Reason for Wii success – Sony & Microsoft ignored Nintendo threat

The Nintendo has proved to be a phenomenal success in this console generation. This is despite being derided as a kid’s toy, being graphically inferior, and suffering from a sever lack of real first class games. Maybe the reason for this success is because Sony and Microsoft completely ignored the threat posed by the Wii, and just concentrated on pitching the PS3 versus the Xbox 360?

The Wii is a fine machine, and anyone who hasn’t at least had a go on one due to some sort of gaming snobbery deserves to be taken out in to the garden and used as a human (Viva) piñata. But the success of Nintendo’s current home console has shocked everyone in the industry, including Nintendo itself.

Obviously the biggest reason for this success is the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii. They may be inaccurate and kind of lame if studied for any length of time, but they still offer people of all ages a new way of interacting with the characters and objects they can see on screen.

However, another big reason for the success of the Wii could be the fact that both Sony and Microsoft seemed to ignore the threat posed by the Nintendo camp. In fact, they both still are, despite the Wii clearly killing all comers (with the exception of the Nintendo DS).

In the second part of The Guardian newspaper’s interview with Peter Moore, the former head of Xbox stated quite categorically that when developing the Xbox 360, Microsoft was wholly fixated on Sony.

Xbox had launched but it was an aggressive black box for shooters, and how do we evolve that, how do we build the next Xbox, how do we get after Sony? Interestingly, we were just completely fixated on Sony – Nintendo didn’t even come into the conversation.

Which clearly ended up being a huge mistake. Microsoft seems to have now seen the light and is going after the obviously lucrative casual market currently dominated by the Wii. There are the price cuts to try and undercut the Wii and the obvious lurch to developing games to appeal to 12-year-olds everywhere.

But while those strategies are clearly for financial reasons, Microsoft executives still seem fixated on going after Sony and the PS3. Speaking to GI.biz, Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Games Studios talks about the rivalry between the Xbox 360 and PS3 for big first-party games, while managing to completely forget about the Wii.

Let’s start from the beginning of both consoles – PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – which first party has had more success on their own platform? We have Gears, Halo, Forza, we’re continuing to push existing IP while bringing new IP to market. I’ll line up against Sony’s first party any day.

But lining us up against Sony first party – I love that comparison. Review score average, exclusive hits to-date, you pick the metric and we can talk about it.

What will it take for Sony and Microsoft to start realising the threat to their business provided by Nintendo? The Wii shows there is a different way to build a console, eschewing graphics and processing power in favour of providing fun. Maybe Sony and Microsoft should take a leaf out of Nintendo’s book when developing the Playstation 4 and Xbox 720?

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