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Here's some speculation I think rings true to a large extent.
Nintendo's home consoles have seemed to have been struggling since the days of the Gamecube. From what I witnessed (having worked in a Game Stop during this particular time period) is that the masses were caught up on the DVD Playback band wagon. Mind you, this was at a time when nearly everyone and their grandma already owned inexpensive APEX DVD players or what have you. Unlike the PS3 period and Blue Ray platyers, DVD players were not that expensive to acquire, yet due to media hype, blasting and blasting the same message over and over again, the blindly consuming masses got caught up on the repetition of the sensationalism, and were convinced that if their game console could not play back movies either, that it wasn't a game console worth having, despite the quality of games, abilities of the hardware, quality and comfort of the controller's design, and so on. So naturally the masses flocked to Sony who they were familiar and comfortable with thanks to the previous generation of consoles.
The XBOX began to catch up at the tail end, I'm sure again due to the fact that they had DVD play back abilities, and for the fact that near the end of the XBOX's life cycle, Microsoft had proven to the market place that they were here to stay, so the media echoed this and convinced the masses of this as a "fact" too.
If it were not for the Nintendo Gameboy Advanced and Nintendo DS, Nintendo would have suffered greatly during this game cycle period.
The next chapter to Nintendo's drama comes with the Nintendo Wii. Now, now not only does the Wii fail to deliver those much over hyped DVD playback abilities, but also fails to deliver in the next generation of video playback media, be it Blue Ray, or Microsoft's failed alternative. Further more the Wii did not try to make sales my tricking foolish consumers into thinking that just because their system had such and such amount of beef, that unique and quality games were destined to follow. Rather they stated facts in a very reasonable, logical, and honest manner...
...which just doesn't go over well in this 20th century inspired market place as inspired by Edward Bernays, where in the consumer is not urged to research his product, think practically, and to put his needs before their wants, but rather to allow them selves to be easily seduced by sensationalism, and the drive of their passions over their reason or needs.
Nintendo claimed that super expensive hardware was not required to produce a quality and unique gaming experience and what was needed was first off, a few good teams developers bent pushing the edge of video game entertainment not through polygons, wide expansive play fields, or his resolution textures, but upon innovative game design at it's core... the very essence upon which the history of video gaming had been built.
Yet sadly, Nintendo on the one hand did not prepare third party developers very well as it seemed to take them a few years to figure out what exactly to do with the new control mechanisms, and to make matters worse, by the time third party developers began to really get the swing of things (Ubisoft), most had lost their zeal and jumped ship.
There was also the fact that internet based game play was really catching on at the time, and Nintendo made hardly any efforts at all to play friendly with that, and instead tried to control the sway of established cultural connectivity, and insisted that people were not truly "together" when they were playing physically separated across the internet divide, and insisted that over all, players would have a better time if they were physically in the room together. Likewise they insisted that this would help bring families together, much like how a game of cards or Monopoly did for previous pre-video game generations.
While I greatly admire their efforts and perspectives on this matter, once again this was thwarted by the growing trend of on-line gaming, or rather the fact that so many Johnny Come Lately's were swooned by something that computer gamers have been enjoying for year!
Mind you, Nintendo's effort in this arena did manage to succeed to some extent. A lot of people of all ages and sex were coming together to play the Wii's family friendly titles and what have you, but alas the Wii became type casted by this image so to speak, and it became common perception that the Wii wasn't designed for hard core gamers, I.E. games featuring protagonists based upon 80's/90's low budget action movies, lots of sex, violence, cussing, and of course, what ever play mechanics were popular in other games that seemed to relay upon these elements. The Dragon's Layer esque button pressing game merged within nearly every game that comes out any more. So much for innovation or the desire for it for that matter.
Sadly, this was untrue. There were a great number of quality games released for the Wii, even a handful that did feature the above mentioned elements, though the majority of them in fact lacked them, but managed to stand of their merit of good gaming experience alone. Though the common consumer had no way of knowing about these titles because they were not marketed hardly at all, if at all for that matter. Secondly, every time you went to a game shop which at this point is a monopoly between Game Stop, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, they only Wii games you would generally see on the shelf would be Nintendo's first party titles, and then a bunch of games for infants, old people, and other non-general gamers.
So I ask, if they stores did not put any effort into putting the vast library of quality Wii gems upon their shelves, then how was the average consumer to know that they existed. It would seem that this monopoly of the big three game retail stores have much to say in regards to the success or demise of a game console in this respect, that and the mal-informed game store representatives who never gave the Wii a fair chance, or like so many, have lost touch with the core spirit of gaming all together, and are instead quite satisfied with a market that churns out crass and adolescent game clone after clone, again depending upon the above mentioned elements, and of course better graphics, bigger bangs, and so on and so forth.
