Creative Sparks

The middle of November 2008 saw the anniversaries of many videogame machines. Microsoft's XBox 360 turned 3 years old (November 22, 2005), Sony's PlayStation 3 turned 2 years old (November 17, 2006), and Nintendo's Wii also turned 2 (November 19, 2006). Also converging in this pre-Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa period is the 4 year anniversary of Nintendo's DS handheld (November 21, 2004) which would soon go into market battle with Sony's now 4-year old PlayStation Portable (starting December 12, 2004 in Japan, March 21, 2005 in North America).

These 5 machines would act out the theatrical production "Seventh Generation: The Crossroads" which foretold two distinct paths the videogaming business would lead in the coming years: Technological Exclusivity vs. Social Inclusivity. Now that we're upon a brand new year and a good 2 years after all players have entered the market, let's retrace the great market race and mark the path to its future.

The Past

In 2004 with the 6th generation of videogame console battles well underway, Sony’s PlayStation 2 ruled with a platinum fist making the origin of that game machine’s name, Nintendo, wish they had never reneged on that contract with one-time partner Sony over a decade prior. Capitalizing on the industry savior’s mistakes, Sony had become a record-selling powerhouse which created an air of inevitability that they could universally conquer the business they once scoffed at. A vanquished foe, one-time console maker Sega, gave them the unflinching confidence that led to the creation of the PlayStation Portable, a challenge to their old partner’s last stronghold—the handheld market.

Pushed out of prominence in the living room space, Nintendo still gripped a very significant piece of the gaming market pie with the hand-fitting Game Boy Advance. Differing market philosophies between the two companies allowed this echo of the popular Super Nintendo Entertainment System to promote the relevance of sprite characters, colorful cheerful backdrops, 2-D illustrated gameplay, and legacy game design as Sony primarily promoted a more serious, grittier, tech-focused, 3-D polygonal display. Sony officer Kaz Hirai pledged to take portable gaming out of the gaming ghettos to the chagrin of a lamenting Elvis and with that came a fatal threat to Nintendo’s lifeline in the business they resurrected long ago. Unknown to Sony at the time, a fire was lit in the belly under and the stage that would play out Generation 7 was set.

As the 2 Japanese-centered companies prepared their strategies, a corporate goliath from the United States was busy shoehorning their presence into a business originally born in those states. Microsoft the monied monopoly was trying to make the XBox a household name by every means necessary. It seems that the computer world standard maker and the electronics pie-dabbler had some overlapping interests: an all-in-one box that takes care of your many media needs. Who would be the owner of this box and therefore the go-to company for those endless families who use it? Both Sony and Microsoft had ulterior motives for joining the gaming hustle and the key to the long-hoped realization of those all-in-one box dreams seemed to rest in videogames. Bill Gates’ shop would have to wait out this round in the face of the unstoppable PS2 but secret sabotage with Sony tech partner, IBM, would soon give them hope of paying down that monstrous $4 billion debt called XBox. Would the Box come full circle in the Next-Gen?

Nintendo was hovered over by a swarm of vultures (public and press) hounding around for an awaited death. When was this kiddie company going to finally pull a Sega (that is, leave the business)? It remained to be seen if the recent change in chief executives would breathe new life into the House of Mario but Kyoto’s jewel was experimenting with a fresh 3-pillared strategy. A Developer’s System with Dual Screens—DS? Sony shocked Nintendo awake on the threat of pushing them out of the business and the crafty gadget maker was ready to throw the shocker a swerve. The PSP was a multimedia monster. It could play music, watch movies and TV shows (TiVo!), go on the world wide web, tune in to internet radio, AND play games too! Hell, they don’t call it the “Walkman of the 21st Century” for nothing now (take that iPod!). All the DS did primarily was play games…on a system with touch screen and microphone gimmicks built in. Is this a joke? PSP is Next-Gen™. DS is nothing but a glorified Game Boy with a couple of silly gimmicks. Try again, please.

