That's not re-inventing that we're complaining about, though. The Wii motion controls were major selling point for all of us. [That] was exciting. Let's talk about what's not exciting:
1. Gamecube: Opting for proprietary mini-discs while the rest of the market uses standard DVDs. Consequently, Gamecube discs have far less storage and are more expensive for third parties. Why not just go with the standard everyone else is happy with?
To protect their intellectual property. The mini discs were harder to pirate and Nintendo thought that third party developers would be on board with making their games harder to copy too. Love it or hate it, Nintendo is obsessed with protecting their property and with the preponderance of piracy in this day and age, I can't blame them for it.
2. Gamecube: Going with 59 Mb memory cards as the standard (and ONLY available Nintendo branded) memory card while [everyone else] has game save storage space into the megabytes. Why not just go with what has been proven to work with that generation for the past year?
I may be recalling incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo had bigger memory cards for the GC than 59 Mb, and I'm also pretty sure there were third party memory cards. I don't recall which game it was, but I know there was a game that required the larger card and that annoyed me to have to buy a new one. It worked for them, and for the most part, two memory cards were sufficient to hold all the games I played, except when the larger card came out and I bought two of those. I just looked it up:
https://www.amazon.com/Gamecube-Memory-Card-251/dp/B00012D0SG
3. Wii: Going with "friend codes" that are unique to each and every game that supports online play. Want to play with your friends? Prepare to enter a GUID using a pointer for every friend code EVERY TIME you get a new game. This is majorly off-putting to everyone who has played online on PC, Xbox, or Playstation. NO ONE has EVER chosen to do online play like this before. NO ONE. Nintendo came up with this all on their own. Why not just go with the standard that has already been in place for more than a decade???
While I can't really defend Nintendo's overall online strategy, the reason for this is pretty solid: to protect the younger audience they knew they had. We, as adult gamers who love Nintendo, may hate the "kiddie" tag associated with them, and they probably don't like it either, but that doesn't change the fact that they do cater to not only a younger audience, but also an older audience of casual gamers who don't want to be dragged into the cesspool that is online gaming. Their attempt ultimately failed, but I give them credit for at least trying to do something about it.
4. Wii: Games are FINALLY on DVDs. No DVD movie playback. Why not include a hugely popular feature all other competitors offer??? I mean, F--K, I know people who don't even f--king game who bought 3 or more Wii's just to hook them to TVs and run Netflix. Seriously. Japan of all nations dictates you to make a smaller console, AND YOU GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO DENY US DVD PLAYBACK!!!!11!1
Honestly, if you still needed a DVD player in 2006, I don't know what to tell you.
5. Wii: Everyone else is offering 100+ GB storage solutions. Nintendo believes 8 GB is enough. Doh.
6. Wii U: Everyone else is offering 100+ GB storage solutions. Nintendo believes 32 GB is enough. Doh.
7. Switch: Everyone else is offering 100+ GB storage solutions. Nintendo believes 32 GB is enough. Doh.
I'm pretty sure all of that is related to saving costs and not trying to reinvent the wheel. Also, we don't know how much storage the Switch will have yet, just rumors. With a GC VC, 32GB seems a bit ridiculous. But that doesn't really go with what we're talking about.
8. Wii U: Code friends. No friend list. No party chat. No subscription service. No monthly free games for subscribers. Why not go with the hugely popular standard demonstrated by their competition a generation ago? Oh, that's right. There's only 32 GB to work with. Doh.
When Nintendo does something, they make sure and do it themselves and make sure to only do what their narrow vision requires. One the minimum is satisfied, they trim anything that might be of use to anyone outside Nintendo and make sure they aren't paying an extra penny anywhere along the way while still asking a premium price for the damn thing. I give you: Nintendo re-inventing the wheel.
The first part of this statement was already shown to be mistaken, so let's go the second part that's also a mistake. "While still asking a premium price for the damn thing". The Wii and WiiU were both underpriced compared to the competition. I wouldn't exactly call that a "premium price" in fact, it's the exact opposite in the context of the console market.
Yes. you understand what I was talking about.
trying so hard not to be a "copy-cat" that you end up with a vastly inferior product to the industry set standard in place for YEARS already. Welcome to the Party Nintendo, but the flyer invite for that party was back in 2014.... it's 2017 now. maybe next time.
and penny pinching so hard, that you build the perfect machine for YOUR launch game. Now you challenge everyone else to fit in Mario's overalls better than Mario... who the overalls were tailor made for. Guess what.... it's a little tight in the crotch.
I guess we're differing on their motivation. As I see it, they aren't trying to not be a "copy-cat", but rather doing things they feel fall within what they're trying to do, regardless of what everyone else is doing. Before the WiiU, that strategy served them very well. Now with the Switch they are conforming a little, while still pursuing their vision for what the WiiU should have been from the start. They are definitely penny pinchers, there's no denying that, but Sony and Microsoft have other streams of revenue to rely while Nintendo is
only a game maker.
Topic: Switchmas Eve Rumors and Speculations Thread (Read 671217 times)
