Topic: BBC to air documentary on Nintendo

[Nintendo]

I just watched this 1 hour documentary from BBC3 and I think this Micheal TYp owes an apology (so-to-speak) to judge it beforehand. Sure, they could've had Professor Harding test Atari and Sony system games on epilepsy symtoms as well. But it was a fair point of distress they made on videogames in general, though it was only discussed for maybe 10 minutes in all, everyone got their say.

The documentary was awesome, amazing interviews, and most important unbiased.
http://www.warppipe.com/bbc/nintendo.avi
Don't thank me, thank Warppipe for the d/l.

[Oldskool]

Once again, Nintendo takes the most precautions, yet gets the blame.

Edit: I'm not referring exculsivly to this program, but to non-gamers blaming gaming in general. I suppose my sister did think my N64 was a "Sega" the first couple of years I owned that.

[Shift Key]

Interesting. I'm going to just have to look for myself, because there are two (or more) sides to every story and it really does seem unfair that Nintendo cops the flak despite all the effort they put into customer awareness.

But these days, everyone knows the console names, but the makers? Nintendo is usually the first answer.

As for epilepsy as a condition, flashing lights almost anywhere can cause an attack. Why not attack the refridgeration industry to abandon the little lights in the fridge? (You might laugh, but I have seen it happen to someone I know) So I am quite angry at this moment, and at the bottom of the page there is a "Making Money the Nintendo Way" which is hilarious.

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~ Sign up Hollywood to make feature films about your company.
~ You may have a family business but you can still sack your cousin from the company.
~ Make the games exciting with lots of colours and flashing lights!
~ Market your main product Mario like he's going out of fashion!

SUPER LOL 5000!

Ok, now on to the half-intelligent responses:

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Be prepared to walk into shops personally and beg them to stock your product.

This one probably has some substance to it, as I can recall Yamauchi and co going to great lengths to get their cards on the market (you've got to start somewhere)

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Maintain a single-minded focus! If some of your more successful competitors like Sony are making games with blood and gore or using big movie franchises it doesn't mean you have to.

LOL! Let's jump off a cliff because Sony did! I really think those are the reasons Sony was successful. IT WAS TEH CARTRIDGEZZZ!

Anyway, I'm gonna rant some more once I finish downloading it.

[jasonditz]

You don't understand it?

Popular new form of entertainment becomes big, threatens existing media outlets.

If video games had been identified with the anti-war movement or some disliked ethnic minority they'd probably be illegal right now.

[KDR_11k]

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Originally posted by: Shifty
~ You may have a family business but you can still sack your cousin from the company.

One of the worst problems of "family businesses" is that they don't fire bad personnel. If you ahve a person that does about 30% of the work the others do but gets full pay, he's redundant and needs to be fired. If you have problems with that because he's your friend he'll drag you down.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

After watching this article, it is clear I was wrong to judge this program prematurely.  However, If I were Libby I'd be going after whomever wrote the press release highly emphasizing the aggressive portions of her report.

The show makes a few half-statistics.  For instance, it mentions the recent European lawsuit on unfair practices, but doesn't point out the suit was concerning actions Nintendo had abanndoned years before the lawsuit was filed.  However, it makes more than a few fair criticisms of Nintendo's former business practices, and is NOT out to pigeon-hole Nintendo as I had expected.  In fact, the only truely off-putting aspect of this show was its generalization of "Nintendo" games to be all games on Nintendo systems, relating Mega Man X to Nintendo multiple times during the seizure section and never mentioning Capcom (well, maybe its logo in VJ footae, but that doesn't count).  Libby also seemed unaware that Nintendo does put warning on the outside of its boxes in America (though NOE really should do that too).

I must admit, though, that the argument that avoiding certain patterns for safety is a sticky one.  I mean, Nintendo IS right that games just wouldn't be as fun if they were limited in such a way.  There example of driving up the staircase in the MKDD's Daisy Cruiser is a perfect one: to fix the potential trigger, Nintendo would have had to axe significant detail in the scenery.  As for testing 8-bit games, I'd argue it is borderline unfair to criticize repeating patterns when the NES could do little else.

There are a lot of funny, historical and entertaining moments in this piece of journalism.  Do check it out.    

[JB]

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Originally posted by: TheYoungerPlumber<Libby also seemed unaware that Nintendo does put warning on the outside of its boxes in America (though NOE really should do that too).

NOE actually does do this. There is an insert with all GameCube games that is placed on top of the manual. When you open a games' case the first thing you see when you look for the manual is a black "Consumer information and brecautions" booklet. There is a warning on the back of the box that tells you to read the booklet before you start playing the game. There is no epilepsy warning on the box, but seizures are clearly mentioned in the precations booklet.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Yes, NOA inludes inside-slip warnings as well.  Her point was that warnings should be on the outside, before someone purchases the game.  This is already the case over here in the states.

[Shift Key]

The nostalgia of seeing all the old advertising (and a kart race with two guys in Mario and DK suits - awesome) was worth much more than the journalism and insight IMO.

Yamauchi is portrayed as a guy "looking for a quick buck" in the documentary, probably due to his reluctance to an interview, but you also see that he is a highly motivated, creative, shrewd and tough businessman - willing to try something different to make his way in the world.

As for the epilepsy issue, they definitely forget to mention the warning labels in red on the backs of games. All of Nintendo's games since I can remember looking have them. But the front?  Surely we don't need to idiot-proof every form of entertainment. Removing the responsibilities of parenting seems to be an increasing trend, and legal action like those mentioned in the article are assisting .

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If you have problems with that because he's your friend he'll drag you down.

Yamauchi fired his cousin once he inherited the family business. The article doesn't mention why, but I suspect that he wasn't up to Yamauchi's high standard of his staff.

And a parting lol, apparently The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Maker passes the epilepsy-friendly tests. So go out and buy this mystery game!

[ruby_onix]

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Yamauchi fired his cousin once he inherited the family business. The article doesn't mention why, but I suspect that he wasn't up to Yamauchi's high standard of his staff.

Game Over revealed this a long time ago.

Hiroshi Yamauchi took over the family business from his grandfather. He demanded that if he were taking over, the job should be HIS company to run. Absolutely and completely, with nobody questioning his authority.

One of his cousins had a job at Nintendo, so before taking over, Hiroshi asked his grandfather to fire the cousin. He didn't want the hang-ups of "working with family". We don't really know if the cousin was "screwed over" by this. Just that he wasn't allowed to work at Nintendo.

Also, to cement his authority, after Hiroshi took over, he told his grandfather's top advisor that he wanted to get all the ground rules set straight, so there would be no confusion about who was who. He apparently asked the advisor to produce a list of all the people at Nintendo that Hiroshi absolutely positively could not fire. The advisor gave him a list, and then Hiroshi said "Good. Now fire everyone on this list. Then fire yourself. Dumbass."

[KDR_11k]

Ah, that explains how RE4 became exclusive, he made an offer Capcom couldn't refuse.

[ThePerm]

anyone have this video? I remember watching it on google video a while back but can't find it there anymore. I was reminded of it by the bbc tetris documentary on infendo. I watched it before google video let you download it to your hard disk.

[mantidor]

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Originally posted by: slacker It will portray Nintendo as this big corporation hell bent on milking the world's youth, raking in tons of money, and finally, not paying its employee a fair share of the profit.  

and isn't that an accurate description of the company? or any company to be honest.

wow if this is old!