Nintendo is kicking everyone's ass!

[Iron Draggon]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/...on-08-/1276642

and to think I thought the Gamecube would put them out of business... now it's just giving Wii owners that many more awesome games to choose from!

[tom]

the work out Wii sold quite well in Germany, but seen here at Saturn (one of the leading console sellers), lots on the shelf (but so was everyone elses (PS3, 360):



Top selling console in Germany? PS2 still top after all these years

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

I'm glad to see they are doing good financially, but I judge gaming systems on the QUALITY of games, not the number of games. Right now, Nintendo has a large amount of casual gamers who will buy anything, Cooking Mama, etc. As a result, we are seeing more and more companies produce shovelware, just so they can cash in on the casual crowd. Righ now, I think at least have of the DS and the Wii games should be discontinued.

[swlovinist]

One thing is for sure, the Wii is here to stay, and it destroying its competition. It has its problems as a console(like the rest of them), and is far from perfect. I look forward to hopefully more third party quality games this year, as well as seeing what great Wiiware games get released. I am glad Wii Music bombed, that game was a piece of crap. I agree that the system has a ton of shovelware, but most successful systems do(PS1, PS2). I personally have found enough good games on the system to enjoy it, but am looking forward to a stronger lineup in the future.

As for the 360, I think that the game system has a strong software lineup for the hardcore fans, I just wish they would now do a console design revision other than internally. I think that if they continue to make decent software for the console, they will keep in second place, even if it will be a distant second place. One thing I fear is that when the console reaches 5 years, it will be dropped like a bad habbit. I do have to say that I cancelled my xbox live account, and will have to rely on the PSN for my online fix. $50 a year for me was something I can spend elsewhere.

The Playstation 3....actually a great system that has been totally screwed from the beginning with poor choices from the powers at be. I had a discussion with my good gamer friend, and we both agreed....going from marketing a game system to everyone(PS2) to marketing an expensive game system for the elite(PS3) was a huge mistake. Taking out the BC(PS2) feature on a machine that is marketed as a media center was a move that probably cost them more than they realized. Dont get me wrong, the system is great, it is just not going to win over developers or people sitting on the fence when the system is at $400. When its competition is beating it with price difference by $150, people are not going to see the additional features the PS3 has(Blu Ray). The Blu Ray player thing is not going to be a factor with the public until the blu Ray movies become more affordable and more titles are available. With the prices of Blu Ray players going way down in price, Sony is not out of the race, but if they dont do some drastic things with the console this upcoming year, it is going to be hard for it to last 5 years in retail space, not ten.

On a side note, who would have thought that the PS2 would be still kicking it at nearly 9 years? I bet its Dec sales numbers will be decent. There are ton of games to be had at decent budget prices, and the system is the one very bright spot for troubled Sony. I for one will be continuing to buy some great budget titles this year, as the PS2 is one of my favorite consoles of all time with its huge library and obscure titles. It is defiantly showing its age, but it is continually surprising me with its very diverse library.

[j_factor]

I'm glad to see they are doing good financially, but I judge gaming systems on the QUALITY of games, not the number of games. Right now, Nintendo has a large amount of casual gamers who will buy anything, Cooking Mama, etc. As a result, we are seeing more and more companies produce shovelware, just so they can cash in on the casual crowd. Righ now, I think at least have of the DS and the Wii games should be discontinued.

I remember when Cooking Mama came out for DS, nobody called it shovelware. But now that it's on Wii, it's shovelware. I'm not saying the Wii doesn't have more than its share of bad games, but it's becoming more clear to me that 90% people who bash the system already have their mind made up against it and are going out of their way to justify their pre-conceived opinions, rather than honestly considering what the system has to offer. People either talk crap about games they haven't played, or completely ignore worthwhile games as if they didn't exist while focusing exclusively on the crap. Or both. And I hate how the lexicon has changed. Terms like "hardcore" have been completely re-defined just to make Xbox 360 look good and the Wii look bad.

Every system (unless we're talking about Gizmondo or something) has its share of worthwhile games. Often when systems are still new, they are lacking, but every current system has been around for a while now, and has a decent-sized, well-established library. Not every system is to every person's taste, but none of them suck.

[TheRealist50]

PS3 will do much better in 2009. 2008 is a year Sony would like to forget.

[Arthur-Otaku]

One thing is for sure, the Wii is here to stay, and it destroying its competition. It has its problems as a console(like the rest of them), and is far from perfect. I look forward to hopefully more third party quality games this year, as well as seeing what great Wiiware games get released. I am glad Wii Music bombed, that game was a piece of crap. I agree that the system has a ton of shovelware, but most successful systems do(PS1, PS2). I personally have found enough good games on the system to enjoy it, but am looking forward to a stronger lineup in the future.

