Mouse, I don't see what you are so upset about. The editorial is pretty much what I have come to expect from IGN... oh wait... I get it. This is PGC, not IGN. All jokes aside, I really do think this article would fit in quite nicely on IGNCube. That's exactly the reason I never visit IGN anymore, unless someone links me to a particularly good exclusive. I suppose this editorial should serve as a wakeup call to all of you that PGC really has changed (and not for the better) since Billy left.
It's an editorial. Editorials are supposed to sum up the author's
OPINIONS about something, and use supporting
FACTS to back them up. Jonny seems to think that the GameCube is a pretty mediocre console. Fine, he would fit in nicely over at IGNCube, but that's his opinion. Jonny also seems to have backed up a few of his opinions with falsities or more opinion. Well... isn't that interesting. Jonny, are you sure this wasn't supposed to be included with your resume to IGNCube?
System Sales seemed pretty decently written, but then again, it's kinda hard to screw that up isn't it? GameCube sells this much, Xbox sells that much, Sony sells even more. Can't really say that I liked his choice of wording, but it's his opinion.
Exclusive Games. Before I begin with this section, I would really like to point everyone towards
this article, which was written by Billy after he went to an Xbox Live demo. I think it was really this article that endeared me so much to PGC. At one point in the article, Billy mentions that he asked the Xbox fans who were so excited about their "mature" games what their top 5 games were, and nobody knew what to say after Halo. This is in stark contrast to Jonny, who mentions that most of Nintendo's exclusives are rated "E", and most are published by Nintendo. Yep. He certainly nailed that one. Games published by Nintendo don't see other systems, and are often rated E. Except of course for SSBM (T), Metroid Prime (T), Eternal Darkness (M), Resident Evil (M), Baten Kaitos (RP), Tales of Symphonia (RP), Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (RP), Rogue Squadron (T), Viewtiful Joe (T), and others which are not rated E or published by Nintendo.
Also related to this topic, Jonny mentioned that he doesn't think Nintendo's new games are innovative at all, and backs it up by saying:
But when games like Mario Kart: Double Dash and 1080: Avalanche are basically graphical upgrades with a couple of new modes added to games that came out six or seven years ago... and that's really all that he has to back him up. In response, I will say that I find Nintendo's new games such as Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Wind Waker, and Mario Kart to be HUGE paradigm shifts in the franchises, not to mention games such as Pikmin or Luigi's Mansion, which are entirely new. And bingo. I have supplied as much evidence to back myself up as Jonny. But I care not to stoop to that quality of writing, so I am going to continue by explaining some things.
Mario Sunshine. Mario games have always been pretty evolutionary. The jump from Super Mario Bros 3 to Super Mario World was pretty small. The graphics improved, but the layout of the game, and the gameplay remained the same. Yet I am willing to bet that nobody here had a problem with Super Mario World. The same goes for Super Mario Sunshine, but I would say that it's much more. The gameplay changed dramatically with the addition of the watergun from Mario 64, requiring new skills to be developed, and opening the door to new level layouts. The very atmosphere of the game changed with the addition of some REAL character interactions between Mario, Bowser, and the supporting cast, which is a first outside of the Mario RPG series. As a result, the setting of the game changed to be more "real" in nature. The way I see it, Super Mario Sunshine is the second biggest jump in the franchise. (First being the jump from Super Mario World 2 -> Mario 64 of course).
Zelda: Wind Waker. Take a look at Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. Now look at Wind Waker. The power of the GameCube allows for much more creativity in graphical design, and the cel-shaded Wind Waker engine allows the graphical style to return to how it was on the SNES. I suppose you could call that a step backward, but I call it a step forward. (My opinion remember?) What really set Wind Waker apart though was the world it was set in, and the style with which it was told. I was honestly SHOCKED when I found out that Wind Waker had some real character development, and an honest to goodness story. I have always played Zelda games for the gameplay alone, but Wind Waker added a story to it that was surprisingly deep, and didn't seem put there merely as a reason to finish the game. The controls and gameplay remained intact from Ocarina of Time (just like moving from NES to SNES, or Ocarina of Time to Starfox Adventures), but the whole style of the game changed. The main map was completely different, offering players a chance to sail the great sea... and to experience many wonderous sights in the process. I mean, you just can't deny that Wind Waker played completely differently than Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. I am not a person prone to crying, going many years without a tear. But Wind Waker got a couple out of me, where no other Zelda game ever did. What does that say?
