Topic: 1-up names their top 5 gaming disasters of the last decade.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3177939

This is an article from 1-up game site about the top 5 gaming disasters of the past decade. You can click this link for the 1-up comments take - for this topic let us get the reaction from Joe Everyman - me.

#5. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 

Wait - what is this? I have never heard of this. A movie?

#1. Duke Nukem Forever, never 
Day of Infamy: May 18, 2009

This is hardly a disaster. I mean for the entire game industry? How about SEGA imploding? One Duke Nukem game? Its not like the Shooter genre is lacking for game development…no sale.

I love the politics of game reporting - it is mandatory to have the Big 3 represented in a feature like this - lets compare these so called disasters, shall we?

#4. Nintendo's "Connectivity" 
Day of Infamy: May 13, 2003 

#3.Sony's $599 
Day of Infamy: May 8, 2006 

#2. Microsoft's Red Ring of Death 
Day of Infamy: 2006-2008 

#3 and #2 are kind of self explanatory - #4 is Nintendo using E-3 to promote the Gamecube and GBA with connectivity software. That’s - a disaster? Pac Man VS, Four Swords adventure and Crystal Chronicles? It has been easy cheese for the gaming industry if this is all that there is to make me dab my eyes for Nintendo. I wonder if there is more to the game market then just winning the love letter gaming press editorial after an E-3. Maybe profit or loss and sustainable business is an acceptable consolation prize?

Let us look at the balance sheets, the operating income for the gaming division of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, so we can gauage their respective disasters….disaster years bolded.

Y/E 2002 Sony $629,101,056 Nintendo $895,872,180 MS -$1,135,000,000
Y/E 2003 Sony $935,569,253 Nintendo $834,333,333 MS -$1,191,000,000 (Year of E-3 ineptitude and infamy)
Y/E 2004 Sony $627,195,212 Nintendo $993,161,303 MS -$1,337,000,000
Y/E 2005 Sony $419,888,799 Nintendo $1,056,056,202 MS -$539,000,000
Y/E 2006 Sony $69,129,058 Nintendo $774,478,055 MS -$1,339,000,000
Y/E 2007 Sony -$1,970,923,859 Nintendo $1,914,666,388 MS -$1,969,000,000
Y/E 2008 Sony -$1,079,994,103 Nintendo $4,322,637,887 MS $426,000,000
Y/E 2009 Sony -$664,313,787 Nintendo $5,691,428,301 MS $169,000,000

Looks like Nintendo did OK in 2003.….2 billion in front of Microsoft and within a hundred million of Sony. Eight hundred and thirty four million in the black is not too bad….

So lets think a little deeper.

If the Rrod and the high launch price of PS3 are the two of the biggest disasters of the last decade - what does that say about the dawn of high definition console gaming? PS3 has ruined the solid empire Sony slowly built up with PS1/PS2 - present day, PS2 is finally out of gas, PSP is dead in the water, and PS3 destroyed the 3rd party exclusive juggernaut PS2 built up - to say nothing of turning a profitable gaming division into the Titanic. At best, Sony is in a rebuilding stage at present.

Meanwhile - Microsoft has set a new standard for faulty consoles, burned money to the extreme, and continues to transform console gaming into PC gaming, Do you think LIVE subscription rates will stay at present rate for much longer? Lulz. I wonder if LIVE - with all its revenue, even turns a profit? Who knows? All that I do know is Sony following MS down the rabbit hole has not been healthy. Is 360 good for the game consumer? What does LIVE marketplace portend for traditional game console values?

And does this mean we cannot criticize the Wii for being ‘underpowered’ at launch anymore? Because I am thinking Sony and Micrsoft might not even break even this generation. And - if they do - how much money will have Nintendo made in that span - when they get to zero? It might have been a true disater had Nintendo launched with a $600 console, instead of with Wii Sports. Is it really a bad thing to be responsible financially, and have price reflect cost?

It is not like the other shoe has not dropped for consumers of current HD consoles, you have subscription internet fees for online play, 20% higher new game costs, additional DLC fees becoming essential for 3rd parties like EA to maybe break even this year, longer dev times, less risk taking - (that is to say more reliance on established franchises in favor of new ones), budgets breaking smaller publishers -and shrinking larger ones through layoffs and restructuring. The industry contracted last year very few major publishers - aside form Nintendo and Activision - were in the black in 2009. Why?

Your thoughts, comments, and discussion, please. Feel free to read the source article in its entire form.

2003 never happened

#5. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Wait - what is this? I have never heard of this. A movie?

How have you not heard of that?

Connectivity, a disaster? Bah, 4 Swords Adventures and Pac Man Vs. are amongst the finest multiplayer games of all time.

This is quite a suspicious list. Now the E-Reader--there's a disaster for you.

It was a disaster when you look at how 3D Realms botched the development. 13 years for them to finally fire the team and essentially shut down the company for the time being — I'd say that's disastrous.

This list isn't disasters that affected the entire gaming industry, they're blunders. I think we're looking into this too much if we're wheeling out financial figures for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft since 2002.

EDIT: This title is misleading. The feature is for "tragic missteps" and not "disasters." Yes, there is a difference.

I agree with you about the whole "Nintendo's E3 showing in 2003 was not a disaster" thing. It might've been a disappointment, but it's not something that completely made Nintendo fail in the market. As for Duke Nukem Forever, it was a financial failure since an expected more than one million was wasted on the game.

@Panda I agree, these should be called tragic missteps instead. But unfortunately, you're gonna have to talk to Jeremy Parish if you want them changed, which probably won't get you far.

Red Ring of Death is above and beyond the biggest gaming failure of the decade! If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft has hemorrhaged over a billion dollars fixing their bricked systems.

I really enjoyed Pac Man vs. and Four Swords Adventures. Those games are screaming to be re-made/ re-tooled for Wii Ware with online play.

I hated "connectivity". Not being able to play 3 decent games properly because I didn´t want to buy a bunch of connectivity-cables AND A HANDFULL OF GBA SYSTEMS... It was a big failure, it was.

I don't know where these numbers came from or how accurate/complete they are... but looking at those negative values is astounding.

Sony is at least 4 years away from breaking even, and that's assuming they start making profits similar to what they were bringing in during the PS2's high-water mark immediately. And I don't want to hazard a guess at how long it would take for MS to even approach the break even point. I know it can be smart to take strategic losses in order to position yourself better for the future, but this is ridiculous.

Nintendo certainly has flaws and problems, but from a business perspective you have to admire their success.

4 Swords and Crystal Chronicles (the first FF game I EVER liked) were two of the best games on Gamecube. So long as you had friends with GBA's it wasn't that much of a stretch.

RROD? I still can't forgive Microsoft for selling me a piece of broken 5h1t (then replacing it with a piece of broken 5h1t), I can't believe that gamers and the industry were so forgiving. Disgraceful!!!

As for those cash amounts, woah. Nintendo prints money, S&M burn it!

No, they are called Tragic Missteps in the feature. The OP is the one calling them disasters.

@Panda My bad.

I dunno. The RRoD and the $599 PS3 could have been considered disastrous

The problem being that it was a terrible setup to play them. That, and they touted it as their answer to online gaming.