Waggle the Dog

What I've seen from E3 this year is Microsoft putting all their marbles into Kinect, Sony pushing Move and Nintendo going back to the controller? Wait, what? Microsoft and Sony playing catch-up with Nintendo? And Nintendo, trying to scoop up all the core gamers while Microsoft and Sony blunder with motion sensors and alienate the core gamer? It makes me wonder if this wasn't Nintendo's plan from the start, with the wii little more than a clever diversion to confuse everyone while they rob the the cradle at midnight as Microsoft and Sony sleep, with visions of motion sensors dancing in their heads. Could this be a case of the tail “waggling” the dog?

There's no doubt about it, the wii has been a smashing success and casual gamers worldwide flocked to it and its waggle controls. It is the top selling console worldwide, and it's not even HD. It has only flash memory and no real online... In fact, it's really just a Gamecube with a gimmicky controller that, frankly, doesn't even work very well! Nevertheless, it's sold extremely well, and Nintendo has made boatloads of money from it. So, why is Nintendo going in a different direction with the next generation console? If it ain't broke then don't fix it, right? But it is broken. It's so broken that you're more likely to find one holding a door open than hooked up to a TV... Sure, plug it in and it still plays games, but it's still broken, nonetheless. Sales have declined, the novelty has worn off, and millions of the white plastic boxes sit, collecting dust. Perhaps this is because it was only ever a clever diversion meant to fill the gap until they released their true next gen console, the wii u! And, like I said, it was a smashing success!

Meanwhile, let's look at what Microsoft offered up this year. Well, there is Kinect again. Then there's Kinect, and of course we can't overlook Kinect! Such a broad range of offering compared to last year's E3, when they introduced... Kinect! Wasn't Fable 3 supposed to have some truly amazing Kinect enabled features? It didn't... Seriously, Microsoft? Is this what the best and brightest brains from Berkley and Stanford came up with? The technology is impressive, sure! Everybody goes “oooh!” I mean, did you see the way Kinect captures your face and clothes and turns them into an avatar? Except, well, you can't actually use it as... an avatar... Believe me when I say that the core gamer is chewing through his own leg right now trying to escape your grasp. Kinect is, in fact, coyote ugly! Can't you see that through your bureaucracy? Who the hell is running that place now anyway? Stevie Wonder? How can the best and the brightest America has to offer be so dumb? We used to make heart lung machines... Now, we make Kinect? Let me make this clear, the core gamer will not go hands free until the cable from his xbox plugs directly into his brain. Work on that one...

And Sony is no better... If they're not finding ways to give away our credit card information, then they're too preoccupied with what Microsoft is doing to see the forest for the trees. Let me make this simple, Microsoft is trying to copy Nintendo, and you're trying to copy Microsoft, Sony... See what happened there? Where's Nintendo? They're getting ready to steal all your customers with the cutesy named fire-breathing dragon, the wii u. Will you be caught with your pants down when it burns down your house and steals your children? Well, it doesn't look good. What's your development cycle? 2015, right; that's the estimated date of your new console? Yeah, you might wanna rethink that strategy...

So, the company behind the simple little doorstop with waggle control aren't exactly simpletons, are they. They know gimmicks, and they understand consumers. We're gamers, but we have jobs, we exercise, we spend more time in the sun than you think. When we get home and want to play a game, we don't want to move our coffee tables, because that's where we like to put our feet... when we SIT on our sofas... and PLAY GAMES!!! If Microsoft and Sony insist on ramming motion sensors down our throats, then next Christmas we'll all be getting plenty of exercise doing the Kirby dance on our new Nintendos.

<(^.^<)<(^.^)>(>^.^)> ...all your customers are belong to us.