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TalkBack / RE:BLAH BLAH BLAH: GameCube 64

« on: April 06, 2005, 05:03:42 AM »

Wall Street sales data for Japanese firms trading on the Nikkei do prove Nintendo's GameCube is the #1 console in Japan.

That's financial proof. And no financial firm has ever bad-mouthed Nintendo in either America or Japan.

As for what's been said, it's too true. The best quote is that Nintendo is the Apple of gaming.  Maybe these two corps should team-up and release the nMac or the MacCube or something because, in Nintendo's case, if I'm not a Mario-freak (in the same vein as Jesus-freak), then I should move along. However, as also pointed out (by some Microsoft employees and a poster here) Nintendo's games are high quality. Don't fit totally with the Apple comparison (I think Mac software, with the exception of Office, Photoshop, and Illlustrator, suck), but yes, Nintendo is getting that attitude about it.

As for the games, let's look at the most recent release of anything:

Tekken 5 on PS2. Where is a Cube version? Even GBA got a Tekken. Oh, wait, I'm supposed to use the GB Player and, voila! I havce Tekken on the Cube. Sorry, that doesn't fly with me.

Devil May Cry 3.  A real action game that reminds me of old NES games like Castlevania. What's my alternative here? I'll have to get back to this one some other day.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Okay, it's on Cube, but like most games on Cube, it feels cheap, and have yet to discover on-line play. Sorry, but the PS2/Xbox versions have it all over this title.

Tomb Raider (any version). Why not have a Tomb Raider on Cube? Or is it vaporware like Tomb Raider 64 (see an old EGM issue in early 1997 for one sentence from Quartermann). Regardless is the most recent game sucked, still, why no Tomb Raider?

GTA (any version). None. Nada. But I can play GTA  and GTA 2 on my GB Player. Oh, is that what Nintendo's going to say? After all, they didn't approve the prototype in late 1998 for the N64 version, and that's when the rift (yes, there is one) between Take 2 and Nintendo started.

DOOM 3. Wolfenstein. Half-Life 2. Leisure Suit Larry. Do I need to continue? These are games that have sold very well according to both EB Games and GameCrazy's in-store SKU number scans. Alas, no Cube versions. Even in the end, N64 was getting some better games (Resident Evil 2, Quake II, Tony Hawk 3), but this it stupid on Nintendo's part.

From my perspective, Nintendo should do as such:
1) 50c licensing fee per game
2) Linux or Apple Mac OS X system OS core (for easier development)
3) DVD/VCD/DivX movie playback and DVD+/-RW DL support
4) HDTV support
5) hard drive/disk with something like iTunes for downloading music
6) free online support (with ISPs like AOL, MSN, SBC)
7) Cube compatibility, use DS carts as memory cards and allow DS playback thru memcard slot
decent price point ($250 or so)
9) obtain rights and port over third-party games (like Sega did for Master System and Sega CD, except make it better than they did)
and 10) be nice to the retailer chains (Nintendo is the biggest bully on the planet)

Have anymore?

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TalkBack / RE:BLAH BLAH BLAH: GameCube 64

« on: April 05, 2005, 02:22:15 PM »

Hmmm . . . sales data and stock pricing assumes a different story about Nintendo. Acknowledged is that the corp. is always in the green and always makes a profit. Ever wonder who backs them (Panasonic mostly) or how much industry in Japan they own?

Also, why is GameCube #1 in Japan? (Oh, look, a can of worms just opened.) Nintendo has always dominated the Nipponese since 1983, and in Japan, the average gamer there wants high quality. Nintendo makes good, ignores the rest of the world, and there's the profit.

America is a second thought in the Nintendo mind. Sony and Microsoft (and Sega before them) knew that Nintendo stopped caring about the American gamer many, many moons before (back before N64's release). Didn't help that since 1997 (when Street Fighter Alpha 2 was released on SNES) that nothing has really come out to grab the gamers in America. I don't care for shooters much (not Doom type, more like Parodius type), and I hate dating sims and bad games based on anime/manga. (Yes, throw Pokemon right in there). Still, Nintendo doesn't care. In Japan, a gamer can go to 7-11 and buy a flash ROM cart for the SFC and flash a new 16-bit SNES title onto it for the price of an iTunes song. Then, while N64 bombed over there, SFC production of games increased. I believe somebody in the article mentioned about Nintendo's back up cash in GBA and such. Yup, that's how it works. Then nobody over in Japan bought a PS2 (Saturn, Dreamcast, SFC, GameCube over there). Despite the dishonest media spin (amazing what multiple trips to Japan and America can do to filter out the EGM-styled lies), PS2 was sold as a cheap DVD player. Final Fantasy has never sold well in Japan, ergo, why Nintendo didn't care when Square took off in 1997.

Now those are what's happened and where Nintendo stands since 1993 [I mean the whole article and the forum thread, not my rant up above] (the day Cruis'n USA and Killer Instinct appeared, also with Donkey Kong Country/Donkey Kong Land). This article sums up, to me, why I don't play my GameCube: it sucks. The games are boring. And cheap-feeling. Like I'm not getting the whole product compared to the PS2 or Xbox versions. Lately, it has been the Xbox versions that are feeling/playing the best. I had faith behind Nintendo, but not anymore. DS should be BS, and GBA should've been a PS1 outta the box (same freakin' processor power). In 1983, FamiCom was released with the biggest amount of RAM ever seen and the highest resolution for video. No matched till 1987, and in America in 1988, with the high-res EGA cards for PC. In 1990, again, the biggest amount of RAM for a system, the highest resolution at the time, and, just to top it off, a sound chip, if sampled properly, doing excellent sounds (remember certain tunes from certain games on SNES?). Game Boy was, for the time, great. Lotsa RAM, fast 8-bit processor, sound digitizer, stereo . . . and then . . . Virtual Boy (bought mine for $5 at Toys R Us clearance), then N64 . . . c'mon, a cart after we've humped CD-ROMs for almost 7 years by then, and 9 for the Japanese gamer!! Shame shame shame.

GameCube was a dumb idea to start with. Like N64. It's like Sega not using DVDs on Dreamcast (yeah, using GD-ROMs sure did stop piracy).

But the name of the game is to make money, and Nintendo didn't infringe on anybody's patents, and they keep selling, even with the customer dissatisfaction.

In the end, I own all (from an old Odyssey to a PSP) so I don't give a hoot in the end. Just make me some decent games PLZ!!