Nintendo Wii

Alright, I'll be the first to admit that when I first heard about the new control design I thought it was the stupidest thing imaginable. I assumed that Nintendo had become an also-ran in the gaming industry and could no longer compete with Microsoft and Sony. I figured that Nintendo was doing what everyone else always did, which was to just create a more powerful version of their previous system. Gamecube on steroids didn't seem that appealing to me.

Of course the last ten months have shown us just how popular the Wii really is and how wrong foolish people like myself were when we dismissed Nintendo. There are a lot of articles about how Nintendo thinks outside of the box and how they are going to continue to reshape the industry for years to come. What I'm trying to figure out is how so many people only caught all of this in hindsight.

I think there are at least three major components to what happened in the video game wars. The first was a simple matter of economics. Sony priced themselves out of the market for a lot of families when they aimed for the hardcore gamer. Sure, there are lots of teens and college students with disposable income who are into gaming and who are sure to pump millions and millions of dollars into Sony and Microsoft's pockets, but there are many more kids out there that probably couldn't get their parents to swallow a $600 price tag.

The second change in the video game landscape was inevitable but I'm not sure how many people have caught on yet. There is going to be a point where amazing graphics just can't get much better. For the last two years, I've had to do a double take when someone is playing Madden to make sure they are playing a game and not watching an actual football game. How much more lifelike can we get? And in case you missed it, computer power has really slowed down. My five year old Dell still does virtually everything I want it to do and I'm pretty abusive to it at times. Nintendo looked at the landscape and saw that everyone else was equating fun with better graphics (which I don't deny does enhance gameplay sometimes). Nintendo said, let's concentrate on making it more fun.

Virtual reality is the third component in the Wii's rise to the top. We've been seeing some incredible virtual landscapes, Nintendo decided that that were going to instead mimic real people. So instead of a lot of complicated buttons and joysticks, you just motion like you are actually in the game. You swing a golf club like you'd swing a golf club. You play a first person shooter like you're holding a gun. It really feels like you are part of the game rather than just playing one.

So what will the next generation hold? Success always breeds copycats, so expect Microsoft and Sony to build on the Nintendo's success but do so in their own fashion. It's hard to say where Nintendo will head next. My gut says that it will be further down the virtual reality path. But don't expect a Wii 2. Whatever Nintendo does next, it will be something unexpected but intuitive. Something that we should have seen coming but won't until it arrives.