Nintendo has long been outpacing Sony and Microsoft in hardware sales, but recent word from Mr. Tretton shows that he sees them as an “irrelevant” adversary, and doesn’t have the nicest thoughts about Microsoft either.
Apparently despite numbers showing that Nintendo is still in the lead with overall hardware sales this generation, Jack Tretton doesn’t see the kid friendly competition as serious opposition any more. It’s true that Nintendo’s sales of the Wii have been slowing down, but is it really enough to dismiss them altogether? Now that the PlayStation Move has been out for a couple months, and PlayStation 3 sales have picked up significantly, it seems that Jack’s confidence has only grown larger than ever. Speaking to CNN, he stated with regards to Nintendo’s Wii and the Xbox 360:
They’re starting to run out of steam now in terms of continuing to be relevant in 2011 and beyond. I mean, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Why would I buy a gaming system without a hard drive in it? How does this thing scale? Motion gaming is cute, but if I can only wave my arms six inches, how does this really feel like I’m doing true accurate motion gaming?
This might be a good time to point out that 49.2 million PS3s have been sold globally, while 86.3 million Wiis have been sold. However, the Wii also had a considerably better start by targeting casual consumers with a low price point and easy pick-up-and-play party style gaming. Considering my own personal preferences when it comes to gaming, it’s hard to disagree with Mr. Tretton, but that doesn’t mean everyone thinks the same way. Jack doesn’t stop there though, and goes on to make remarks on the 3DS, citing it as “the Game Boy experience”:
Our view of the ‘Game Boy experience’ is that it’s a great babysitting tool, something young kids do on airplanes, but no self-respecting twenty-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those. He’s too old for that.
He may have a point there, considering that much of the software for 3DS and most Nintendo products in general are aimed at either the casual audience or children. Again though, the sales numbers say otherwise regarding competition, with Nintendo’s DS devices selling 146 million units worldwide total, and the PSP is at 67 million sales. Mr. Tretton may be overlooking these figures, or just speaking to the idea that with different target audiences and technological evolution, the two companies aren’t in direct competition due to selling to completely different audiences. Sony’s employees are rarely short on confidence, and generally with good reason, so it’ll be interesting to see if the NGP is truly more than just a babysitting tool. So far the features we’ve seen show great potential, and hopefully we’ll find out for soon if it’ll redefine portable gaming, or just add another piece of hardware to an already diverse market. Do you agree with Jack Tretton’s statements, or is he just blowing a lot of smoke onto the playing field?
