Messages

14751

Nintendo Gaming / Fire Emblem

« on: February 03, 2003, 12:33:19 PM »

Fire Emblem is likely never ever going to be released in North America so it therefore falls into my "who cares" category because it doesn't affect me in any way.  For those wondering what that sentence means it means that if they annouce a Fire Emblem for Gamecube my response will be "who cares".

It's irritating that they never plan on releasing it here though.  FFT and Ogre Battle is brough over here so why the f*ck don't we get the series that created the whole genre?  Surely it won't sell any worse than Ogre Battle which must at least make enough to be profitable considering it's still released over here.  Nintendo took a risk with Advance Wars and Pokemon and it paid off big time.  Why are they so unwilling to take a risk here with a game with considerably more mainstream appeal than those two "odd" titles?

Guys with swords in a fantasy setting?  My God it's too wacky and Japanese to release in North America!  Now excuse me while I watch Lord of The Rings again.

14752

Nintendo Gaming / A fine line to be number 1

« on: February 03, 2003, 12:18:28 PM »

"Nintendo doesn't care about being number 1, it cares about making a boatload of money. Remember, even though Nintendo is in a tough spot when you look at the sales numbers, the fact of the matter is that it's still making more money than everyone else is overall."

True.  Nintendo doesn't care about being number 1 NOW because they've making a lot of money.  But in the future will they still make a lot of money if they don't at least TRY to be number 1?  There are people who where "burned" by the N64 who still bought a Gamecube because they felt that without the limiting cartridge format Nintendo had a shot of eventually regaining their top spot.  It's not likely they could do it with the Cube but that doesn't matter.  In the eyes of many fans the Gamecube was seen as the first step where Nintendo would slowly gain more and more market share on the road to catching up with Sony.  Now would any of these people have bought a Cube if Nintendo had said outright "We have no plans on regaining the top spot.  Therefore Nintendo fans can continue to expect minimal third party support and a lack of mature titles and RPGS"?  Nintendo fans want Nintendo to be number one again because we know that with the top spot comes the most games.  We saw that with the NES and SNES and that's largely why those consoles are spoken about so fondly and the N64 not so much.  If Nintendo makes it clear that they have no intention of even trying to achieve this then it's less likely that we fans are going to buy the next Nintendo console.  Why buy another Nintendo console if things are never going to improve?  If fans buy less consoles then GAMES are going to sell less which means Nintendo makes less money.  Therefore if Nintendo wants to continue to make money they HAVE to try to be number one or they'll lose customers fed up with Nintendo's refusal to try and improve things.

Now of course the GBA changes things up a bit because it's so successful.  However any negative aspects of their console business will hurt the Nintendo name which in itself hurts the Gameboy.

As for Sony I believe there is only one way they will ever lose their top spot: they must f*ck up in a way where they will lose most of their third party support like Nintendo did.  Then third parties will flock to another console and with them the games and with those the gamers.  Therefore Nintendo should get themselves in a safe number two spot so that if/when this happens they'll be the first choice for all third parties.  As it stands right now Gamecube would likely only get Capcom and Square if such a thing happened now while Xbox would likely get most of the American third parties and Japanese third parties like Sega, Tecmo, and Konami that have either been bribed or hate the Gamecube.

14753

Nintendo Gaming / GameCube's Appeal to the Teen Audience

« on: February 03, 2003, 11:50:22 AM »

"Here's the question: Judging by the total and average sales, is Nintendo offering a platform for everybody hurting them by possibly making a platform that's not quite good enough for anybody? Think broadly about the market, not personal satisfaction."

This a very interesting point and surprisingly no one has responded to it.

I don't the problem is that the Gamecube is targetted towards everybody.  The PS2 is a huge success because it has something for everybody so that's not a bad strategy for Nintendo to emulate.  I think the problem is that the Gamecube is for everybody but it's not marketed as such.

The Xbox is without a doubt aimed towards teens and young adults.  It's games are mostly targetted to that demographic and its ads are targetted to that demographic.  The Xbox IS a console for the "mature gamer".  It doesn' t really have anything that's appealing to anyone else.

The PS2 is marketted towards everybody.  It has mature games but it doesn't promote itself as a console only for adults.  It has kids games but it doesn't just focus on them either.  Though it appears to target teens it really has very neutral marketing.  Whenever you see a generic PS2 commerical (ie: not for a specific game) the console doesn't focus on any one genre or demographic of games.  The PS2 is shown as an electronic device like a PC or television that ALL people can enjoy.  It's an entertainment machine and that's what it is advertised as.  It is as "cool" or trendy as any electronic device.

