PROLOGUE: If you think everyone should share your view of reality, or if you become enraged when encountering a difference of opinion, I advise you to skip this post. In other words, hang on, Nintendo fans. This is gonna hurt:

Nintendo is expected to pull a Netflix and and pile on even more crap numbers this Thursday, adding to the already crappy quarterlies they’ve posted over the last year.

In the comment thread of the above article, one observer reacted as follows: “3DS will $99 soon and likely discontinued.”

I wouldn’t go quite that far. But I could see 3DS being discontinued prematurely. Whether that’s “soon” or not remains to be seen. But there’s no other way to put it: This thing is a sinking ship. Not Titanic fast or Virtual Boy fast. But fast enough to search the deck for life boats.

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In addition to stand alone GPS, recordable optical discs, e-readers, low-end digital cameras, and DVD players, Yahoo Shopping predicts video game consoles will also be extinct by 2020.

Popular video game systems such as the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox may still be in homes next decade, but they will look much different. Rather than buy a separate console, Enderle expects that consumers will instead buy smart televisions with a gaming system built into it, not to mention tablets and smartphones that will continue to ramp up their gaming options.

“It looks like analog game systems won’t make it until the end of the decade,” Enderle says. “You are already seeing the Wii have a tough time holding on to the market and PlayStation has been struggling for a while.” The gaming systems that will succeed in the future will be those that manage to move away from being focused solely on video games and more on other entertainment options such as movies, evolving from a traditional game console into more of a set-top box.

Thanks, Ben.

Nintendo has a rich history of innovative and gameplay contributing hardware. You know: new hardware twists that improve the way we interactive with games. Having played all of the company’s systems since 1986, here’s how I’d rank ‘em in terms of most gameplay enabling to least gameplay enabling:

1. Nintendo DS. Whose to blame for the ongoing touch gaming revolution? This little guy. Not only that, the DS lends itself better to virtually every genre ever created. Talk about adaptive hardware. Consequently, it’s the best-selling video game system ever (console or handheld, whether made by Nintendo or not). Talk about well received.
2. Nintendo Entertainment System. Directional pads and face buttons might not have existed if it weren’t for this gray box. Joysticks are retro-chic and all, but they’re horribly imprecise when compared to gamepads that the NES pioneered. In fact, some of the best Wii and iOS games mimic the NES joypad (Wiimote turned sideways or on screen d-pad and two face buttons).
3. Wii. The only thing that keeps this from being higher on my list is the limited number of genres that benefit from motion control. Obviously, Wii works great for a lot of games, including apparatus sports (tennis, golf, bowling, etc), arcade shooters, and puzzlers, but other popular genres like platformers, first and third-person games, and others are better served overall with a gamepad. The current gaming landscape is a testament to that.  (more…)

We play for the games, that’s for sure. But it’s hard not to hold a soft spot for the last thing you see before escaping.  (more…)

Just as the Wii is seriously cooling down, Game Informer reports, citing multiple sources, that Nintendo will announce a “competitive” HD console at E3 “this summer, if not sooner.” From the report:

In fact, Nintendo is already showing publishers the system in an effort to get them interested and allow them plenty of time to start developing titles in anticipation of the system’s reported late 2012 launch. This advance support marks a change from when the Wii launched. At that time, several Western publishers were outright surprised by the announcement, and it affected the software support for the platform…  (more…)