When did we all start ignoring Nintendo? Was it the Wii era? Because that’s the moment Nintendo stepped away. That’s wh…
When did we all start ignoring Nintendo? Was it the Wii era? Because that’s the moment Nintendo stepped away. That’s when Nintendo decided to leave the raw-power console fight to PlayStation and Xbox, and let them slug it out while it did something else. Nintendo decided to focus on innovation and creativity and rethink the idea of the console, the Wii being the result. I remember how it was greeted at the time, the Revolution as it was known then, with scepticism — derision, even. What was this comparatively low-powered toy? It wouldn’t stand a chance against Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And yet.
I ask these questions because we’re having a wobble in console-town at the moment. We’re looking ahead to the future and struggling to see what will be there. It used to be so predictable. Every several years, The Big Three — Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo — would release a new games machine and take pot-shots on stage at each other at E3. Or in Nintendo’s case, they’d conduct orchestras with Wiimotes. But here we are, more than halfway through this ninth generation — a generation that’s widely considered to have not really gotten going — and we’re seeing evidence of significant rethinking from Sony and Microsoft.
Microsoft has all but abandoned the console battle with Sony and decided to publish Xbox games on all platforms — a move that would have been unthinkable in previous generations. And although Microsoft has repeatedly assured us it’s working on next-gen Xbox hardware, it’s been slippery about what kind of hardware that is — the most recent suggestion being it’s some kind of PC. Sony’s having a better time of it, with the PlayStation 5 outpacing PlayStation 4 in like-for-like sales, and a recent AMD partnership announcement seemed to all-but confirm a PlayStation 6. But Sony also appears to be reworking its offerings with a rumoured PlayStation handheld device in development.
