What's your stance on Nintendo in the console wars?

[DaniPoo]

I think a lot of people are divided on this question.
Many can only afford one console while others get all of them.

I think we can all agree that Xbox are in direct competition with the Playstation.
They compete in the same space as they are targeting pretty much the same audience (Gamers who are looking to play the latest games with the best performance on console)

Nintendo used to compete in that same space, but that changed with the Wii and they have since tried different approaches and targeted different audiences.
With the Wii they targeted everyone both young and old with it's motion controls, The Wii U tried aiming for households where you might share the TV with others, and the Switch is a hybrid system for people who want to be able to game anywhere (Sacrificing performance for portability)

I know many people who have a PS5 as well as a Switch (Or thinking about getting one)
This is mostly because they want access to the Nintendo first party titles (At least for my friends that I asked)

Me myself I have:
PS5 and PSVR2
Nintendo Switch (Hacked OG Switch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED)
A decent Gaming PC
And a bunch of handhelds including PSP, PS Vita and 3DS

I have not got any Xbox yet because there's no Xbox exclusive titles that I personally feel that I need to play. (This might change for me with the next Elder scrolls games)
I always went with Playstation because I love the Final Fantasy franchise and those games have since the first playstation been best represented on the Playstation.

But I also always felt that I didn't want to miss out on the Nintendo first party titles like the Mario and the Zelda games.
So for me it has never been a question whether to get a Nintendo console or a playstation console.
Always got myself both

I am aware that in some parts of the world that would probably be unthinkable unless you're rich.
And not everyone cares for the Nintendo games like I do

Curious to see the statistics on this poll.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

It's pretty subjective really, but for me they'll only ever be good as a companion device. Nintendo's stance of "gimmicks over performance" has consistently gimped their consoles for big third party titles time and time again, so unless all you ever want to play is Mario or Zelda or Pokemon, you're better off going with whatever Nintendo comes out with and whatever MS/Sony comes out with.

I personally go for Nintendo/Sony/PC, since that gives me the best of all worlds now that MS is porting all their first party titles to PC.

 

[Xzi]

It's pretty subjective really, but for me they'll only ever be good as a companion device. Nintendo's stance of "gimmicks over performance" has consistently gimped their consoles for big third party titles time and time again, so unless all you ever want to play is Mario or Zelda or Pokemon, you're better off going with whatever Nintendo comes out with and whatever MS/Sony comes out with.

I personally go for Nintendo/Sony/PC, since that gives me the best of all worlds now that MS is porting all their first party titles to PC.

Same, but this will be the last generation I'm doing that. It's too pricey, Sony is porting all their games to PC now (I can wait a year), and Nintendo's systems will never not be easy to emulate with even mid-range PCs. I suppose if I sold my PS5 now I could buy a beefier GPU, but realistically I need to start with a fresh build since I'm not sure my PSU or case would even support a 3000-series GPU.

 

[Veho]

Nintendo has pulled out of direct competition a few generations ago and have been doing their own thing (and it's been working fine for them so far; their consoles print money).

 

[DinohScene]

Nintendo has pulled out of direct competition a few generations ago and have been doing their own thing (and it's been working fine for them so far; their consoles print money).

This.
I feel like Nintendo kinda left the whole console wars thing with the Wii.

 

[InsaneNutter]

To some extent both points you make are true so I voted other as I think its kind of subjective and my opinion has changed over the years.

In the early GameCube days I was a PC gamer, however the Cube ended up been my main co-op gaming device as my friends and I played a lot of 4 player Mario Kart Double Dash and Smash Bros Melee, along with some 2 player Sonic Adventure 2 and Tony Hawks 3

The Wii and Wii U kinda of complimented my Xbox 360 and Xbox One, the Wii ended up becoming a GameCube 2.0 for me. It was easier to mess about with Pokemon related stuff on it and load out of region things i'd purchased like the Celebi bonus disc, with the added bonus of having a component output when HDTVs became more than norm.

In more recent times the Wii U became my go to Nintendo console for playing past Nintendo games on. I use it for GameCube games, Wii games and Wii U games. Of course it can easily emulate many other past consoles also and to some extent even the NDS with the added bonus of having a HDMI port and backwards compatibility with both GameCube (via homebrew) and Wii controllers. The Wii U had some pretty fun games at the time too, even if many did eventually got ported to the Switch I enjoyed them years earlier on the Wii U.

These days I mainly own Nintendo consoles for Pokemon, which to be honest is the main game franchise I play these days, I wouldn't say I'm a big gamer like I historically was. I don't even own an Xbox Series S/X or PS5, I do however really enjoy my Nintendo Switch.

As others have said Nintendo did their own thing after the GameCube and has worked out great for them, minus the blip with the Wii U, which i do think is a hidden gem with the enhancements homebrew brings to it anyway, kinda like the Dreamcast.

 

[Lostbhoy]

Are console wars still a thing??

I agree with the above that they pretty much don't care about the other two as most people these days maybe have all 3 anyway and the switch is the most talked about console I've come across in conversation... I may have swayed it that way tho lol

But personally, I don't consider it a war in any sense any longer.

 

[Maximumbeans]

Nintendo has pulled out of direct competition a few generations ago and have been doing their own thing (and it's been working fine for them so far; their consoles print money).

