Nintendo Europe Criticizes Microsoft On Console Transitions

Nintendo of Europe MD David Gosen has spoken out against companies, particularly Microsoft, attempting to drive the industry to a hardware transition too early and for the games media for focusing too much on future titles and hardware. Speaking at the ELSPA Games Summit in London, Gosen described the industry's current generational cycle as a "self-fulfilling prophecy." Although he admitted that it was too late to change the cycle this time around, he argued that it was vital that the industry break out of it in the future. On Microsoft he commented that, “In every cycle, some manufacturer not profiting from the current cycle is eager to kick-start the next one," and went on to suggest that being first to market was not necessarily as important as it may seem, quoting the example of failed consoles such as the 3DO, Saturn and Dreamcast which launched well ahead of rival systems. He also criticized the games media for focusing too much on next generation software and hardware, to the exclusion of the current generation. "For every game magazine editor bored with current products, there are hundreds of thousands of gamers around the world just discovering them," he said. Source: gamesindustry.biz