The big mistake Microsoft and Nintendo have done this generation

During the last generation, Nintendo cashed in on the casual market and it paid off for them by selling a lot of consoles. But it hurt their games in a big way. Because most of the people that bought their games, were casual gamers and only bought something like Wii Fit or something similar. But they still managed to sell well by doing something different and being a new thing on the market with their motion controls.

Microsoft on the other hand cashed in on the arrogance that Sony had riding off the PS2 and Wii going for an entire different audience compared to the 360. They did a lot of things right by introducing great exclusives and letting indie developers thrive. They tried something new and it paid off, combined with their cheaper price and the great third party games.

Sony went after the gamers, but were too arrogant and thought gamers would pay anything to get their console. That was not the case. With the 360 being cheaper, having better games for it and being the overall better choice. It made them struggle. They were too arrogant and it didn't pay off for them.

We all know the story now. The 360 kind of went 180 and became the PS3 in the early years, while PS3 changed and gave gamers exclusive and the hardcore gamers value and games.

In this new generation Microsoft and Nintendo did a big mistake each. They relied on the casual gamer from the release of each console. They both want to appeal to the masses. Nintendo has a lot of issues, like naming the new console Wii U instead Nintendo U or something similar. People think it's an addon for the Wii U and Nintendo though it would be a hit like last time. Third party dissapearing and not having a lot of games the first 9 months tells a lot of the story unfortunately.

Xbox One has a lot of the same issue. They want to "conquer the livingroom" with the console. But they have also overestimated the demand that casual players. Even though it is selling well, it is still apparant that PS4 is selling better and it is catering to the core gamers overall. It also did not help in the matter with the DRM and used games issue last E3, which is a lot of the reason it's not selling as well as the PS4.

What i think is the case is that you should cater to the core gamer from release and try to capture them. The Wii was more of an accident, than it was a success really. Xbox should have made that clear from the beginning aswell with the Xbox One. All three consoles are great and have good exclusives. But you can't deny the fact that the PS4, 360 and PS2 all sold well because they sold something gamers wanted at the start of the generation. Both of them should change their focus to that, because it is still not too late for that. Am i wrong here?

Its game over for Nintendo but not for Microsoft. Its not sprint, its a marathon!!!

Look at Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Wii outsold all consoles first 5 years. Xbox 360 outsold PS3 first 3 years... and then Wii stopped selling and then main focus was on Xbox 360 and PS3. Later when Sony dropped PS3 price and sold in massive losses, then PS3 started to outselling Xbox 360 quietly.

I say Xbox One is like PS3 in the early years. Just wait till Microsoft has great Kinect games that people want to buy and let exclusive games come out.

However Xbox One has more potential to steal Nintendo casual gamers. Look at Dance games. Would you rather playing Dance game front of the camera with controller, or without controller? Without controller is better. Also Kinect is faster and full 1080p. Just wait for Microsoft E3 2014. They leaked documents were they making Kinect 3D and come out of screen. New stuff will sell!

It was first name but then they changed to Xbox One but Microsoft idea is still same!

THIS IS MICROSOFT VISION!!!

But Xbox has the issue with games not being as good as PS4 games

Just wait for GDC and the unavailing of DX12 on the Xbox one!

This performance gap will be closed for sure.

The games still have less juice to go on. MS needs to rely on quality games, not to outperform the PS4. That's what they need to do

here's what microsoft did wrong=kinect

Xbox One has better exclusive games right now than PS4

PS4 Killzone Shadow Fall is rated 73/100

Xbox One Forza 5(80/100); Dead Rising 3 (78/100); Peggle 2 (77/100), Plants vs Zombies (76/100) and Killer Instinct (73/100)

Can you elaborate?

i meant with the graphics atm. PS4 has the momentum with games looking the best. That's what i meant. X1 games need to stand out in the gameplay and story, not the grapghics imho

MS is losing the propaganda war, in all honesty. Microsoft acts like it has this brand loyalty power that it built up with the 360. The reality is, they lost the plot when they launched Kinect and the PS3 creeped right up on them last gen and has probably overtaken them. They didn't build up a whole lot of good will with gamers leading up to this generation, they kind of squandered it and THEN announced a $500 DRM'd to death TV controller. The Lems here in SW will give them all the credit in the universe, but the reality is that they exist in a microcosm.

While PS4 is still building momentum, it remains to be seen if the XBone will see a bump in sales with Titanfall or Halo5 that could ever match what they did with Gears of War or Halo 3 last gen. All signs point to a big fat 'No'. The reason I call it the propaganda war is because, as you can see in the OP, people STILL hold on to the notion that the 360 was the cheaper machine when it launched but the reality is that if you bought a 360 at launch in '05, you paid $800 for it when you consider Live fees. (and yes, it does matter because online was a feature of the PS3).

