I get very few pleasures from making this website. Due to my choice of no ads (to keep myself focused on the research properties), this site makes no revenue. The articles demand unrelenting research, re-writes, and contrary to what some believe, cutting (most of the articles are a third or two thirds longer then they originally were before I began cutting it). There are also those on the Internet that hate my guts, call me douchebag, the typical Internet insults.
However, my greatest pleasure is watching things the articles say become true. My aim was always to obtain ‘Yamauchi eyes’ meaning to attempt to see the future of the game market before it materializes. This has to be done in order to create products and all for it. Nintendo could not have made the Wii if Iwata and others did not realize what the future would be. How they were able to see this future is my mission to find, and obtain, for myself so I can use it for my own personal business endeavors within other industries.
I have added a new category to this blog. It is called ‘Next Generation Implosion’ which will detail how more and more people are coming to grips that graphics and processor speed have become commodities. Next Generation is based that better graphics and a better machine will be the future. But now many are discovering that Next Generation is dead. Not only are customers not interested in bigger, badder machines on traditional values, the companies that make them are unwilling to lose yet even more billions on them.
I don’t know how many people got to the end of the last article that is currently up, “Finding Nintendo’s Sword”. At the end, it showed Malstrom and the reader flying in a plane over the ‘Hardcore Continent’, i.e. the Old World, and all its lights suddenly going out. There are quotes from Kojima bemoaning the collapse of the Hardcore and Miyamoto saying that the Next Generation consoles are like the last of the dinosaurs trying to devour one another (and what is the Wii? The meteor that changed the landscape?).
Am I telling you this to blow my own trumpet? No. It is to show just how fast things are changing in this industry. Also, it is to show how massive things are changing. This console cycle is not like previous ones, that much is certain. It actually makes things harder for me as it was easy, actually, to predict Wii success and Next Gen Implosion. Trying to see into the future from this point forward will be far more difficult.
Will Microsoft and Sony compete against the Internet platforms for the future of gaming? If so, then St. John’s prediction becomes true. Or will the two attempt to go against the Wii? E3 2008 showed that Sony and Microsoft are more interested in building a platform rather than fun products. What I mean by this is that Nintendo has no interest in becoming an Internet platform. Nintendo’s strength is its integration of hardware and software. Going console-less would not make sense to Nintendo. If St. John’s prediction is correct, then out of the three console makers, Microsoft would be happiest to shed its console coil to compete purely on a software basis. The question is whether Sony will follow that mode. Nintendo never will. Due to the integration of software and hardware, Nintendo can easily differentiate itself from top-boxes that play games on the TV and phones that play video games. Nintendo will stay with making products and never go the ‘service route’ (which is why Nintendo will never make a MMORPG).
The future of gaming could see three types of ‘consoles’.
Internet Platforms – These would be ‘Virtual Consoles’ on the Internet that would have its own unique business model to play the games. Xbox Live is one of these platforms. St. John’s company is making an internet platform itself. Sony might be going this route.
Neo PC Gaming – PCs that perform gaming are no longer desktop monstrosities. They will be in things like an Apple TV and handheld computers like the i-Phone. Despite these computers being handheld or being a small little box connected to the TV makes no difference. Unlike Xbox 360 and PS3, these devices are not game centric. Gaming is a supplement to them. However, for many people, that will be enough.
Game Hardware – These will be hardware that is specifically designed to play games. Nintendo, being the last software and hardware integrated company left, will dominate this group and differentiate itself from Neo PC Gaming. It may be possible that only Nintendo will be in this area for the longterm future.
So in the future, as of this date, I see Nintendo solidly staying with its changing the hardware to innovate the software approach of being a Game Hardware company. Sony will melt more towards Neo PC Gaming and become indistinguishable between other competitors there. For example, the PSP2 and the iPhone may be direct competitors if Sony chooses PC functions with games as a supplement (which they are already extremely close to doing with PSP and PS3). Microsoft will melt into the Internet Platform and attempt to compete that way. In this future, Sony and Microsoft tend to leave the game specific hardware market.
Nintendo might become the only game specific console maker in future cycles. Of course, there will be more alternatives to gaming than the game specific hardware maker so people may not notice this.