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."

Comments

Intriguing.

[CDarklock]

I've been pretty impressed by what I hear about the Wii, but I wouldn't consider it a bigger threat than Sony. From where I sit, it looks like Nintendo are perfectly content to do lots of business without being the market leaders - but Sony seem very fixated on the "being number one" mentality. I'd be inclined to promote Nintendo's competition factor, but I wouldn't start counting them as a threat (they don't seem to feel any need to eliminate competitors), and I think it's a BIG mistake to count Sony out as a threat.

Of course, this could just be a bluff to drive Sony insane with the idea that they aren't even relevant to us anymore.

Re:Bad assumptions on sony's part

[Vellmont]

Oh how quickly people forget. Remember the 360 launch? It sucked. Hard. The sales pace made the PS3 look like a champ.

I don't know anything about the 360 launch, but there's a big difference between now and a year ago. A year ago the 360 was the only next-gen console on the market. Not having a great launch didn't matter as much since what are the people hungering for a new console going to do? They either already own the PS2, or have a XBox. In short, Microsoft doesn't lose much from a poor launch.

A year later and a PS3 launch failure hurts Sony a LOT more. Why? Because all three consoles next-gen consoles are now out, so Sony has more competition to worry about. Can't get/afford a PS3? Well the XBOX 360 is available, a good replacement for the PS3 (with the promise of a second generation of games coming out for it too). Or maybe you have the XBox and are looking for something new.. well, the Wii is real cheap, and it's fun and different than the XBox.

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.

Sure, maybe Sony will perform some miracle comeback and sweep the competition. But if this were a baseball game, the score would be 5-0 in the bottom of the second inning. Unless Microsoft really screws up, it's looking like Sony is going to lose this game.

I also wouldn't take what Bill Gates says to the press as a reflection of what he believes. If you were him, wouldn't you try to say Sony has already lost (and hopefully discourage people from buying PS3s)?