Mario Kart Double Dash!!. The mechanics of the racing have changed. A completely new strategy needs to be in place to drift around corners, you can no longer recover from banana peels, and it's MUCH harder to defend against weaponry such as red shells, as you may no longer drag things behind. Those 3 facts come into play all the time, making the game that much different to play. But there's more. They have placed 2 people on each cart. It didn't seem like much at first. Until you consider two things. There is a new strategy involved in picking characters, as each one will have certain special weapons that may be rare, but can be very deadly, and each character you choose must fit into the cart you want. BUT, there's an all new mode that is pretty much a game seller in itself. You and a partner can now play cooperatively, with one person driving, and the other shooting. I have a friend who bought the game and a GameCube for this reason alone. Mario Kart has always been a pretty multiplayer oriented game, and there just simply aren't many coop games out there. Mario Kart put itself down as one of the best.
The fact of the matter seems to be that the new Nintendo games are far more innovative than previous incarnations. They have already gone 3D. Does Jonny want 4D now? Be realistic.
Third-party Support. Jonny made mention of games that only see release on PS2 and Xbox, developers publicly bashing Nintendo, and Sony's clear model to gain 3rd party support. I will say 3 things about that.
1) The only developers that I know of that are publicly bashing Nintendo are Midway and Acclaim, who it's pretty much agreed on, make the world's crappiest games. Is this supposed to be a
bad thing for 3rd party support? Do you remember the world famous developer who bashed Nintendo at the beginning of the N64 era when they jumped ship for Sony? Don't I seem to recall a public apology, and demotion of several executives before they were given rights to develop on Nintendo consoles again?
2) Nintendo has a clear model to gain 3rd parties too. It's not as unscrupulous as Microsoft's strategy to buy 3rd parties, and it's not like Sony's clear model to gain 3rd party support by... what was that again? Oh yeah. Own the biggest marketshare. It only involves things like building up strong relations with Square, Konami, Capcom, Namco, Sega, and a few others. Work on some of their franchises, let them work on some Nintendo ones. Publish some of their games. No biggies.
3) Name 5 good 3rd party games that only came out on PS2 and Xbox. Hell, name 2. I can't think of one.
Last comment on this topic is this fine quote:
It’s anyone’s guess as to why the EA Sports titles are still consistently released on Nintendo’s console; Sega wised up long ago and pulled the plug on GameCube versions of their sports games. I didn’t blame them then, and I wouldn’t blame them now. Yep. Jonny is the owner of the most currently respected Nintendo news site, yet he is suggesting that it was a good idea to drop GameCube support, and keep Xbox support, even though Sega games sell like crap on Xbox. Way to go. If you ever want a job at IGNCube Jonny, let me know, and I will rally up a petition to get you there. That being said, I could care less about sports games. I am only going to even move to the next section because he said something that really bothered me.
Sports Games are something that Nintendo has never really paid any attention to. You are correct on that. They supply Sports Games, but not in a realistic nature. But the fact is that EA doesn't like Xbox, and since people DO buy their games for GameCube, it's worth their while to port them over. But face facts here. EA pretty much killed Sega in the sports department last time around. I doubt that anyone really cares if Sega sports are on GameCube or not, as chances are they after the EA Sports games.
As far as
Technical Prowess goes, that was pretty much a no-brainer, yet strangely, even though Jonny runs a Nintendo site, he got it wrong. I shouldn't have been surprised by that point. But I still was.
With its relatively slow processor and strange RAM architecture... Strange and slow relative to what? If you are talking about that Athlon 64 with the Radeon 9800, then yes, it's going to be very strange and very slow. But this is a console. The processor is more than a match for the Xbox, and is definately on fighting terms with the PS2. If it's clock speed that you are talking about, that's really truly pathetic. By that sort of logic, the Athlon 1.53 GHz in my computer should be outperformed by the Pentium 4 1.8GHz right? Or maybe the Apple G4 with a 485MHz processor should be overpowered by the Celeron running at 733MHz? Luckily for the real world, both of those things are hideously inaccurate.
