Slashdot Mirror
Gates Pegs Nintendo, Not Sony, as Toughest Competition
njkid1 writes "Microsoft's Bill Gates thinks that because of the 'impressive strength' of the company and its new Wii console Nintendo is now Microsoft's biggest competition when it comes to videogames. This is somewhat understandable, given Nintendo's new projections for this year. The Japanese game maker plans to sell an impressive 100 Million DS games this year, along with 21 Million Wii games and some six million consoles. This may seem to be just more flack, to go along with Peter Moore's dismissive comments towards Sony at CES this week, but news of the Halo DS game that almost was puts credence to Microsoft's new priorities."
You don't have to be Kreskin to read the writing on the wall.
The plain and simple fact is that the Wii is doing spectacularly well for itself while the PS3 is receiving a slightly less enthusiastic reception. Only an idiot would turn around and say, "Yeah, we think Sony is going to turn things around and kick our asses."
Instead, they're going to fuel the flames by pointing to their indirect competitor over there. Hopefully at the expense of their biggest competition. Then Microsoft will ride the coattails of the Wii's success by repeating the "Wii60 For the Win!" jingle. A large portion of gamers already think they need both consoles, so why not go with it?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Oh how quickly people forget. Remember the 360 launch? It sucked. Hard. The sales pace made the PS3 look like a champ.
Am I saying this means Sony is going to win? No. But it is way too early to call this. What I will say though, is that if Microsoft writes off Sony at this point, Sony is going to eat their lunch and Microsoft will end up in third place again. Sony has far too much in terms of resources to be written off this early in the game. Microsoft isn't used to playing with people its own size.
Wait a year, then we'll have a reasonable idea of who might win.
Also, I think your point #1 is wrong. The PS3 is supposed to be what plows HD-DVD into the ground. They're not counting on Blu-Ray to make the PS3 successful. It's the other way around. Blu-Ray can fail without the PS3 failing.