They haven't been dominating the "next-gen" games market. Nintendo is in a demographic by themselves. They market the Wii to a different general audience. They've been going after the casual gamers for a long time with the Wii. Nintendo's Wii has been selling well because they go after everyone else. Wii Fit, and other casual, instant access games have been the predominating factor for the majority of system and game sales. They have some main titles that appeal to the Nintendo loyal (I was 14 years ago), but beyond that following, there's little to cater to the core gamer focus. Sony and MS are the only ones with true "next-gen consoles" offering superior functionality and hardware performance. Every new generation of consoles that come out, typical gamers demand better performance. Not just in graphics, but sound and innovation. They want games that push the envelope of console technology.

It's been that way since I was 7 years old when I started playing on my Atari 2600 Jr. Beyond that, I went to the SEGA Master System, far and above the Atari 2600. Beyond that, I went to the SEGA Genesis (Mega Drive in European countries). I got my NES in 1990 and loved it. Then I got my SNES in 1992 and loved it for years. I got a tonne of great games for it. TMNT4: Turtles in Time, the original Street Fighter II, Super Metroid, and many more. When I turned 17 in 1996, I got my first PlayStation. It was the first console I owned that I had over 50 games for. Especially as an RPGamer, it was a golden age. PS2 and the original Xbox, as well as Nintendo's own GameCube pushed the envelope on games performance. Nintendo's GC was even beyond the PS2 with it's superior ATi Hollywood GPU. It delivered some great graphics in many games. My favourite on the system, and the reason I got a GC was Tales of Symphonia. Now we are in the third generation of modern consoles, and while Sony and Microsoft took a step forward in technology, Nintendo took a step back. The first time in history a modern console did so. They employed the near copy of the CPU of the GC and the same GPU as the GC, and coupled the system to a fancier, albeit highly inaccurate, motion controller. Because of that, Nintendo can market the system, relatively inexpensively to the non-gaming masses and can enjoy great sales.

For those of us who keep up with the new technology, we're often labeled "graphics whores" by Nintendo fans. We're not graphics whores, we simply like to see more advanced technology from the new generations of consoles we purchase. The PS3 is the best example of new technology in this new generation that has recently been made very affordable to the mainstream gamers. Blu-ray's superior capacity, built-in wireless network connectivity, a painless PSN ID system, a superior CPU/GPU, built in 1.3a HDMI standard. Free online network game playability, and the ability to change out it's HDD with another standardised laptop HDD is the name of the game. The PS3 is the culmination of this new gen's technology demands. The PS3 is on a 10 year plan to deliver the best current-gen games the market can offer. Many developers are jumping on the bandwagon, including the elusive Square-Enix with the definitive version of Star Ocean 4 coming to the PS3 with it's International version. PS3 is the wave of the near future.

The Wii dominating the current-gen market? Maybe in sales alone. But in core game support, it falls even behind the 360 for gamers like me who have been gaming for over 20 years.