Yeah basically. This was my reasoning for choosing 'none of the above'. They're not directly competing but neither are they just companion devices. Some people will actively choose a Switch over an Xbox or PS4/5, but with the full knowledge that it's not nearly as powerful as either.

 

[Ryccardo]

You mean the crippled PC wars with 0 merits over a regular one (the first Xbox having at least the perk of being hassle free to use with every contemporary mass market TV)?

A tablet (in the modern sense, as opposed to some X-series Thinkpads or the Examiner Smart) is then not spiritually a PC even though it may be a somewhat-IBM-compatible Wintel system

the Switch is a hybrid system for people who want to be able to game anywhere (Sacrificing performance for portability)

Since it runs on batteries, it is portable in the fixed/mobile/portable classification, but it's certainly not something you'd be comfortable taking "anywhere" - just like a laptop for another computer analogy...

I'll take the luggable, thanks

 

[The Catboy]

I don’t think there’s even a console war. There’s very little reason to game on a PS or Xbox when damn near all of their exclusives are on PC or will be ported to PC. I’ve since been moving my libraries over to my Switch and PC

 

[Ettino]

Nintendo can only win if they put the Blast Processor in their next console.

 

[DaniPoo]

Yeah basically. This was my reasoning for choosing 'none of the above'. They're not directly competing but neither are they just companion devices. Some people will actively choose a Switch over an Xbox or PS4/5, but with the full knowledge that it's not nearly as powerful as either.

The way I see it, the war is not about which console is the most powerful.
The console that out compete the other console in sales wins the war.
I don't think most people have both a PS5 and an Xbox Series console, some do.. Sure..
But I believe them to be a minority.

For most people it's a choice between playstation or Xbox.

However it could still be that some people choose to only live with a Nintendo Switch if they are for instance traveling a lot. However I also believe this group to be a minority.

The Switch sales does not seem to impact sales of the other two consoles very negatively, probably because it's pretty much a different category of product. People who buy an Xbox or PS5 can also get a Switch.

However I do believe Playstation sales directly impact Xbox sales for example, to a much larger degree.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Nintendo has given up on the console wars. They know their base and customers and are doubling down on giving them what they want...good and bad

 

[amusingmuse22]

I think Nintendo's built a very smart position for themselves as they're kinda outside the "drama" (for example, whether Microsoft will end up monopolizing the video game industry if they acquire ActiBlizzard) but are still very much "in the conversation". Of course, it has something to do with how legendary Link and Mario are, and yeah, BotW, Odyssey and TotK are all legit great games... I guess what I'm saying is that it's difficult to find a fault with the Switch or its game library - of course the visuals are not on par with the PS5 and XBone, but the Switch is far cheaper and the most popular games do not fall behind Sony's or Microsoft's flagship titles

 

[Jayro]

I think Nintendo just likes holding back on hardware to maximize profits. Their last powerful system to even be competitive was the GameCube. The PS3 vs Wii wasn't even a contest, and Nintendo was just cutting corners to save a bunch of bucks. And I hate that it worked, because ever since the Wii came out, they've been using ancient technologies in their game systems to maximize profits instead of competing against the other two like they used to. I also hate the fact that many games don't release on Nintendo's consoles at all, due to devs being lazy. I'd like to see Nintendo get hardware competitive again, and release something with actual power behind it for once.

 

[hippy dave]

My stance is feet wide apart, lovingly teabagging Nintendo.

 

[DragonMals]

At this point, I dont see Nintendo being apart of the Console wars anymore. They have never been in one since the very beginning. It was mostly just Sega trying to push competition on them to try to dominante the market. While I know that Nintendo had holes poken in the topic (sonic shoes being in the corner in one of the DKC games), they really were t doing much to put as much efforts as sega have done back then. I could be wrong, but thats what I have to say in my mind.

You can literally also tell that they're not in the wars with Sony and Microsoft because of the specs of the Switch. While it was mostly just to cover up the mistakes the WiiU had, it's still like similar specs to that console(?) (once again, tell me if im wrong), but this time, it was a masterpiece that the whole world enjoyed.

 

[BlazeMasterBM]

Honestly, I may be an odd man out here, but I don't really feel the need for an Xbox OR PlayStation. I buy Nintendo consoles because the only modern video games I even want to play are Nintendo ones. I play almost exclusively old video games so I use my PC for that, and any old consoles I still have. The only non-Nintendo console I actively use is the Xbox 360 because you can find some really good games for really cheap pre-owned on there.

I just don't play modern games, and on the rare occasion I do, I use my PC for that. PC is just objectively better than console, I mean who wants to pay for online services ?????

 

[Futurdreamz]

Nintendo does it's own thing and isn't really comparable to Playstation or Xbox. PS and Xbox really compete the most with PC, and they are losing. The PS5 literally only has one exclusive as of September 4, 2023, and it's not a good one. Most Xbox games run on Windows fine. And PC has the Steam Deck which puts your games on a portable console like the Switch, and Asus and Lenovo are making devices like it for Windows. I see no need for a Playstation console as any games will come to PC anyways, and Xbox is a hard sell. If someone makes a PC tablet with detachable controllers like the Legion Go but with docks so it can be used as a TV console and as a more powerful desktop with an eGPU, I'd only really need that. I'd still have the current gen Nintendo console as the emulators are the most stable once a replacement gen is out, and i do want to encourage Nintendo to make more good games.