As for the 360, I think that the game system has a strong software lineup for the hardcore fans, I just wish they would now do a console design revision other than internally. I think that if they continue to make decent software for the console, they will keep in second place, even if it will be a distant second place. One thing I fear is that when the console reaches 5 years, it will be dropped like a bad habbit. I do have to say that I cancelled my xbox live account, and will have to rely on the PSN for my online fix. $50 a year for me was something I can spend elsewhere.

The Playstation 3....actually a great system that has been totally screwed from the beginning with poor choices from the powers at be. I had a discussion with my good gamer friend, and we both agreed....going from marketing a game system to everyone(PS2) to marketing an expensive game system for the elite(PS3) was a huge mistake. Taking out the BC(PS2) feature on a machine that is marketed as a media center was a move that probably cost them more than they realized. Dont get me wrong, the system is great, it is just not going to win over developers or people sitting on the fence when the system is at $400. When its competition is beating it with price difference by $150, people are not going to see the additional features the PS3 has(Blu Ray). The Blu Ray player thing is not going to be a factor with the public until the blu Ray movies become more affordable and more titles are available. With the prices of Blu Ray players going way down in price, Sony is not out of the race, but if they dont do some drastic things with the console this upcoming year, it is going to be hard for it to last 5 years in retail space, not ten.

On a side note, who would have thought that the PS2 would be still kicking it at nearly 9 years? I bet its Dec sales numbers will be decent. There are ton of games to be had at decent budget prices, and the system is the one very bright spot for troubled Sony. I for one will be continuing to buy some great budget titles this year, as the PS2 is one of my favorite consoles of all time with its huge library and obscure titles. It is defiantly showing its age, but it is continually surprising me with its very diverse library.

Wii is an waste of time, bad online playability, crap download games, crap retail games. 300 dollars is too much to expend for play 2 or 3 good games, you can buy an ps2 for 50 bucks with same graphics and with more than 100 excellent titles in your library

People don't want more blu-ray titles, they just don't want blu-ray, like they don't care about hdtvs

I really don't understand the people of 2k era, they don't want modern things anymore, they play wii (the worst of 3) and watch and prefer dvd in sd format, oh man, 20% of japanese people still owns vhs players and only 5% owns an blu-ray player, it's so ridiculous

[kainemaxwell]

Nintendo is making the Wii (and DS) like the system this gen for casual gamers too with their variety of titles, etc (Wii Fit, that How to Cook DS title, the stop smoking DS title, etc).

[Dastardly Dylan]

Ooooooooooooooooooooh Yeah!

Nintendo has a great lineup of games coming out in the future that I'm excited about for Wii! It couldn't get better for Wii in '09!

Now with that said, anyone wanna exchange Animal Crossing City Folk friend codes? I just picked it up yesterday.

[scooterb23]

The Wii is successful? No way! This is breaking news!

The next thing you're going to tell me is that the Sun is big, we live on Earth, and wild grizzly bears can rip your face off if you aren't careful!

[j_factor]

PS3 will do much better in 2009. 2008 is a year Sony would like to forget.

Didn't people say the exact same thing a year ago?

I think it's gotten to the point where PS3 has "settled in" to third place, and it will remain there regardless of what Sony does or what games come out. Which is unfortunate.

[intvsama]

If the sun were hollow a million earths would fit inside, and yet, it is only a middle sized star.

[Alfador]

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace

[BHvrd]

Didn't people say the exact same thing a year ago?

I think it's gotten to the point where PS3 has "settled in" to third place, and it will remain there regardless of what Sony does or what games come out. Which is unfortunate.

The majority of people from the PS2 generation still own PS2's and buy games for it. Once the new Final Fantasy games release and they start rolling out more key franchises they will reel in their target audience. Yes 360 will also get Final Fantasy 13, but PS3 is only one that will have (Versus) and you know how those Final Fantasy peeps are, they gotta have the complete deal.

From a technological standpoint you get more with PS3, but yes titles like Gears of War and Mario Galaxy have ruled the day and rightly so, but I wouldn't count out the possibility that one key game could change that very quickly.

[The 1 2 P]

Great article. Especially because they brought up the abundance of Wii shovelware. Of course the Wii does have some really good first party games (and a few good third party ones as well) but unfortunately many of those great titles get lost in all of the clutter. But 2009 will be another good year for the Wii---guranteed.

PS3 will do much better in 2009. 2008 is a year Sony would like to forget.

Um....didn't we hear this in 2006 about how the PS3 would cetch up in 2007? And then in 2007 about how things would turn around in 2008? They were so confident about 2008 that they dubbed it "the year of the PS3". They should have made it "the year the PS3 solidifies their third place standing". Regardless of how the PS3 does in 2009---they will still be in third place when 2010 rolls around---guranteed.