The Gamecube's marketing is all over the place which is likely why people are unsure of it.  Sometimes it's promoted as a toy and sometimes it's promoted as hip and cool.  Like the PS2 the Gamecube has games for everyone and therefore should be marketed in a similar way.  Instead the marketing is all over the place.  An advertisement for something like Mario has a very "this game is a for chidren" feel to it with people dressed in goofy costumes like you would see on Barney.  Is the game only for children?  No, but to the average consumer it sure looks that way.  Something like Metroid on the other hand is promoted as being hip and cool and for older gamers.  So you've got two extremes and therefore consumers are confused.  Who is the Gamecube targetted towards?

Now you're probably thinking "well the PS2 markets its games the same way with adult games targetted at adults, etc".  Well that's not exactly true.  A lot PS2 game ads still have a very neutral feel to them.  Many of them show a lot of in game footage while Gamecube ads show very little.  Why does this make a difference?  By showing just the game the consumer can see firsthand whether or not that game is for them.  Something like Jak & Daxter was obviously targetted more towards younger gamers but it didn't have anything particularly "kiddy" in its advertisements.  Its ads were very neutral.  The game was shown and the consumer is left to decide if the game is for them.  They can tell for the most part that the game is more for kids but they don't get a big over-the-top "THIS GAME IS KIDDY" message from the commercial.  The GTA ads are the same way.  You can tell the game has guns in it and is very crime based but you don't have anyone telling you "this game is cool".  Because the consumer sees mostly game footage they get to see what the game looks like and get a general idea of what it's about.  Everything has a very "Here it is. Do you think this game is interesting?" feel to it.  It's neutral and everyone can see the commercial and immediately understand what it's about.  The commericial is targetted towards everybody just as the console is for everybody.

With Gamecube ads there isn't very much game footage so the consumer can get confused about exactly what the game is about.  They therefore have to look at the rest of the ad to figure it out to the best of their abilities and they're likely to get misinformed.  "The Mario ad is full of dancing losers in costumes so I guess it's a kids game.  Metroid's ad has a dark sci-fi feel to it so I guess it's for adults."  One commericial is targetted towards adults and the other to kids.  Neither commericial is targetted to everybody which is the console's target demographic.  We all love the Japanese Metroid Prime commerical yet all it shows is gameplay footage.  So why do we all like it?  Because it's a very neutral commercial and therefore the commericial is targetted towards everybody even if the game itself isn't.  The Gamecube is for everybody so the Metroid Prime commercial is for everybody.

I don't think this is Nintendo only problem but it's one of them.  The console is for everyone and that's a good strategy.  They just have to make it so that the marketting appeals to everyone even if specific games don't.

14754

Nintendo Gaming / Skies of Arcadia - best GC RPG

« on: February 03, 2003, 10:51:50 AM »

I've rented Skies for the week so I can write a sample review for it for a website (they want something at most two months old which is pretty dumb considering nothing ever comes out in January or December) and so far I like it a lot.  The storyline isn't all dark and gloomy like most of Square's stuff and the hero is actually a HERO instead of a relunctant anti-hero which is a nice change of pace.  One thing I really like about it is that the game is actually full 3D.  So many RPGs are made with fixed camera angles which I find frustrating because I can't go whereever I want and it's difficult to determine what objects the characters can interact with.

My only real gripe is the random battles but I hate ALL random battles so that's more of a flaw with traditional RPG design than anything else.  Realistically after playing the Chrono games and Super Mario RPG I think it's pretty silly for designers to expect me to accept random battles.  There's no technical reason for them; all of the current consoles could easily handle the onscreen enemies.  I don't think anyone could successfully argue that being blindly attacked out of nowhere is more fun then seeing the enemies and therefore having the option to fight or avoid them.  Anyway mini-rant aside the rest of the game is good enough to deal with the random battles though I imagine if I ever played the Dreamcast version (which supposedly has more frequent battles) I would likely have given up on it.  The ship battles on the other hand are a blast (no pun intended) and I really wish they were more common.  It's pretty cool to see an RPG with different types of battles.  Most games likely would have made ship battles the same as regular battles but with the ships as the characters.

14755

Nintendo Gaming / w00t. First Topic Ahoy.

« on: February 01, 2003, 06:29:23 PM »

No avatars, eh?  Well that's going to take some getting used to.  I always found it easier to identify posters by their avatar instead of their name.  But if it's not possible then there's no use complaining about it.

Coolest thing about these new forums: I now have a space seperating my first and last name!  Oh and no full screen popup ads is good too.