At first it looked like Nintendo’s days were marked for death starring Steven Seagal. PSP started strong and it looked like Nintendo would have to lean on the cracked pillar known as Game Boy Micro but soon the two portables battled tightly for supremacy with Sony’s pony having the edge. It wouldn’t be very long though that a flood of innovative inclusive games remarkably using DS’s “gimmicks” and a slight redesign had Nintendo’s fortunes leaving heavenly luck. Sony saw that the old lion had some tricks left yet and soon they had to worry about Mr. Gates’ new full-circled Boxes on the homefront. In 2005, Sony began to have visions of rocks and hard places and they weren’t about to let their PlayStation successor feel the squeeze. And what’s with this talk about a Revolution from Nintendo? Pillar or pillow? Sony was prepared to tap into Next-Gen like no other had ever done before.

The Present

In the 3 years since that time we’ve seen the results of the 3 competitors’ efforts. Microsoft subversively working with IBM, one of Sony’s tech partners in the mega-microchip project called Cell, in effect duplicated Sony’s technological aims for the PlayStation 3, successor to the successful PlayStation 2. The full circle was the XBox 360 which set out to usurp Sony’s record PS2 audience using the technological power gained from the Cell copy. This audience which would eventually identify themselves as “Hardcore” would willingly pay the premium to play the big budget, high production, graphically intensive games that had become the norm over the past decade. Nintendo’s Revolution took what the DS accomplished in the handheld realm in terms of game design and audience inclusiveness and put it in the living room area. With a novel new controller that Revolution would come to be known as Wii and Nintendo’s long-cherished family-friendly market principles would bear exceedingly rich fruit returning them to the uncontested crown of the industry. Sony found themselves caught on the deepening divide as they made the deluxe-equipped PlayStation 3. Compete in the big stakes tech race with Microsoft or rival the curiosity arousing uniqueness of Nintendo.

Sony’s large volume Blu-ray discs and powerful Cell processor challenged XBox 360’s high-definition pictures while the motion-sensing Sixaxis controller and PlayStation Home interface challenged Wii’s audience expanding abilities. But the desire to fight on both fronts came at a price…a price of 599 U.S. dollars to be exact. The awful air of inevitability cost them greatly in the aftermath of such arrogant decisions. They learned nothing from the failure of PSP’s UMD format when trying to fight the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle through the PS3. They learned nothing of the mistakes of their defeated foe Sega in the matters of pricing the follow up to a successful system (you never raise it). They learned nothing of the history of this business when it comes to the power of technology: the weakest system usually wins. The PS2 beat their more powerful competitors by a galaxy’s diameter so how could they forget?

In about 2 years’ time, the PS3 erased all of the financial success of the PS2, the world’s best-selling console. The PSP, though best challenger yet to Nintendo’s handheld empire, could not leave the gaming ghettos. Meanwhile, Sony’s usurper Microsoft has essentially replaced Sony’s role in the business “stealing” away its customers and 3rd party developers on the XBox 360. And yet even they had conceded to Nintendo’s approach with NXE, the New XBox Experience. So much for the hype of Next-Gen™.

The Future

We have reached the fork in the road, a giant wishbone for videogaming’s future. Microsoft’s high technology fueled thirst for the gaming elite faces off against Nintendo’s barrier busting invitations for everybody to join the game party. 2009 will see Microsoft attempt to hold its ground against an eclipsing Nintendo. The 3rd party developer establishment will have no choice but to consider the Wii legit as the number of competitors reduce to two.

Sony will end the PlayStation 3 within 2009, and the costs of this misadventure in the face of this worldwide economic erosion may very well lead to the electronics house leaving the videogame business altogether (despite the sector being the major source of revenue for the company for nearly 2 decades). Research and development is costly and I don’t think Sony has the funds to go deeper into debt while digging themselves out of this expensive mess in the coming company restructuring (that also kills plans for a PSP successor). It will take a miracle divine to change the course of this inevitable outcome. Because of this reality, the 3rd party establishment will either have to sit or get off the potty.

