Nintendo shows a weak hand at the 3DS Conference

“How can you say it is weak?”

Because it is all Red Ocean. There was nothing Blue Ocean. The 3DS is such the opposite of the DS. I’m curious why anyone in the upper leadership of Nintendo thinks competing head on with Sony will accomplish anything.

“But there is Monster Hunter 4!”

And it’s not exclusive. If it was, you’d hear Iwata shouting it from the rooftops. The fact that Nintendo had to push to show early Monster Hunter 4 footage on the 3DS is proof that there isn’t much confidence in Monster Hunter 3 to sell the 3DS.

I’m laughing at all these people in the game media who think Monster Hunter matters. It does not. You know why? Because DS didn’t have Monster Hunter. And Monster Hunter only is a system seller in Japan. The last time I saw a game series’ sales power trumped up higher than what it actually is was with Grand Theft Auto 4, and we know how that turned out.

Anyone who has been through multiple generations of consoles know that the big hits of one generation never translate to become big hits of the following generation (with the exception of 2d Mario which no rules tend to contain it). Grand Theft Auto didn’t sell the PSP or the PS3/Xbox 360 despite every analyst and their cow declaring it would. While Halo was a mover for the Xbox, Halo doesn’t really move the Xbox 360. Call of Duty, however, does. Tetris sold the Gameboy. But does Tetris sell anything anymore?

The other 3DS announcements looked lame. The Mario in 3d Land looks like the leftovers of prior Mario games mixed into a gumbo. The game lacks content cohesion which is a problem the Galaxy games had as well. But there is… Mario Tennis. Hahaha. Where is the Wii-esque Tennis game, Nintendo, for the 3DS? I guess those Wii Sports customers aren’t supposed to buy the 3DS. Mario sports games aren’t going to get them.

I’m too sleepy, so I’ll talk more about this later. I’ll drive this to three points:

A) All the software is Gamecube-esque.
B) Monster Hunter is the Grand Theft Auto mirage of this generation…
C) 3DS will not have the necessary growth because it is only following the Red Ocean. In fact, the Vita appears far more Blue Ocean than the 3DS. The 3DS appears to be going after the Vita. But it does not look like the Vita is going after the 3DS. The Vita seems to be ignoring the 3DS altogether.

This ‘Red Ocean’ Nintendo shows just how worried Nintendo is about Vita.