Well in reality the first real GIMMICK in gaming had to be Sing Star which was Sony and then the Eye Toy games again which were Sony...Sony gave Nintendo an idea, at the time of the Gamecubes height Sony were outselling Microsoft and Nintendo both at an average rate of 5:1 thats pretty harsh I'll put the DC and PS1 up for you 15:1 was an average outsell rate 15 PS1 for every DC sold worldwide. Sony killed and half buried Sega before the Cube and the Xbox were even out. Nintendo however had once again made a mistake, they'd released a console which had failed to improve remarkably upon the ps1 compared to the xbox and ps2 the cube was remarkably disappointing.

Preferring to use their own disc format didn't help either to be honest, Sony have suceeded with Blu-ray because Sony turned it's monstrous electrical goods department and entertainment departments to it too. Blu-Ray became a format of the next generation movie as well and alongside the release of the Blu-Ray ps3 came the Blu-ray player where Sony leads, others will follow it's that simple. MS used CDs and then DVDs just like Sony did the next MS console is likely to use Blu-ray since HD-DVD failed miserably against Blu-Ray. Already PC's can be brought with Blu-Ray drives installed so we can see that Blu-ray is indeed the future. However enough of my going on about formats, the Cube was a remarkable disappointment compared to the ps2 and xbox enough said.

When the 360 came out of the closet and in to the world I think Nintendo knew whatever Sony produced if it was on par or better than the 360 they'd never win a stand up fight microsoft and sony by this point were too big and had taken too much of the market. Without a huge chunk of the market left in the "hardcore" or "professional" gamers market the company looked elsewhere and found it's niche, Nintendo focussed on minority gamer groups such as girls, older people and the younger children they made gaming fun for parties however look at the power of their console.

Nintendo will not compete on the same level in the same way with Sony or MS again ever when it comes to games consoles they narrowly avoided becomming nothing more than a software label with the Wii, it was an incredible gambit and it has paid off for them hats off. As for the other two, well yes they will change they have to, nintendo's gambit has seen the under powered non-serious "no threat" console prove them all wrong. Nintendo's last gambit saved them and it's put sony and microsoft on their back foot.

However Sony and MS realize they have the serious gaming prospects and will not turn their back on the market completely. Expect to see more gimmicky games such as Guitar hero, Rock Band, Sing Star, Eye Toy comming out which will utilize many new and gimmicky control pads ect but do not expect the consoles to be low power, short burst wii-clones we will not be seeing the Pii or Xii but I seriously doubt the dual control stick, d-pad, trigger shoulder button and thumb button pads are a thing of the past even for the next series of consoles. I reckon we might see more options to use those gimmick control pads but we won't be forced to if anything I reckon we might even see the option of a XBOX certified keyboard and mouse combination on the next one.