Ahhh Nintendo.. I know you hate me

People seem to think I hate Nintendo. I really don't. We as gamers owe a lot of current gen innovation to them. They are a great company that does great things. And with the exception of the stupid Game Cube and it's playskool controller, I've been excited over every announcement they make.

My beef with them is that they are pretty sadistic and their fans have to be masochistic.

In my experience this all started during the gameboy era. Nintendo rules handhelds and always have. I mean the Game Gear was ok but it had too many problems.  Lynx was garbage so you would be better off with those Tiger games.

From gameboy to gameboy pocket... A more portable version of a portable system... Ok.. Sure.. Why not? The gameboy was pretty bulky... Gameboy color... Wait .. What? Ok anything beats cream broccoli colour.. Fine.. Even though the so called "color" mechanic was pretty crappy.. I can deal. Gameboy advance... 32-bit in the palm of my hand!!! AWESOME!! No 3D processing... FAIL!.. But they made the most of it and some pretty great games did come out for it.  Gameboy Advance SP.. This was the beginning of the end for me. I jumped ship to PSX because I wanted to play some next gen and the 64/GBA wasn't cutting it. Mainly because nintendo started pulling a sega by forcing peripherals on me. The graphics pak with the 64 and the headphone jack addon you need for the GBA SP.

So I hopped on Sony's bandwagon and for 10 years they took care of me. Wow a life span of 10 years... How old school nintendo! Naturally you'd think I would move on to ps2.. Nope... Original Xbox.. It was the Tim Taylor of consoles. MORE POWER! But it want selling as well as the ps2 so even though it angered me to see them leapfrog Sony, I didnt get too angry. But the ps2 was still being supported.  I guess it made sense because the ps2 was once again on it's way to selling 100 million ... Again.

Back to nintendo.  When the Wii bust out of the gate selling like hot cakes, I was impressed. I thought.. "Nice. They took an inferior system and marketed it so well." But I saw the pedobear come out of nintendo almost instantly. Over priced EVERYTHING on a system full of shovelware. But people ate It up for whatever reason.  Skip ahead.. Wii is out selling everything. It has zero reason to release a new system and almost 80 million reasons to support the current one.  But why would they when they know their fans are going to buy plastic peripherals, headphone jacks and classic controllers to make their repurposed games payable. And going out to buy a new controller to make your console backwards compatible. .. So weird you guys.

I know what you may be thinking, 5 years between consoles is not unusual. It's not. . when your console is in 2nd or 3rd place and you are competing for market space. Our even when your console is dying (which is why the DS despite it's iterations gets excused) but the wii should be in it's prime. Why cut the head off a popular system when you can easily extend it's life? ANSWER: Your fans are casual gamers that dont know any better. Nintendo relies on brand loyalty which is fine.

I like nintendo.. I admire the way they advance and innovate the industry but I'm not exactly sure they want me to like games. But thats a whole other entry.

(keep in mind I prefer the original xbox over the ps2) Sony has the best idea.. Support your console till it's dead... And beyond.. (pspgo says hi) The way the original nintendo did and the way microsoft is doing now.

in fact, kudos to Microsoft. The 360 is an inferior machine from a tech pov when compared to the ps3 but they manage to do extremely well.

With all that being said.. I'm looking forward to nintendo's new system. It sounds awesome... In fact, it sounds like what I want in a console. A ton of innovation seems to be placed in it.  But is the wii going to die needlessly because of it? Do I have to buy peripherals to make it backwards compatible? Am I going to have to buy another console at the apex of the new system's popularity? Will there be less shovelware?

I would love to jump back on their bandwagon but if the console is going to get killed a year or two after I get it... Why bother?