A reader is frustrated by the recent conduct of Sony and Microsoft and hopes that Nintendo’s new console will force them to up their game.
The latest Reader’s Feature looks forward to the Nintendo Switch 2, not just for its own sake but as a means to shake Xbox and PlayStation into action.
Microsoft has, quite rightly, got a lot of criticism lately about its competence. Things like announcing Indiana Jones And The Great Circle for PlayStation 5 straight away – which doesn’t do anything but put people off from buying an Xbox or Game Pass – seems like rank stupidity. Over the last two generations it’s hard not to get the impression that Microsoft just isn’t very good at being a video games company. But it’s not just them.
Nobody knows what’s been going on with Sony the last two years but one of the most common theories involves them abandoning everything that’s made them a success in the last 30 years in favour of a passing fad – one that’s already proving to be so short-lived that Sony has now started a U-turn that’s going to take them the same amount of time again to complete.
Maybe that’s not what’s going on, maybe it’s something even dumber, but whatever is happening at PlayStation HQ right now it gives the distinct impression that nobody in charge has a clue what they’re doing. To which I can only say, thank goodness for Nintendo.
Now, Nintendo is not exactly immune to stupid mistakes. As with PlayStation at the moment, we have no idea what they were thinking in the last few years of the Wii, and in the run-up to the Wii U, and we probably never will. But the solution to their mistakes was not to try and leap on the first bandwagon that passed by, but instead to dig themselves out of the hole with their own hard work, with yet more weird ideas – only these ones were popular.
The Switch may end up being the best-selling console of all time and it’s completely deserved, in terms of the console itself (whose basic design is probably going to influence the next gen Xbox, if not the PlayStation 6 as well) and its games.
All this generation, Nintendo has been shockingly competent in almost everything it’s done. Almost all their first party games have been good, all their business decisions have made sense, and they’ve not even been that anti-consumer (although their handling of Joy-Con drift wasn’t great).
Compare them to Xbox and PlayStation and they feel very much like the grown-ups in the room. Which they are, in a way, given their experience, but even Xbox has been around for 23 years now. They should be better at this. They shouldn’t be making so many schoolboy errors and they shouldn’t look so incompetent and lost compared to a company that’s a fraction of their size.
I’m not here to praise Nintendo so much as I am to criticise Microsoft and Sony, who have been frankly embarrassing for years now. Maybe the next gen Nintendo console will be another Wii U flop, there’s every chance, but I’d bet on it not being.
What I’m expecting is a sensible evolution, with a few wacky features on top, and an exciting suite of first party games and an unusual amount of third party support. If that’s what it is then it’s going to breath new life into the whole of gaming, and not before time.
It’s going to show up Microsoft and Sony as the lazy, complacent goofs that they are. Hopefully it’ll inspire them to do better but the reason I have faith in Nintendo is that they understand what gaming is all about. It’s not a secret, any gamer could tell you, but apparently not every publisher.
The only thing that matters is the games and the only thing that matters when buying a new console is the exclusive games. Everything else is secondary.
Microsoft never seems to have understood this and Sony has somehow forgotten in the space of just a few years. If they can’t force themselves to remember then they’re going to be steamrollered by Nintendo and I’ll have no sympathy at all when it happens.
By reader Tom Meadows
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at [email protected] or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email.
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