Here's an article I wrote not to long ago. It's terse, but there will be more detailed ones coming in the future. Also the articles I post will be located on Myspace.com/Gamesandcoffee .

As many of you may know now, the "casual" gaming market seems to be quite lucrative for game developers and the fellow consoles. With Nintendo and their games such as Wii Fit, Carnival Games, Cooking Mama, My Word Coach, and many other games that appeal to the moms, dads and grandparents out there; it wouldn't be any surprise if Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will have to watch out...as one company may see this as a chance to steal the spotlight from these companies and create something of their own.


(Pictured: Dream Pinball 3D for the Wii)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not affiliated with any of these companies, but as Sony, Nintendo and Sega seemed to be dueling without the gloves, it gave Microsoft an opportunity to develop their black box and take some of the FPS/RPG fans away from Sony and Nintendo.



One of the many reasons you can expect this is that when there's always three consoles duking it out for the ultimate bragging rights, you always have an underdog appear and that can either make one of the systems extinct or it will just come out of sight and never be remembered. As I'm pretty sure no one really remembers the 3DO or the Phantom System.



As Nintendo has ultimately appealed the people who have never played a video game, it seems that these were ultimately the "gamers" that finally had the voice. Something simple...innovative...and can learn right off the bat without having any sort of video game experience. As Nintendo has done this with their assortment of games, Sony does so with the music simulators and the Blu Ray innovation that many people are so interested in. Microsoft is also getting into the casual gaming department with games like Scene It! and even their new music game coming soon called Lips, which is to compete with Sony's Sing Star.



Now, it won't be long until another competitor was to come along and was to just soley focus on the casual gamer, it will then use the innovations of the Nintendo Wii with the motion sensing and also adapt some of the usages of Sony and Microsoft and can it possibly create something completely dedicated to the casual gamer? A system with simply casual games such as bowling, pinball, pie eating and even virtual pet simulations! And to even be half the price of the Nintendo Wii! But question is, will it share the same quality of these console gods?



More than likely it will hold 'last' gen graphics and power, but if it was to attract main stream attention and casual gamers, it can then be a possible threat to the big three. As for the pricing of the gaming, if to do things right they will stay simple and not have their games go above the $29.99 price range, as these gamers look at Sony and Microsoft's game price of $59.99 and cringe...and well we all cringe at that price point as sometimes you never get what you truly pay for.



Usually between console wars, 4 is a crowd and there's usually one that will face extinction. With Sony and Nintendo being the survivors of the last war with Sega's Dreamcast, will that mean that Microsoft will have something to worry for?

hhmmm...
nahh nintendo along with Microsoft and Sony WILL pull through lol...

Last img aint workin homie...

i highly doubt it. ALL of it. there might be another console next year, but to make a "casual console" would be the stupidest move.

Quote:

Centuries ago, men attempted to fly by putting wings on their arms and flapping really hard. Logically, in their minds, it should have worked. Birds fly. Birds have wings. Therefore, having wings should mean man will fly. The gentlemen, puffed with pride, failed every time. Had they examined the nature of flight, as opposed to the nature of birds, they would have realized the concept of lift (as Bernoulli did). One must examine the physics of the flight rather than putting feathers on one’s arms in imitation of birds. The descendants of these birdmen are with us today. In the gaming industry, they represent some of the highest gaming executives and esteemed analysts. Nintendo is flying high. Rather than examine the nature of this flight, the birdmen are mesmerized by the feathers. The analysts and executives do not see the concepts of disruption and don’t even understand the Blue Ocean principles (though they think they do). The feathers they see on Nintendo’s ascent are casual games. Therefore, they surmise, if they make casual games then they will be flying high with Nintendo.

Source

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ya seriously lol...

noone's just gunna barge in the console war and take the cake lol...

let alone by making retard games with no strategy

yes but those had other feature e.g. being a PHONE or ipod. they weren't just expensive gameboys.

While the Ps3 has a Blu Ray drive, the 360 has an HD drive, the PSP can be put into a Mp3/Movie player. It's all the latest trend of the up and coming generation.

yes but at the point im at i would rather have a ds then a psp
(only cause i have a Palm treo phone which is an MP3 player,phone,And you can surf the web)
its basically a mini computer...

IMO

I know, I'm just giving prime examples of fringe benefits along with systems. Also I had forgotten to mention that the PSP has Skype, which can virtually turn your PSP into a phone.

No way?
Do Tell
i wanna know!

how do you make your PSP a phone..?

It's not really making your PSP a phone, it's a feature Sony has offered with Skype. Skype is pretty much used as a phone via the internet, but Sony is offering packages with Skype. I'm not sure if it's out yet, but I believe the prices are for local calling 39.99 a month and for long distance calling I believe it's 69.99. Don't quote me on the prices those, I'm just going off an article that I had read a couple months ago.

omfg thats outrageous...
Verizon!
-Free to all networks,free texting,free pics messageing...

49.99 a month

Ownage..

Ok I have read the article several times through and still fail to what exactly this imminent threat is? Is it a new company? A revival of an older corporation? I don't see this as being an "imminent" threat. Maybe far into the future (+/- 5-10 years). Look what happened to Atari when it tried to make a comback. It failed miserably. Sega is dead and done making systems. I just don't see a new company being able to just magically appear and get the same amount of media attention as the big 3 get. After all the media attention is what drives up the sales for these companies. A new company needs to work from the ground up to get any recognition, and as far as I know, there is nothing on the horizon coming in as a threat.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, Microsoft is in trouble, they just lost at least half of their RPGs with either a crappy sudden ending to the series, or the company supplying XBOX have dropped out do to being to small. Other companies have also stated that they don't see a future for XBOX, its been and will keep going in the same direction.

Drop out Microsoft, stop reving dead games, making cop outs, and putting yourself in a market you don't belong in.

The threat itself is the casual gaming market, and what competitors will do to move away the people from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

well they have so many people i dont think it matters if they lost a few to a Diffrent devolper...

That's the reason for Sega's downfall was third party development. So if Microsoft was to lose, let's say Rare (Banjo Kazooie, Viva Pinata, Killer Instinct, Golden Eye), they'd be down by a whole lot and have to rely on gaining exclusivity with companies like Bethesda and so forth. Same goes for Sony if they were to lose a major developer.