New Disruption Article is Up!

“But where is it, Malstrom? We do not see it on your Disruption Chronicles page?”

Ahh, friend, that is because it is in an interview with yours truly in the latest edition of Games Magazine. I got sent the issue of it, and I must say the magazine is very nice. There is nothing like reading good stuff that is actually in your hands.

The interview revolves around Nintendo’s E3 2008. I try to show that E3 2008 was Nintendo being super-aggressive and literally declaring war. Now, no one else saw this. Instead, they saw “No hardcore games? Nintendo is abandoning us! Wah!” The truth is far more interesting (and Nintendo will never publicly admit it).

At the time of E3 2008, rumors were thick that Microsoft or Sony would put out their own motion controller and push hard on the Expanded Market front that Nintendo has pioneered. I talk much about this possibility of a counterattack by Microsoft and Sony in the “Finding Nintendo’s Shield” and “Finding Nintendo’s Sword” articles.

Nintendo’s disruption relies entirely on the Expanded Audience as the foothold. If they lose that to Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo’s disruption fails. Nintendo, knowing this, approached E3 2008 in an extremely aggressive way. Just as previous console wars revolved around ‘hardcore’ games, Nintendo declared war around the ‘expanded audience’. The reason why the games showed expanded market titles, why Wii Music was shown as very simple, why core games were not shown, was because the fight was seen to be about the expanded market.

“Malstrom, you over-analyze too much!” I hear you doubters. But I will easily prove this was the case. Look at the speeches by Reggie and Iwata at the press conference as they refer to imitations from competitors (which never were released, but these speeches were written in advance).

Wii Motion Plus was announced even before the Microsoft Conference began. This was a pre-emptive move, folks.

However, Microsoft declared war on Sony, not Nintendo, and Sony was off in their la la land. So Nintendo has backed down from that aggressive ‘circle-the-wagons around the expanded audience’ frame they had at E3 2008.

They showed core games at the latest conference because core gamers on the internet cried or game journalists had a temper tantrum at E3 2008. They showed these type of games because the counterattack threat became less urgent. There was no counterattack. There may even never be one.

The interview goes much more into detail and asks other questions. Are games art? Why exactly must Nintendo destroy the Wii before the Wii destroys Nintendo? Think of it as a new Malstrom article but just in real print.

Buy the magazine! =)