Finally we come to the Wii U, the situation has not changed. Again Nintendo is at large fault with this for not being better prepared, having a vision already in motion before the console's release, not spending the needing time preping third party developers, and alas not being clear to the average consumer as to what the Wii U is and why they would want it.
Fact of the matter is that most people I know, average TV watching, movie going consumers that is, don't even know that Nintendo has a new game system out. They think the Wii U is an upgrade to the Wii. To make matters worse, if you go to one of the big three monopolies to purchase a Wii U game, the display section seems to typically be in shambles (unlike Microsloth and Sony displays), as in unkept, boxes laying at odd angles, out of order, and so on (I crap you not, I see this often!), and to go a step further, all the freaking Wii games are mixed in with the Wii U games!!!
Well here is an observation, PS 2, PS 3, and the 360 were ALL backwards compatible to some extent or another, yet when they came out, did game shops sloppily mix in old generation titles with the next gen systems? Nope! They somehow managed to have the foresight to separate them, yet when it comes to the Wii U, everyone seems clueless, with the exception of Game Stop, they do manage to keep their titles divided per system. I'm not say it's a store to store conspiracy, like orders from corporate, but I would not put it past the employees who are gamers to have some resentment towards Nintendo and do such things on purpose, I mean I seriously can't think of any other explanation as to why this is.
The last straw that seems to be breaking the camel's back is how somehow or another (and this is fishy) that Game Stops are pulling certain Wii U titles off of pre-order, claiming that the title has been canned when they have not. I am very very curious as to what sets such disinformation in motion? It can not help Nintendo's sales in the least, let alone their already diminishing public image within the realm of home game consoles.
As for the employees who work at these retail chains, it would seem that hardly any of them know a thing about the Wii U them selves, and you would think they would have been educated by the company, so that when a customer asked a question about the big new system (last year) that they would be informed and experienced with the system enough to pull out answers on the fly as they do with the competing systems.
On top of that, I or friends have been talked down to like a fool on multiple occasions for merely asking a question about the Wii U, as if liking or having interest in the unit makes me some sort of un-informed door knob with nothing but bad an outdated tastes in gaming. I'm almost 40 after all, shouldn't I be playing adolescent titles like the rest of the big boys?
Trolling welcome and thank you!
Nintendo's home consoles have seemed to have been struggling since the days of the Gamecube. From what I witnessed (having worked in a Game Stop during this particular time period) is that the masses were caught up on the DVD Playback band wagon. Mind you, this was at a time when nearly everyone and their grandma already owned inexpensive APEX DVD players or what have you. Unlike the PS3 period and Blue Ray platyers, DVD players were not that expensive to acquire, yet due to media hype, blasting and blasting the same message over and over again, the blindly consuming masses got caught up on the repetition of the sensationalism, and were convinced that if their game console could not play back movies either, that it wasn't a game console worth having, despite the quality of games, abilities of the hardware, quality and comfort of the controller's design, and so on. So naturally the masses flocked to Sony who they were familiar and comfortable with thanks to the previous generation of consoles.
The XBOX began to catch up at the tail end, I'm sure again due to the fact that they had DVD play back abilities, and for the fact that near the end of the XBOX's life cycle, Microsoft had proven to the market place that they were here to stay, so the media echoed this and convinced the masses of this as a "fact" too.
If it were not for the Nintendo Gameboy Advanced and Nintendo DS, Nintendo would have suffered greatly during this game cycle period.
The next chapter to Nintendo's drama comes with the Nintendo Wii. Now, now not only does the Wii fail to deliver those much over hyped DVD playback abilities, but also fails to deliver in the next generation of video playback media, be it Blue Ray, or Microsoft's failed alternative. Further more the Wii did not try to make sales my tricking foolish consumers into thinking that just because their system had such and such amount of beef, that unique and quality games were destined to follow. Rather they stated facts in a very reasonable, logical, and honest manner...
...which just doesn't go over well in this 20th century inspired market place as inspired by Edward Bernays, where in the consumer is not urged to research his product, think practically, and to put his needs before their wants, but rather to allow them selves to be easily seduced by sensationalism, and the drive of their passions over their reason or needs.
Nintendo claimed that super expensive hardware was not required to produce a quality and unique gaming experience and what was needed was first off, a few good teams developers bent pushing the edge of video game entertainment not through polygons, wide expansive play fields, or his resolution textures, but upon innovative game design at it's core... the very essence upon which the history of video gaming had been built.
