Nintendo's winning! Or are they?
OPINION
Nintendo's sales figures are through the roof, Sony is faltering and Microsoft wishing its machine would do a little bit better. Do we have an early winner in the Next-Gen console wars?
Its unique controllers are what made me a Wii believer. I can recall not being convinced right away but the moment I saw Nintendo head honcho's Reggie Fils-Aime, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto play Wii Tennis, I knew Nintendo was onto something.
Obviously I wasn't the only one. I can recall the buzz that surrounded that particular happening. It was around the same time that analysts were predicting that Sony and Microsoft would divide up the lion's share of the console market between them and that Nintendo's underpowered Wii would drag along behind with a measly 20%. It was that Wii Tennis match that made me realize Nintendo would be King of the Consoles once again, completely reversing their fate.
And now they are
But all that success makes you wonder what sort of gamer is attracted to Nintendo's machine. You see, in the old days, 'assigning' a particular audience to a console was fairly easy to do. Nintendo still held on to a faithful group of hardcore gamers that were besotted by Mario and Zelda but most of the time the Cube's controllers were embedded in kids hands. More mature hardcore gamers, say 20+, often preferred the Xbox but Microsoft had to share that demographic with Sony who clearly had the upper hand in that segment. Pretty much everyone in between -also- favored the Playstation 2 because of its wide range of available games. I know there is more nuance to the above, but bear with me for the sake of argument.
Now the world has turned upside down. Heads at Sony's Entertainment department are rolling faster than heads did during the French Revolution due to –very- poor sales. Microsoft's sales are slowing down and Nintendo is renting every sweatshop in China to help churn out more Wii's. If you are unfamiliar with the console sales figures, I invite you to have a look at VGCharts, a site that tracks console sales figures worldwide. It doesn't take a braniac to figure that Nintendo will have more Wii's installed by the holiday season, than either of its competitors, despite having put its console on the market almost a year after Microsoft launched its Xbox 360.
So does this mean that Nintendo has won the Next-Gen console race? It certainly seems so but I am not willing to award the gold medal just yet.
You see, I am starting to wonder about Nintendo's staying power. I have fiddled around with the Wii a little bit and it was great. The Wii-mote offers so many fresh and new ways of controlling games that it is hard not to fall in love with the little machine. The first couple of times you will likely hurt yourself in one way or another but it is so much fun, it is worth the pain. The Wii really is a fun trip for anyone, young and old, non-gamer and casual gamer alike. Hardcore gamers will love it too, even though many won't admit it.
But who buys the Wii and why? And more importantly, how long will they play?
Hardcore gamers will love the gadgety feel of the games that they play on the Wii, but like so many gadgets, the attraction will likely not last for very long. Most hardcore gamers have a notoriously short attention span and if they buy the Wii at all, it will likely end up gathering dust, only to be brought out for the new Zelda. The casual gamer will love the Wii and may buy one, two maybe three games. Yet casual gamers buy games so seldom that you have got to wonder if this target group will bring any lasting revenue for Nintendo. Die-hard Nintendo fans will love the Wii so much that I wouldn't be surprised if someone will paint an old church building purple and start a new religion. This group will continue to buy Nintendo's games, no doubt about it, but it is a small group. Sure, it will grow but I wouldn't want to rely upon them to do any more than keep the boat afloat like they have with the Cube.
Of course there is the new audience that Nintendo has reached with its Wii. Middle-aged or even older people who never owned a console before, can't even be called casual gamers, but own a Wii nonetheless. They too will buy the machine because it is such a great gadget and it is such a rollicking good time to play it with friends over a glass of red wine and toast covered with a thick slab of Camembert. But will they buy anything other than Wii Sports that was included in the box? I somehow doubt that.
In the end, console makers make their money from the games sold for their platforms, not from the hardware itself. Nintendo makes a little, Microsoft pretty much breaks even and Sony loses money every time you buy their machine (Hey Microsoft, here's an idea: buy -lots- of Playstation 3's and no games. With your dough, you will have Sony filing for bankruptcy in no time.)
So the winner of the Next-Gen race is not determined by the number of sold consoles, but by the number of sold games. Sony is scooping money into the fire to keep the train running but I bet Microsoft isn't doing too bad. When it comes to appeal to hardcore gamers, Microsoft still holds a pretty good hand. Hardcore gamers, lacking a church, have been gaming evangelists for decades and right now they are probably preaching for Microsoft.
Am I? Not really. I am still preaching for the PC but looking at the console wars through the eyes of a bystander, I wouldn't put my money on Nintendo just yet. Its success -may- be short lived, even if I am fervently hoping that it is not. In fact, I have been thinking about buying a Next-Gen console lately. If and when I do, I will probably be spending my Sundays in that purple church myself.