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If you produce gaming hardware (and you probably don't, but if you do), and your hardware sells well, you funnel those funds into producing new hardware or (assuming you also develop software for your hardware, which, again, you probably don't) strengthening your first-party software titles.
Of course, if your previous-gen handheld hardware outsells your competition's current-gen console hardware, you might use the funds to buy a celebrated RPG development studio. If these are things you've experienced recently, you're Nintendo, and I'd like to thank you for reading this. It's an honor, really.
Nintendo's no stranger to the top of the video game heap. The Nintendo Entertainment System, or Famicom in Japan, rescued the game industry after the crash of 1983. After that, Nintendo maintained its chokehold on the industry, despite competition from companies such as Sega. Many gamers today look back on that era with mixed feelings: on the one hand, some of the best games and franchises of all time originated during Nintendo's reign. On the other hand, Nintendo was maniacal in its attempts to remain family-friendly. In today's world, where games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt are commonplace, it seems quite unreasonable for Nintendo to have objected over the word "Holy" being in a Final Fantasy game.
The PlayStation and, more so, the PlayStation 2 helped dethrone Nintendo by pushing a more mature (gamers were growing up, after all) and technologically sleek (blowing into a cartridge reduces your cool factor) image. Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 finally propelled the company into the world of "mature" games and was a hit, but it was too little too late. Nintendo has perpetually been regarded as excessively "kiddy."
Nowadays, though, your grandparents probably own Nintendo systems. My boss, a 56-year old Vietnam vet, owns a Wii. My 12-year old cousin and I system link to play Animal Crossing, but I also send Mognet mail to her dad, my uncle. You can't technically call Nintendo "kiddy" now that Wii systems are showing up in retirement homes and cruise ships.
But let's cut to the chase. The real question this generation is simple: should we be happy that Nintendo is "winning" again? To be sure, the dominance the company is experiencing now is not as complete as it was two decades ago. But it's real, and it's there. You don't post a massive increase on the fiscal year by being in third place in the console wars.
We've all read the tired stories of how Nintendo is pulling in the non-gamer. We can't go a month without hearing about how many soccer moms and geriatrics are rawking out to Nintendogs, Brain Age, or what have you. But is that a bad thing?
Is the widespread popularity of talking, moving pictures (known to you krazy kids as a "movie") or recorded music a bad thing? Arguably, you could point out that in any widely popular form of media, the watered-down tripe will rise to the top, while the weightier, more intellectual offerings will remain firmly below the public consciousness. So, in that way, you could say that universal appeal is damaging to a medium as a whole. After all, the average quality of the entire medium is reduced by offerings that cater to the mindless masses.
So the argument goes thusly:
Point 1: Nintendo's games, particularly the ones focused on casual gaming (i.e. mini- and/or micro-games), appeal to a wider demographic than, say, Halo 2 or God of War.
Point 2: Nintendo and third-party developers will develop games that sell well, meaning an abundance of mini-game collections.
Conclusion: The hardcore gamer will be left out in the cold, reduced to the paltry offerings of competing consoles as game developers focus more and more resources on creating casual games.
And that's where it falls apart. Points 1 and 2 are perfectly valid; the Wii and the DS have seen a veritable plethora of mini-game collections, and will continue to do so, solely because the casual gamer will buy them. But the conclusion is faulty. Just because (and you'll have to excuse my ignorance of the rap music scene--an ignorance of which I am proud) 50 Cent and Fergie sell their recycled drivel by the boat load, it does not necessarily mean that you can't find offerings well outside of the mainstream. The popularity of Spider-Man does not automatically eradicate the quirkiness of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from the movie industry. In fact, the mind-numbing popular and the painfully niche are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.
And thus it goes with Nintendo. The Wii is good for something besides Wii Sports. The company is proving that its systems can handle both extremes.
So to allay your fears: the hardcore and the casual gamer can indeed co-exist. Now, on to the unique benefits Nintendo's dominance offers.
The news media outlets, being so taken with both of Nintendo's little systems, have repeatedly thrust them into the public spotlight. Sometimes they are presented in a negative way, of course, but by and large, the talking heads are treating the DS and the Wii like the best things since Neanderthal-Americans discovered the proper use for genitalia. So your mom knows about the Wii; she may have tried a game of Wii bowling. Your girlfriend has her own pink DS. Your grandfather probably plays Shuffleboard DS.
Suddenly, all the people in your life who were resentful or jealous or just plain mystified by your devotion to gaming are being sucked in themselves. Now when Jack Thompson says gaming leads to the slaughter of innocents, he's accusing your friggin' grandma of plotting to blow things up. And now, all of a sudden, we've got our fathers and mothers arguing for video games, not against.
A further effect is the creation of a gaming-tolerant culture. Ten years ago, we were the nerdy runts who got laughed at and stuffed into inconveniently small spaces. Now we're running things. I'm writing this in my office, where I work as an administrative assistant to the owner of a multi-million dollar company. Meanwhile, the hulking jerk who punched my face off in the fifth grade is really, really good at making hamburgers. No one thinks it's weird anymore that we devote significant portions of our time to video games. To be sure, the occasional extremist will be regarded with pity and loathing, but by and large gamers are becoming accepted. True, this is largely due to the massive damage the PlayStation 2 did last generation. But Nintendo, not Sony, is now reaping the benefits of that acceptance. As our kids grow up in this technophilic world, I predict that gaming, in some form or other, will eventually become as universal as music or movies.
But what does this mean for you and me? How does Nintendo's newly rediscovered success directly affect our little corner of the gaming world? After all, Nintendo does own Monolith Soft now. The company is declaring its intentions to play the RPG market. And Square Enix is cozying up to Nintendo once more with games such as Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.
What Nintendo is now free to do on the DS and Wii practically replicates what Sony could do with the PS2 last generation. Since Nintendo's hardware is dominating the market, developers will push games for it. The games will move more systems, which will in turn encourage more developers to create games for the system, and so on. Smaller, lesser known publishers will put their games on Nintendo systems, knowing that with such a large market, the games are more likely to do well. Those Wii games will also cost less than PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 games, and DS games (at least when new) cost less than PSP games. Simple economics is working in our favor here.
The graphical power of the DS and the Wii further augment their suitability for the RPG genre. To be sure, the 360 and PS3 each sport "better" graphics, but, as was argued so convincingly in an editorial last week, graphics are certainly not the end all be all of gaming. Personally, I'd rather play a text-based RPG with an awesome story and great characters than an eye-candy RPG with cookie-cutter characters and a cliché plot. And, if you still think games have to have mind-blowing graphics in order to be fun, well, you must be pretty new to the world of gaming. So, since developers understand that they're not going to achieve PS3-quality graphics on the Wii, they'll focus instead on other aspects of the game, like clever use of the controls, or innovative plot devices, or well-rounded characters.
While Nintendo's systems have not yet achieved the widespread saturation that the PlayStation 2 enjoyed, they look to be on that path. Call the innovative design of the DS and the Wii a fad if you will; Nintendo's other fads seem to be going strong. And, whether you like it or not, the future of gaming for this generation seems to be, once again, in Nintendo's hands.
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