Nintendo had a monopoly on the industry with the NES, but that didn't seem to stop Sega from taking away half the market from them- Sony's dominion is no excuse for Microsoft's poor entry.
While I agree that Nintendo needs to diversify, they already are to some extent. And besides that, you can't act like your opinion on Nintendo's games is the way it IS. Nintendo's lack or constant originality is not the reason for poor sales, either- the same old crap sells over and over again on other systems. Not to say that it ISN'T a problem, not at all, just that it isn't THE problem. The real reason Nintendo's isn't doing as good as they should is lack of 3rd party support- Nintendo has a particular style of games, as does every developer, and without the necessary 3rd parties to fill in the of the gaps, the only people Nintendo's consoles really attract are Nintendo fans. It really goes back to what Ty said- people don't buy a PS2 for Sony's 1st and 2nd party games, they buy it for the massive amount of variation among the 3rd party titles- there's quite literally something there for everyone, and reaching as many people as possible is what has made the PS2 so popular. You can see this to a smaller extent on the XBox- while it's 3rd party support is much weaker than the PS2's, it's still stronger than the Gamecubes, and I think that's really the only reason Microsoft has made it this far. When you think about it, you're expecting Nintendo to provide the same diversity seen on the PS2 by literally hundreds of 3rd parties by themselves, and if you ask me, they're doing a tremendois job of it. I SERIOUSLY doubt Sony or Microsoft would be doing near as well as Nintendo is given the same amount of 3rd party support- in fact, I think they'd outright fail, so it's a testament to Nintendo's force that they've continued as successfully as they have despite being basically the only major supporter of their consoles. If Nintendo can win back the 3rd party support they had in the NES and SNES days, there would be nothing to keep them from dominating the industry. But until then, they're only attracting fans of their own quirky style, and although it's gotten them this far, they're going to need some real 3rd party support if they expect to go any further.
"Hey I never said fade Mario out completely. I just think they should give the spinoff habit a rest. The Mario platformers should always be a part of Nintendo's lineup."
With that I definitely agree- Nintendo is relying too much on their characters to keep them going, which is not only the reason I think people are getting sick of them but also the reason they have trouble introducing new characters. That's why I was pretty dissapointed that Nintendo's drum game, which is a great way to diversify, is being based in the Donkey Kong franchise, and although it doesn't have as many spinoffs as Mario does, now is definitely not the time to start. I was also really against this Tetra Trackers game- up until now Zelda has always remained pure, with no money grabbing spinoffs. I think Nintendo's afraid that if they don't incorporate their tried and true characters, certain games will fail, but I think that they'd find that with a little push that quite simply isn't true. I understand games like Mario Tennis and Golf are very well made games, but what's to keep them from being their own franchises with their own characters?
Topic: George Harrison answers questions on GameCube 2 (N5) and next Gameboy (Read 19444 times)
