and have terrible marketing, you won't be making consoles any more.
So Microsoft has one more in them and Sony has two more? I don't think you grasp the realities of the situation concerning Microsoft and Sony. Microsoft has not made one red cent in this industry. They haven't even made one cent this Generation, although they have lost less. Somehow they'll have to justify a third to MONEY people and MONEY people don't care about "Loyal fans." Wanna know the REAL "hardcore abandoners?" Try investors.
And just to point out about Sony. In the last TWO years, they have squandered their ENTIRE profits from the last TEN. that means... PS1, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, MGS, GT, GT2, PS2, God of War, FFX, FFXI, FFXII, MGS2, MGS3, GTA III, GTA VC, GTA SA, Every Madden and every and all things in between... *pfft* gone. And they're
still losing money. This could even erase their gains from their SONY IMAGESOFT days. And this is with them selling approx. 42 million hardware units (PSP and PS3), and having multiple million sellers. It would take a miracle to reverse Sony's fortunes, and no amount of magazine reviews can lead the majority to water here.
Nintendo's choice to go with cartridges and Sony's choice to go with Blu-Ray were both totally driven by self-interest. Nintendo wanted to make money off of cartridges that they couldn't make with CDs, Sony wanted to push Blu-Ray. Where they differ is the fact that Nintendo's move negatively impacted the experience of their customers. It made companies like EA stop making games for the platform, and caused many developers to not even consider making games for it. Blu-Ray's inclusion has certainly pushed Sony's agenda, but it hasn't hurt gamers either.
Cartridges actually drove user experience up. Many gamers praised it for the elimination of long loading times which were worse then than they are now. And you are correct, developers did shy away from the N64, but that had little to do with the user experience. In fact it took a great long while before the developers actually made any PS1 games worth owning, different medium or not. And counterpoised, I'd say Blu-Ray drove up unit costs greatly and prohibited a great many of the PS2 owners who wanted to upgrade and made them either hesitant or unable to purchase it. I'd say that wrecks the user experience and I don't know if 3rd parties like it or not.
Funny how this "Cart vs. CD" stuff doesn't apply to the DS and the PSP. Shouldn't the PSP just stomp the guts out of the DS? I mean the DS cards will, maybe, one day, hold 1GB. Maybe. UMD's hold 1.9 Gigs. Day one. Why is this not working here? I think it's clear that the third parties of old were trying to simply get out from under Nintendo at the time and found Sony a comfortable shelter. They did it because it was cheaper. Imagine that! Several PS1 games, including some fot he megablockbusters, were made for the PS1 because they had a large userbase and it was cheaper to do so than make games on the N64 with it's higher graphical demands. Wonder if something similar will happen in the future?
And Kudos for proving that Sony and MS will stay in the games business because one day in the future, Nintendo might possibly do something else. So the permanence of the market is proven by its impermanence? Do you have any idea what you are saying? Sony and MS will stay in this one because Nintendo might enter another? What?