Yet sadly, Nintendo on the one hand did not prepare third party developers very well as it seemed to take them a few years to figure out what exactly to do with the new control mechanisms, and to make matters worse, by the time third party developers began to really get the swing of things (Ubisoft), most had lost their zeal and jumped ship.
There was also the fact that internet based game play was really catching on at the time, and Nintendo made hardly any efforts at all to play friendly with that, and instead tried to control the sway of established cultural connectivity, and insisted that people were not truly "together" when they were playing physically separated across the internet divide, and insisted that over all, players would have a better time if they were physically in the room together. Likewise they insisted that this would help bring families together, much like how a game of cards or Monopoly did for previous pre-video game generations.
While I greatly admire their efforts and perspectives on this matter, once again this was thwarted by the growing trend of on-line gaming, or rather the fact that so many Johnny Come Lately's were swooned by something that computer gamers have been enjoying for year!
Mind you, Nintendo's effort in this arena did manage to succeed to some extent. A lot of people of all ages and sex were coming together to play the Wii's family friendly titles and what have you, but alas the Wii became type casted by this image so to speak, and it became common perception that the Wii wasn't designed for hard core gamers, I.E. games featuring protagonists based upon 80's/90's low budget action movies, lots of sex, violence, cussing, and of course, what ever play mechanics were popular in other games that seemed to relay upon these elements. The Dragon's Layer esque button pressing game merged within nearly every game that comes out any more. So much for innovation or the desire for it for that matter.
Sadly, this was untrue. There were a great number of quality games released for the Wii, even a handful that did feature the above mentioned elements, though the majority of them in fact lacked them, but managed to stand of their merit of good gaming experience alone. Though the common consumer had no way of knowing about these titles because they were not marketed hardly at all, if at all for that matter. Secondly, every time you went to a game shop which at this point is a monopoly between Game Stop, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart, they only Wii games you would generally see on the shelf would be Nintendo's first party titles, and then a bunch of games for infants, old people, and other non-general gamers.
So I ask, if they stores did not put any effort into putting the vast library of quality Wii gems upon their shelves, then how was the average consumer to know that they existed. It would seem that this monopoly of the big three game retail stores have much to say in regards to the success or demise of a game console in this respect, that and the mal-informed game store representatives who never gave the Wii a fair chance, or like so many, have lost touch with the core spirit of gaming all together, and are instead quite satisfied with a market that churns out crass and adolescent game clone after clone, again depending upon the above mentioned elements, and of course better graphics, bigger bangs, and so on and so forth.
Finally we come to the Wii U, the situation has not changed. Again Nintendo is at large fault with this for not being better prepared, having a vision already in motion before the console's release, not spending the needing time preping third party developers, and alas not being clear to the average consumer as to what the Wii U is and why they would want it.
Fact of the matter is that most people I know, average TV watching, movie going consumers that is, don't even know that Nintendo has a new game system out. They think the Wii U is an upgrade to the Wii. To make matters worse, if you go to one of the big three monopolies to purchase a Wii U game, the display section seems to typically be in shambles (unlike Microsloth and Sony displays), as in unkept, boxes laying at odd angles, out of order, and so on (I crap you not, I see this often!), and to go a step further, all the freaking Wii games are mixed in with the Wii U games!!!
Well here is an observation, PS 2, PS 3, and the 360 were ALL backwards compatible to some extent or another, yet when they came out, did game shops sloppily mix in old generation titles with the next gen systems? Nope! They somehow managed to have the foresight to separate them, yet when it comes to the Wii U, everyone seems clueless, with the exception of Game Stop, they do manage to keep their titles divided per system. I'm not say it's a store to store conspiracy, like orders from corporate, but I would not put it past the employees who are gamers to have some resentment towards Nintendo and do such things on purpose, I mean I seriously can't think of any other explanation as to why this is.
The last straw that seems to be breaking the camel's back is how somehow or another (and this is fishy) that Game Stops are pulling certain Wii U titles off of pre-order, claiming that the title has been canned when they have not. I am very very curious as to what sets such disinformation in motion? It can not help Nintendo's sales in the least, let alone their already diminishing public image within the realm of home game consoles.
As for the employees who work at these retail chains, it would seem that hardly any of them know a thing about the Wii U them selves, and you would think they would have been educated by the company, so that when a customer asked a question about the big new system (last year) that they would be informed and experienced with the system enough to pull out answers on the fly as they do with the competing systems.
On top of that, I or friends have been talked down to like a fool on multiple occasions for merely asking a question about the Wii U, as if liking or having interest in the unit makes me some sort of un-informed door knob with nothing but bad an outdated tastes in gaming. I'm almost 40 after all, shouldn't I be playing adolescent titles like the rest of the big boys?
Trolling welcome and thank you!