The perception of the XBone is completely different. It is seen as not only more expensive, but also weaker. People know, for a fact, that when they plunge $500 on an XBone that they are not getting the best games console. It is a conscious decision.

i wasn't talking about quality on the games overall, just graphics. They need to do their own thing

I think there'll always be a factual gap. And both consoles will continue to have their software optimised on various level. eg OS, apis, drivers, development softwares (although I think Sony are going to be traditionally slower at doing that stuff). At the same time I think the difference is going to be less perceivable this gen. The law of diminishing returns is really hurting current gen consoles in my eyes. Nothing looks vastly better then last gen to me yet, like go out and buy a brand new console better. The differences between past consoles were huge.

Still, I'm looking forward more so to the other ways in which current gen tech can improve games, with larger RAM and better physics. Also we're seeing PhysX like effects now which is awesome, because when I saw that on the PC version of Batman AA in a YouTube video I was blown away.

Oh I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what MS have in store.

Tha'ts what i am getting aswell. Live is also more needed compared to PS+. Because you don't get much without Live on the MS systems

What Nintendo did wrong:

1- Not advertising the WiiU properly .. I mean Xbox One sounds like original Xbox, why did it not face same problem as WiiU (talking about name being a confusion)? Simple .. Microsoft advertised the hell out of their product, Nintendo didn't :) .. The name could have been Wii 2 simply and viola it would have been a better success :)

2- Nintendo should have made their system more powerful .. Even if not Ps4 or X1 powerful .. they should have abandoned the same CPU/GPU architecture they used since Cube and came up with similar architecture to Sony's or MS's even if weaker specs .. Imagine WiiU having 4GB of DDR3 RAM and 32MB of ESRAM .. having 4 cores clocked at a decent speed or 8 cores .. Having a GPU that is equivalent to 2/3 the power of PS4? It would have made developers more satisfied to develop for it, and the hit in performance, FPS or resolution would have been a lot less noticeable .. Develpers would think: "Yeah we can develop for it and sacrifice very little" :)

3- Nintendo needs to stop with backwards compatibility thing .. seriously it is a very little factor to someone buying a new system .. please stop it and put the money and resources into making the system more power and comparable to the other big 2 ..

4- Nintendo needs to tackle 3rd party support more seriously .. do whatever you can to ensure that big developers who sell loads of copies from their most anticipated games develop for your system .. even if you have to pay them .. seriously can you image GTA V releasing on WiiU? It would really push the system a lot ..

5- Change the image of the company a bit .. cater to teenagers and young adults more .. They have the talent in Retro and Monolith to create games similar to Gears, Uncharted, Last of Us, etc ..

6- PLEASE STOP MILKING MARIO :)

7- PLEASE REVIVE FRANCHISES LIKE F-ZERO, METROID, STAR FOX ..

8- PLEASE FOCUS ON HAVING ROBUST ONLINE .. seriously this is hurting them a lot

Other things I feel lazy to list or explain :P

As for Microsoft .. I think they messed up with focusing on Kinect and having a system that is marginally lower in specs than Sony .. If MS drops mandatory Kinect and lowers their price? They will definitely sell a lot more .. Other things they did quite good so I don't see them messing much honestly .. Also the exclusive lineup can help if they focus more on this aspect ..

And if you take that propaganda out, it's clear that the PS4 isn't that great and the X1 isn't that bad.

EDIT: 3000th post :-)

I have been hated on saying this here on SW before. But Live is not a value where i live here in Europe unfortunately.

@Life-is-a-Game: i can agree with what you said. But Nintendo is chasing the wrong crowd unfortunately

Gotta Love Sony. Great hardware and world class exclusives.

The flaw in your reasoning is that the Wii didn't have any good games.

In fact, it had the most high-scoring exclusives last gen.

Here and on Metacritic/Gamerankings.

I didn't say it didn't have good games, it had bad attachment rates and not a lot of people bought the good games

Microsoft mistake is 100$ more, plain and simple

no no no, the cloud will do that

no the cloud is BS

the second layer of GPU will do that, no also BS

wait, the new drivers will do that, oh no BS also

aha!!! dx12 will do that, will transform a 1,1 teraflop machine into a 2 teraflop machine

Nobody said it would magically transform hardware into something that it isnt. Do some research before you dismiss something you have no understanding of.

that's true, gamers saw that last gen

PS3 came out way too expensive and it hurt them. I don't know wtf MS was thinking but they need to lower it now everywhere. Who cares is PS people laugh.

PS people aren't laughing, most people are in general. Because it's too expensive and they don't have the games to back it up atm. They have too few exclusives aswell compared to Nintendo and Sony unfortunately

......X1 has more exclusives right now then sony and better ones. Its 100$. PS may still be ahead but not this far if price was even

Who wants to spend $500 on "isn't that bad" though?