For
Connectivity, in a recent survey, the Japanese people said that the thing they would like to see most on the PSP is connectivity with the PS3. Don't you think that speaks volumes about GameCube's GBA/GCN connectivity? As far as online support goes, Xbox Live! currently has the biggest selection of online games. 5% of Xbox users have Xbox Live, blowing away the other consoles, and showing great support for online games on consoles. GameCube's single online game is about to get an exclusive sequel as well, so I don't think that PSO is as bad as Jonny makes out. Perhaps there was something to his earlier argument about the GameCube needing NEW games. It's just that Sega was too busy with their Dreamcast ports until recently... The thing is that online console games HAVE NOT hit mainstream yet. It's not a matter of them being profitable or not. It's a matter of demand. There just is none. In the meantime, Nintendo seems content to supply LAN games in the form of Mario Kart and 1080. Who am I to argue?
Public Image, I must admit is something that Jonny hit the nail right on the head about. If anything, I would give the GameCube an F.
As ignorant as these comments are, I hear them all the time from non-gamers... I have to hear things much alike them from gamers and editorial writers. Consider yourself lucky.
There’s no doubt that GameCube is respected and supported by hardcore gamers like me Really? That aside, I think the rest of this paragraph was pretty much on the money. Sony and Microsoft do rely on stereotyping. Sony and Microsoft do what Nintendoesn't right?
Overall.
Nintendo fans awaited GameCube as a chance for the company to fight back into the mainstream of gaming. That has obviously not happened. You are right about one thing. Nintendo has not YET won back the mainstream gamer. But I awaited the GameCube as a console that I would love to play, not as something to watch other people play. I am simply overjoyed with my GameCube, personally. I just can't seem to run out of games to buy for it, which was a very different story on N64. I love my GameCube even more than my SNES to be honest.
It’s not remotely popular with casual gamers... Most of the people I know who went out and bought an Xbox early in the war now come to me and admit that they were wrong, but won't sell their Xbox because they can't get much for it. My friends who have came over and played on the GameCube are now buying them. The whole "kiddie" thing that Nintendo is stuck in isn't really a problem with people my age. People I know usually have kids, and even if they don't personally like Mario or Sonic games, they can still buy them for their kids, because I assure you, kids under 10 and over 20 LOVE Mario Sunshine.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I think this article is even worse than some of the crap I had to stomach on IGN.
Things around PGC haven't been good since Billy left. All the zest and fire of PGC left with Billy. Soon after he left, the servers went down, and took MONTHS to fix. I understand that Rick is a busy person, but that's just not even remotely excusable for someone who has some real dedication for the site. Couple that with the fact that we scarcely see him anymore, and it's even worse, as the forums have been taken over by complete morons. Bloodworth is the only good moderator that we have left, but is somewhat reduced in ability by his kindness. I would have been banned fourfold already if he was Rick, and saw the posts I made. I wouldn't have made them if he had been Rick and banned the people who made them or locked the threads. It works out I guess, and I still have high respect for Bloodworth, but the rest of the staff... no. Not after this.
I stayed here no matter how long it took to load the forums. I always felt that PGC would return the favor to its readers by providing world class content again when the servers came back up. But I found a bunch of articles that were mainly pulled from other sites when PGC finally did come back up. Now there's this. I might as well be reading IGN. The writing is of better quality, and at least the news comes quicker, as it's updated weekly at least.
Jonny, you might think I am over-reacting. But think of this. I was here after Billy left. I was here all through the DoS attacks that PGC had, and seemed unable to fix. I was here through the months afterward. I have been here for the week that your database queries have gone offline and you seem unwilling to fix. I remained to see the forums overrun with one line posts with no content, and a million pointless threads that don't get locked, such as "spam in response to the post above", and "respond to this post with more spam".
My faith in PGC is now gone.
Topic: GameCube’s Mid-Term Report Card (Read 46778 times)