The majority of people from the PS2 generation still own PS2's and buy games for it. Once the new Final Fantasy games release and they start rolling out more key franchises they will reel in their target audience. Yes 360 will also get Final Fantasy 13, but PS3 is only one that will have (Versus) and you know how those Final Fantasy peeps are, they gotta have the complete deal.

The same could have been said about Metal Gear Solid 4(a real PS3 exclusive....atleast so far). Although it did well it's first month of sales, what happened after that? Last I heard it didn't even sell a million units in it's homeland of Japan, but that was as of early November. While FF13 will definitely move some systems for Sony, the same can be said for the 360. Or, you could say that the 360 will steal many potential PS3 sales. While the Versus game will sell, you should already know by now that the main FF games are the ones that sell the most. The side games(while some do sell well) pale in comparison.

Back on point, the Wii will continue to dominate this generation. Actually, it's academic at this point as they've already won. That doesn't mean that there aren't great games to find on each system. But Nintendo has pulled off the greatest comeback in video game history. Microsoft has proven that they can beat all the major players (they beat Nintendo last gen and beat Sony this gen). And Sony has....well Sony has proven that theres no such thing as an unstoppable jugganaut and ignorance isn't always bliss. As a major electronics giant Sony will definitely come back stronger, but not in this generation. And thats a good thing. Sony fans will hate this, but the greatest lesson Sony could have learned is by coming in last place after being on top for so long.

[megasdkirby]

PS3 will do much better in 2009. 2008 is a year Sony would like to forget.

Unfortunately, that's the same thing that was said last year with regards with 2008.

Many said that 2008 would be the year for the PS3, mainly for Metal Gear Solid 4.

I don't think Final Fantasy XIII would make things any different. Same as God of War 3.

[megasdkirby]

Back on point, the Wii will continue to dominate this generation. Actually, it's academic at this point as they've already won. That doesn't mean that there aren't great games to find on each system. But Nintendo has pulled off the greatest comeback in video game history. Microsoft has proven that they can beat all the major players (they beat Nintendo last gen and beat Sony this gen). And Sony has....well Sony has proven that theres no such thing as an unstoppable jugganaut and ignorance isn't always bliss. As a major electronics giant Sony will definitely come back stronger, but not in this generation. And thats a good thing. Sony fans will hate this, but the greatest lesson Sony could have learned is by coming in last place after being on top for so long.

Quotted becuase I love it, and for me, FOR ME, it's completely true.

Sony was too arrogant. It bit them in the end. Same thing occured to Nintendo.

No one thought Microsoft could beat out it's competitors, but it actually did. Though truth be told, that may change later on with units sold (consoles). I have noticed that slowly, the PS3 has been catching up to the 360 in terms of hardware sales.

Everything, IMO.

[RPG_Fanatic]

To be honest I bought a Wii (my girlfriend really wanted one) played it a lot for the first week and it hasn't been used since. My 360 & PS3 are used daily, the Wii just doesn't have any games that appeal to me. Thats great for Nintendo selling a shit load of Wii's and bringing in new gamers but I guess i'm a little more of a hardcore gamer than a casual gamer. I think the 360 has the best games this generation and thats my favorite machine this generation.

[skaar]

I still haven't plugged my Wii back in since bringing it to my girlfriend's parents' place last summer during a visit.

The 360 sees daily use, and the PS3 hasn't been connected since the move (October)

I enjoyed the Wii but my experience mirrors many others' - it's fun for awhile, there's some great games... then, you go back to the 360 until something else new and exciting comes out. I bought my GF Wii Fit as one of her gifts this year, and we still haven't hooked the Wii up to even try that out yet... we've been playing through Tales of Vesperia instead.

My buddy sold his off during the holidays. Sad, really. I mean it's nice to have a market of people buying your products but when the novelty wears off... yeah. I read somewhere there's something like 2-3 games sold per Wii (most of the owners just play Wii Sports) and 10+ for the other consoles - or is that just random BS?

I still think that Nintendo's strategy of making "Everyone a gamer!" is bad news for the industry - I want some freaking difficulty in my games, thank you very much. I don't need a pat on the head telling me I'm special. That's why I get my own bus.

[maxlords]

I bought a Wii on release thinking there'd be games to play on it. I friggin hate it. I've never liked the damned thing...I find it gimmicky as hell, and the software is ass. I played Wii Sports for a few days. I played a bit of Zelda...then went and bought the GC one cause it's easier to play. I played a bit of Metroid...which is a pain in the ass for left handed people, had to give up. The ONLY game I've played through on the Wii is SM Galaxy. That's it. There's honestly nothing else worth owning to me. I'm seriously considering getting rid of my Wii. There are no games coming that I want. There are no games that I simply have to own. It's just NOT fun to me.

Why it's doing so well is completely beyond me. I understand the reasons....it just blows my mind that people still think it's fun.