I rest my case.

...But it's not. You can't say if the price was lower it would sell better, because that's logical. But it's not. Sony has more exclusives coming and that's a fact. More than X1 anyways. So for now they have more exclusives, but if they don't sell consoles or games that won't matter

@FreedomFreeLife said:

It was first name but then they changed to Xbox One but Microsoft idea is still same!

THIS IS MICROSOFT VISION!!!

Quite honestly, I believe the first image here... why else would sony announce they have a VR addon for ps4 in the works?

Which PS4 games? Or are you talking about resolution? Because as I went to Best Buy on 23 st, 6th ave last night to get my dad a new cordless phone, I went by the gaming aisles. Many people were playing or waiting to try the X1 kiosk. I stood back and listened. Much of the conversations were about what this person heard, and that person read. More than half stated they can live with less resolution in games, because the features are so cool. Now, that is no where near representative of gaming consumers as a whole. But as the price comes down, people will buy the X1 for an entertainment device because it is really cool to use in the living room. Will it outsell PS4? No effin way. Will it still be successful for the company? I believe so. At least here in the States.

The biggest issue the Xbox has right now is that it sits on a shelf two feet from its direct competitor which costs $100 less.

Wii U is just a mess that came from Nintendo ignoring third parties, and market trends, and creating whatever they felt like which turned out to be something people have no real interest in buying. It's got less features than just about anything else you can put under a TV, it's not getting many anticipated third party games, and Nintendo is putting out games that nobody wants.

It's only going to get better and the price is only going to come down.

Their biggest blunder is banking on controller gimmicks but there's a whole heap of other **** ups too. I have to question how when both have done so well previously and they have historical competitor mistakes to learn from but, oh well. Now they're getting owned in the face so that's their problem.

Relying on Kinect(lol) is their biggest problem.

I don't believe Microsoft is relying on kinect , I think they mad a decision not to fracture their user base. That alone is what drove the price of the X1 they targeted the 500 mark and based on how much it cost to produce the x1 thats why the price is set the way it is. I do think Microsofts biggest mistake was overestimating the Devs ability to adapt to a new architect. When you look at games like Ryse, TitanFall, and Forza you see some of the capabilities of the machine. The graphics of rise, the cloud computing of AI for forza and Titan fall. The ability to off load things that would normally be functions of the CPU is Huge but no one outside of those three games have taken advantage of anything. Im not a cow, lemma, or hermit. Ive owned all 3 (except ps4) there is more to gaming than how pretty the graphics are if that was the case I would still be playing Arma 3 on the pc.

+1

Yeah i was just talking on the overall graphics. You can't really compare games like Resogun to Crimson Dragon when it comes to quality other than metacritic

@The_Last_Ride:

Yeah I hear ya. For me, it was a no brainer to get the X1 first. I like KZ, but I can play it when I get the console and infamous soon. DR3, KI, and the features, media uses were what got me at this point. I also have Tomb Raider, which is great fun.

@cainetao11: you mean the inferior version of Tomb Raider?

I would love to have an X1, but stuff has just not gone well since last May for me. First the DRM and used games and then the delay for scandinavia (yeah, thanks MS...). If i want to get one, i have to pay 1000 bucks just to get it, and if it breaks i am pretty much screwed. So no X1 at least this year

The only mistake M$ made is a $500 price point.. Sony proved last gen that $500 was entirely too much to pay for a console. Enter the following gen and what does M$ do? Their dumbasses hop in a car and drive down that same damned street. Besides it's entirely too early to tell who will be the most successful overall. One or Two price drops and the XBO could be right back in the thick of things.

Nintendo.. needs to go 3rd party. nuff said.

@OhSnapitz: Also having ads on a paid service with political ads does not help the matter

..has that even started yet? We're talking the status of these companies from launch thru today correct?

Their biggest mistakes were calling their systems the Xbone and Wii U. No one's gonna take them seriously with names like those.

True, but it's confirmed that it's coming. And in my opinion it's another mistake from them. It may not be major. But i think that still counts to the overall image of where the company is now compared to say 2010

meh.. "gamers" have been complaining about ads on XBLG for years and that hasn't stopped subscriptions from reaching record numbers. ..or Sony for following the "pay to play" online structure.

Not just the pricing, that idiotic always online scheme and used games blockage definitely dampened enthusiasm early on. Hell, even the MS-funded Polygon was putting out critical articles as I recall. There was also that TV TV TV advertising and the backwards compatibility response. Microsoft was definitely guilty of some major per-release arrogance.

True, but i am just looking at the big picture when none of the others do it, yet MS does it behind a paywall.