With Microsoft softening to Nintendo’s market philosophies, Nintendo’s position only gets stronger as the XBox 360 emulates the Wii. Microsoft will aim to encroach on Nintendo’s family-centered territory but it will be Nintendo who usurps Microsoft doing the once-thought impossible: converting the “Hardcore”. High budget, high production titles that sell in big flashes soon to disappear from the sales charts cannot stand up against more modest budgeted productions that sell as evergreen as a Georgia pine. How the “Hardcore” will become more receptive to the Wii platform is through the 3rd party’s (both well-established and newcomer) better and more custom-fit development for the platform. Like it was done decades ago, developers will take the platform seriously by delving inside all its capabilities creating more exclusive playing experiences that the XBox 360 cannot achieve through its input. Game design wrapped totally around the uniqueness of the console. The variety of genres and selections that come in the aftermath kill the tired idea that the console is only for party games or games from Nintendo’s in-house staff. With the developers’ game design philosophies changed, the presentation of the various genres (action-adventure, first-person shooter, role-playing game, etc.) will be revamped making it harder to copy and paste work from the XBox 360 platform to the Wii one.

These moves put pressure on Microsoft’s once-thought locked marketbase leaving them with 2 options. Either Microsoft will unleash their own “Wiimote” to catch up with the new gameplay innovations done on Wii or they will concede the 7th generation fight to jumpstart the 8th generation with a new machine better incorporating the ideas Wii introduced. All throughout Microsoft loaded with their greenbacked steroids will try to lower the price boom in attempt to erode Nintendo’s market crush. Already besting their rival Sony in the high-tech battle for control of the living room space, Microsoft will now see Apple as their primary rival with Nintendo as the obstacle that interrupts their plans to use videogaming as the conduit toward living room media control.

Nintendo once again reigning as emperor of the videogame world will do their best to keep their machines above the economic fray. Wii will most likely run again with the same launch fever all through 2009 with U.S. buyers snapping them up almost immediately after display. The price cut (or new color schemes) which would renew the frenzy is definitely long off into the future (try 2011, maybe). Meanwhile, the system will continue to find new avenues to infiltrate the culture like they are doing with schools, hospitals, senior citizens communities, and the like. With each new entrant into the Wii experience, the community grows broader and more connected eventually launching the console into legend status as it absolutely obliterates the all-time record of the PlayStation 2 to become the greatest selling home console of all time (they might have to fight DS for all-time greatest seller overall).

But with the new DSi, they run the risk of losing their winning blue ocean strategy falling once again into a competition-focused red ocean strategy. Adding in the internal camera functions of cell phones and the music playback functions of items like the iPod, shows that Nintendo recognizes the growing threat to their business from those sources (gaming on cell phones and iPods). Another major reason for the creation of the DSi was the better ability to fight software piracy so DSi’s incompatibility with older DS game cards could create aggravation with owners who love their built up DS libraries. However, with PSP marginalized as a threat Nintendo’s handheld rule will most likely stand unchallenged unless cell phone/iPod gaming graduates from its current status.

The 8th generation of consoles is a question mark that no one quite yet knows. Since Nintendo has broken the back of the tech-first argument, how will the companies proceed in the production of their machines? How will Nintendo eventually move on from Wii, how long will Wii run, and can they transfer this historic audience to a new device? And will this new device change further our idea of a console altogether? It certainly will not be a “Wii HD”, that much is certain. Call me crazy but I believe sooner or later Nintendo will be responsible for holographic gaming. Will Apple make another serious run in the videogame console race or will some unforeseen new challenger (challengers?) lured into the biz with dreams of riches be the next one to do battle with the industry’s torch bearer? Will Microsoft change their strategy for consolidating media and suddenly drop out of the videogame biz for a new approach? And is the fabled 'One Console' Future imminent? (I doubt it)

What does it all mean? It means that there is a magic deeper which we do not know. Who will be right, when Next-Gen comes in sight? In the recounting of these chronicles, you can safely bet it will be a strange device.