7Prime's Journal: Why Apple won and Why Nintendo will...

I'm going to make a fairly bold statement that will go against the current grain of many analysts and gaming editorialists: Nintendo will win the coming console war. It will seem fairly unintentional and noncompetitive publicly, and they will win precisely because of that. The reason has nothing to do with gizmos, sexy stats, promises of multiple add-on services or even basic functionality, but by sheer public persona.

Consumers use their purchases to help define themselves as individuals: "I'm a Ford guy", "I'm a Windows kinda girl", "I'm the kind of person who won't shop at Walmart". But people are very sensitive to the issue of mass consumerism to the extent that they don't want to outwardly appear, to themselves or to others, to be simply following current trends. People wish to feel in some way enlightened, while at the same time having the security of following the actions of their pears. What are you willing to pay for feelings of enlightenment? Well, as it appears, quite a bit.

Apple struck a chord with people when it introduced the Think Different campaign, shortly preceding the launch of the iPod; endearing itself to consumers as the bastions of innovation and individuality. Consumers were willing to pay (and pay quite a lot), to buy into this "enlightening" product line... and I'm no exception. Let's be fair, Apple's innovation was legitimate, the idea of putting a video-editing-style shuttle wheel on a portable music device was a very clever one, indeed, but the effect wasn't nearly as appealing as the feeling consumers got when they felt like they were buying into innovation itself. No one has been able to touch the iPod, because Apple are the good guys, and therefor everyone else is the enemy of individuality. Are the other products as good? Probably. Do they have the functionality that people need and are willing to pay for, even above and beyond Apple's line? Certainly, some do. But until one company steps forward to replace Apple as the supposed kings of innovation and individuality, the iPod will continue to dominate.

Enter Nintendo, a company who I've always felt (and written about) portrayed a similar public persona and philosophy: appearing noncompetitive, "friendly" products, not afraid to take risks with their products, innovative design and user philosophies. While the other guys are duking it out with objective system specs, and add-on features, Nintendo announces the Revolution, which by it's design interface, looks to take the gaming world in a completely new direction. They downplay any system specs and make no move to challenge Sony or Microsoft—on the contrary, having such a distinctive product makes competition with them seem fairly benign. Suddenly, Nintendo has secured themselves, with gaming audiences, as the bastions of innovation and individual thinking. This comes at a time when the gaming community is quickly recognizing that the source of their entertainment is being championed by large corporations who are utilizing closely monitored social analysis to develop their products; the idea of being a corporate whore is not a positive one. A truly independent company does not have much of a chance being able to reach large audiences, but Nintendo offers a close alternative: a large enough company to have significant market penetration while retaining the identity of a smaller, more agile, more "independently minded" company. The Revolution is bound to be the gaming industry's iPod; for Nintendo offers its audience the chance to feel neither more powerful, faster, or stronger, but more empowered, more innovative, and more enlightened. And in this case, they're not simply selling enlightenment, but selling enlightenment cheaply, at a third the price of the cold, corporate competition.