I’m not a gamer. Well, I’m not a gamer by today’s modern definition. I assume that today’s hard core gamer must spend hours playing video games every day. They like to play on-line, love first person shooters or fighters, have a vast gaming library, wait till mid-night to buy a game, and drink sleep and eat video games. I on the other hand like playing once in a while, will get bored after a few hours, and prefer simplicity over complexity. That’s how it used to be in the good ol’ days of the Nintendo NES. Games were fun, easy, and didn’t take very long to beat. That’s why I believe the Nintendo Wii was so successful; it carried forward these “keeping it simple” rules to a modern gaming generation. Today Nintendo announced that it will release a new gaming system in 2012 (unless the world ends). This news came out of nowhere this week, although the rumours did start earlier in the month. To assume that Nintendo would stop working on the Wii, a system that has made them very rich and popular, seemed absurd. But today they confirmed these rumours. My thoughts are that this is a very smart move by Nintendo. This gives them an advantage of being first to release the newest next generation system (and gain all the press attention). It also forces the competition to play catch-up and have to speed their next gen as well, and maybe even come unprepared on someone else’s terms. I think that was a reason why the Sony Playstation 3 did so terrible in sales; they were a year behind the Xbox 360. The expensive retail price was also another reason why many people passed on the PS3; and opted for the much more affordable Wii. Nintendo also announced that they will reveal a playable version of their next gaming console at this year’s E3 (Los Angeles from June 7 to 9). While there are many things I hope to see from it (HD and maybe 3D), I also hope Nintendo sticks to their winning formula of making fun games that are easy to play and are timeless.
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