The Truth About Nintendo – Part One

"From the looks of Nintendo sites over the past few years, you would think Nintendo is about to pull another Sega.

“Frankly, I'm coming to the conclusion that Nintendo will never be "king" again, simply because they're a 1st party that acts like a third party (that cares only about its own games).” said long-time Nintendo writer Michael Cole in a recent special at PlanetGameCube.com.

Even some of our past editorial writers, such as Phillip Levin, have talked about Nintendo’s market dominance as long gone. “Nintendo can be number one again. But is Nintendo willing to do it? We’ll have to wait and see.” (Nintendo Analysis 4.)

There’s no way around it: what you’re about to read will surprise you. Some of you may want to print this article off and read it in a quiet, secluded place. Others will want to chew in short bites, taking large breaths and gulps of water during breaks. Undoubtedly, this article will challenge many of your preconceived notions about the Big N, and possibly change the way you see the video games systems war forever.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the pages of your normal Sony Fan magazine, or even the gullible, droning editorials of many Nintendo sites, Nintendo actually won the hardware race in 2004. In fact, Nintendo sold so many systems in 2004 that, in most cases, Nintendo outsold Sony and Microsoft’s systems combined.

This is no joke -- and that’s not the only battle Nintendo won. As I’ll reveal and analyze over the next three weeks, Nintendo has also made more money, sold more games and made better games than its competition’s video game sectors.

The numbers aren’t hard to dig up. Weekly, Media Create releases sales numbers in Japan for both hardware and software, and NPD Group in America reports hardware and software sales numbers by the month. Call it laziness or just plain dishonesty, but the mainstream press in America has successfully twisted the facts about the hardware sales race, and we as Nintendo gamers have bought into the myth that Nintendo is #3 behind Microsoft and Sony.

But no more. Call this editorial a call to arms. Call it a reawakening. Whatever you call it, know this: these are no Nintendo talking points, and this is not a fanboy “gotcha!” treatise looking at how the GameCube outsold the Xbox by ten systems in April 2004. And this is no console bash party trying to put down Sony and Microsoft. No: in my usual, freethinking style, I’ve simply done the research and have come out with results that, if you’ve been reading the mainstream press lately, will surprise you." [more]