That was an interesting article, and I don't find it anti-nintendo at all. As for IGN, I do think it's more how they word things rather than what they say... had this article been written by an IGN staffer, I can't help but feel it would have been worded more harshly. But here on PGC it was written in a more concerned way. I have a few things to say however...
Although I do believe NOA should be given more juristiction in the USA market, I don't subscribe to the idea of them becoming exactly like what the competition is, one of the things I've always liked is their uniqueness. I seriously don't want to see Nintendo start to heavily capitalize on the "sex sells" mentality for example, if you need something like that to sell a product, then it just shows that you don't have enough faith in the quality of your products. I'd say NOA needs more freedom, but they shouldnt be allowed to go *too* far and end up changing some of the things that make Nintendo special.
Also, someone mentioned how it wouldnt be feasible to make the hardware diffrent in each region... well, I think that would be fairly useless to begin with. Both offices just need to co-operate on a middle ground and compromise, or try to integrate things in a modular way.
For example, many people disagree with Nintendo's philosophy of having adaptors, but I think that's the best approach. Building online-capability INSIDE the system is not a good buisness descision, when only 1-2 percent of the gaming market uses it, it's a much better plan to make an adaptor, therefore reducing the console's price, which keeps your console at a lower price then the competition, and then you can have an "online bundle pack" priced at the same price as a competitor's console, therefore leveling the playfield.
This modular mentality would allow you to have add-ons that wouldnt be popular in japan boxed seperately, and in the USA, you could have optional bundle packs, and so on.
Another related point to the above, I suppose the speculation and rumors about the Revolution controller do seem a little freaky... as little marketshare as fighting and 2D games have, it seems a shame to ditch our roots like that. However I read one interesting idea that states that maybe what they'll create is a kind of an analog stick that may be capable of converting into an input device that would simulate digital input, sort of like you change the configuration, and the stick's movement is restricted to a more confined area of movement, therefore changing it into something like arcade joysticks. Or something else, it's do-able, but would require a lot of testing and concepts to get right.
Another idea that I personally had, is maybe Nintendo could create a special program (not in the software sense) that developers sign up to, so they can create custom input devices. If a developer wants to create a unique game that requires a special input method, they'd sign up and work with Nintendo to quickly create their device, and then bundle it with the game. After all, as much as people complain about first-party controllers, it's not a big deal to just get a third party controller that often costs less then the first-party ones, and end up with exactly what you want. Also, every game that would need that controller thereafter could have a bundle pack, and as that particular controller becomes more widespread, they'd incrementally reduce the amount of bundles initially produced with each game that requires the particular controller. As for people that would say they don't want to spend more cash on extra controllers, well, who knows, maybe it'll be attractively priced. And modularity in input devices wouldnt nessesarily be a bad thing, it's never been possible to create a controller that is 100% optimal for every single game genre. And there would really only have to be a few of these extras to really fill the gaps.
As for demo discs, I definitely think that needs to continue, but you know, I don't know if that's much of a point anymore, Nintendo HAS been experimenting with it, which means the idea has definitely caught their eye, they'll likely do the numbers and maybe soon we'll finally have them with NP. It would definitely motivate me to resubscribe for sure. (the only reason I did it last year was for the zelda disc, I've hardly read any of the mags I got)
Oh, and I know this is a tired point... but people still seem to be saying Nintendo's statements about online aren't true...
Well, I touched on this above to make another point, but yeah... for the small amount of people that play online games, tell me how it's a sane buisness descision to dump a wad of cash into it? I mean Sony's "online plans" are *exactly* the same as Nintendo's, theres no diffrence between the two. Sony gives the message "here's the hardware, do it yourself" and Nintendo gives the same message. Microsoft is losing an insane amount of money that no other company in the world could ever afford to lose by providing the kind of online service that they do, with a pathetic amount of subscribers when you compare it to the amount of total users that own the console. It's just silly. Many before me have likely made this point... but yeah, when Nintendo does online, they'll do it RIGHT.
Anyways, this post is already huge as it is, I had a lot to say...
But I have to go for now. Anyways, thanks for reading, and again, great article.
/azalyn
Topic: Editorial: Free NOA! (Read 22550 times)
