A Revolution?

Being the Nintendo fanboy I am I've been following the development of the Nintendo Revolution quite closely as well as that of the Xbox 360 and PS3. While I like the idea of consoles becoming some kind of "super" media box or even media servers for the home I think some companies are losing sight of the fact that at the end of the day most people see consoles as a kids toy or geeky male gadget. Not only that but the financial cost, complexity and time commitment seems to be growing as each generation of console passes. What we're left with is console industry trying to seek mass market appeal as they evolve into an mainstream entertainment medium like film and music but at the same time they seem to only cater to a specific largely male audience. At the other end of the spectrum the PC seems to be a very successful platform for catering for the "other" people outside of the console scope.

Nintendo's stand out product, something that lasted over 10 years was the original Gameboy. I had one, many of my friends did, it was by far the most common games machine amongst all the people I know. What stood out is that many women and young (pre-teen) children had them as well and this trend seems to continue with the Gameboy Advance (GBA) and the Nintendo DS. Why? Many may think it was because the system was portable, self contained (no TV required) and had a large library of games at a time when the competition couldn't come close to matching that despite the fact that they could boast better technical specifications like colour screens. I think the lower costs were one of the biggest contributing factors, the Gameboy was generally cheaper than a TV connected console and it also boasted a games library that was cheaper and still is to this day. For many parents and casual gamers it was the cheapest way into the world of video gaming.

What's changed since then, well the PC is perhaps the cheapest way into casual gaming for those who already own a PC for non-gaming purposes, all that's required is the games and a bit of luck that your hardware is up to the job. It's no surprise that 2D games tended to do best commercially on the PC since many PCs didn't come with a graphic card capable of decent 3D graphics, that probably explains why The Sims was such a hit.

Ok enough of that, where does the Revolution come into this? Quite simply I think Nintendo sees that there is no point going into a technological arms race against either Microsoft or Sony as they would come of worse. The target for them is to make gaming mass market and bring new players to them rather than flight exclusively over the existing hardcore gamers. It seems they have a three pronged approach to doing this: price, ease of use and nostalgia.

The rumours are the hardware is not that much of a step up from the Gamecube and I believe that is intentional to keep the costs down, after all the original Gameboy outlasted several console generations with an 8-bit processor so obviously underpowered hardware doesn't always hurt especially if you can keep the manufacturing and retail costs down to offer one of the cheapest routes into gaming. I really think that in the UK selling a console for more than £150 limits the market to serious gaming adults and spoilt children, would you pay more than £200 for a console you might not even use in 6 months time or not play regularly?

Ease of use is what the new controller intends to bring. I see one of the biggest barriers to gaming is getting started because you have to master the concept of the controller and how it relates to what happens on screen and that was hard enough when introducing someone to Tetris on the Gameboy let alone a 3D action game where you can have multiple directional controllers and over 8 buttons to master. A motion sensing controller seems a logical way to produce a controller everyone can understand. It may not be ideal for everything but think just how much easier it would be to get a non-gamer to play a golfing game if they can mimic actions of a real golfer rather than deal with strange bars and timings. This I think could bring families together in the gaming experience.

The third area of nostalgia could be played out many ways. Nintendo have decided to make it's own back catalogue and that of other old consoles such as the Sega Megadrive (aka Genesis) available to download and play on the Revolution. The obvious appeal is for anyone who experienced the games first time around to experience the "iTunes effect" of convenience and instant gaming gratification at a (hopefully) low price which should bring about a lot of impulse buying. Also by having some familiarity it may bring in former games players who have now grown up and not taken part in the recent generation of gaming, once hooked on the old territory they may find the newer games just as exciting and make the transition to modern games. Thirdly cheap and simpler games will make gaming more accessible to those on a lower budget with less interest in the complexity of modern games, for parents or casual gamers if you offer them 10 classics for £30 rather than 1 new game for £30 you are creating a huge incentive for them to choose the cheaper route to test the waters.

So are Nintendo on to a winner or is this a desperate attempt by Nintendo to try and stay in the game? I think Nintendo are going to surprise everyone but the interesting thing to see is whether the 16 - 25 year old male market buy into this as well as casual gamers. What do you think, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the future of Nintendo and the Revolution.