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14926

TalkBack / RE:Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 27, 2004, 06:18:26 PM »

Certainly you can argue that Nintendo should market better, but you have to realize that marketting will never make up for the fact that Nintendo simply isn't making the games that people consider relevant anymore. So what if Nintendo marketted Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2, ED, RE0 and RE4, and Rogue Leader? That's only 6 games over the majority of the GC's lifespan. Meanwhile, the PS2 has 3 games in the GTA series alone, plus an immense amount of third-party culturally relevant titles. Even if Nintendo did do a better job advertising, there would be so few games worth advertising to the public that it wouldn't do much to change public perception of the GC's total relevance to their modern lifestyles.

No, the fact is that even if Nintendo did advertise better, they'd never be able to have the mindshare of Sony or Microsoft specifically because Nintendo games, the only guaranteed reason to buy a Nintendo system,  AREN'T relevant to today's consumer culture. Nintendo's very strength is an irrelevant issue to the vast majority of today's gamers.

That's just the way it is, and I don't think it's something that Nintendo fans should obsess over. The game industry has changed, and styles have changed. Heck, if I made games, my games would differ VASTLY from nintendo's style, and my games would probably be better off on the PS3 or XBox2. But despite the climate for videogames having changed, and despite my own differences in personal game design, I'm still buying Nintendo systems and games exclusively. Why? Because as culturally irrelevant as Nintendo games may be to everyone else, they're the only games I want to play.

There's no question that advertising could help Nintendo gain mindshare. No question at all. If you throw enough money at the problem, you can get people to acknowledge that "yes, Nintendo exists." But will this result in people buying a GameCube over a PS2? No, because no matter how much marketting exists, the PS2 would have a vastly superior library of culturally relevant sports titles, movie-based licenses, games with mature and complex themes, and import racing titles.

Sure, with better marketting the GC would perform a little better. But Nintendo innately lacks the cultural relevance that will make the masses of modern gamers of today choose the GC over the PS2. That's why even with great marketting, the question would only change to: "I know that the GC exists, but still: PS2 or XBox?" All the marketting in the world can't make people buy things they don't want to buy (and what self-respecting inner-city football fan would buy a game about controlling ant-things in a garden?), and marketting can't sell games that don't exist.

Marketting simply can't change the fact that the time for Nintendo games to be culturally dominant in the videogamer's mindset has come, and gone.
Again, not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just that the world is an ever-changing place.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14927

TalkBack / RE: Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 26, 2004, 10:42:32 PM »

Hmm... I think of only two possible solutions out of the cultural irrelevancy mess I describe.

1. If you can't match modern culture. MAKE IT. Nintendo's done this briefly before, with Mario 64's revolutionizing of the 32/64-bit scene. And they did it again with much more permanence with Pokemon.
How do you make modern culture? You pre-emp it, you become the trendsetter. You don't follow others and set out in your own direction that no one's ever thought of before, and hope you're right. You could be wrong. You could be misguided. You could make a Virtual Boy. Or you could be the first and coolest and most relevant entity in a brand new market where all the rules are changed according to what you've done. Innovate.
This is a possibility, but is very, very, very hard. While the DS is likely to be a success, it probably won't be able to shift the paradigm enough to leave everyone else scrambling to catch up. Will the Revolution do it? Is it even possible?

2. Team up with someone else who IS culturally relevant and who can add reputation to your group. This would mean that Nintendo could continue to do it's own thing, but would have a partner, or partner's, who'd concentrate on their specialty: cultural relevance. And these partners would have to be a big name, and good enough and prolific enough to cause a massive shift in the market's power structure. But the games your partner would make would have to be as numerous as the games Nintendo makes, at least.
This would go beyond having small second parties to do your dirty work: Retro studios simply can't produce games fast enough to change Nintendo's image. Silicon Knights and Rare couldn't be depended upon. Third parties aren't the way either: RE failed to make much of a splash. We're getting too little too late from Namco and Capcom and Square.
It would need to be major exclusivity from a major name.
Compare: Ponderings of Nintendo and Microsoft teaming up: Nintendo can keep doing it's thing, while Microsoft can bring street cred, cultural relevance, and enough games to trick consumers into thinking that Nintendo's a company after their own hearts. EA would be an interesting pairing, but not only is that impossible, but EA has stated that they like having three systems alive and fighting in the market. Another avenue would be that Nintendo needs to discover some new blood that can scale up quickly to the big time, as in discovering another Rareware... but hopefully this time a Rareware that can make games  in less than 3 years.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14928

TalkBack / RE:Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 26, 2004, 10:26:57 PM »

With all due respect, I still think that the key to this entire issue is cultural relevance. It isn't that Nintendo simply isn't culturally relevant anymore in the US market, it's that they're getting left behind by the Japanese culture as well (with that market shrinking to boot).

To restate, I believe that Nintendo simply will never be able to be in the "Playstation or XBox" question simply because Nintendo games are different. The style they're made in, the effort put into them, even the values that drive them, make Nintendo games among the highest quality, and most culturally insignificant videogames of our time.

Sony and Microsoft, even in their japanese game divisions, and along with a great many third parties, apparently keep up with modern culture. They make games about sports, warfare, sexual themes, movies, violent emotions and underground racing. They make games that the average American (or increasingly, Japanese) consumer can look at, and immediately correlate with a million other experiences they've encountered in their own life or through the media.

The rest of the industry makes games that are culturally in tune with the times:
cynical anti-heroes fighting terrorist nuclear armageddon (compare: 9/11),
Sexualized depictions of women (compare: Desperate Housewives on TV, Sex in the Movies, Maxim magazine),
Satyrical humor (compare: the Daly Show(god I love that show!), Bowling for Columbine, The Onion)
Sports (compare: The Boston Red Sox, The Super Bowl, Nekkid women playing beach volleyball a.k.a. Olympics)
etc.

Nintendo, god bless them, makes the best games in the world but doesn't make games that address our lives, and thus, is easily overlooked by consumers who need to shift through thousands of data points, and would appreciate something that they recognize more than something totally alien to them. The most culturally relevant thing that Nintendo's made is about ant-like creatures that run around a rural garden setting... But with the urbanization of our world, who has time for gardening? Who's even seen a plot of cultivated soil in the inner city?

This isn't bad. I don't blame Nintendo for making games that address our lives. In fact, it's probably the only way that Nintendo can focus purely on the artform of making the game, avoiding all the distractions of the modern world in order to create totally abstract, yet brilliant gameplay. And at the same time I don't blame people like my office co-workers for not knowing Nintendo exists, or my neighbors. Plumbers aren't relevant to their lives, Seinfeld and CounterStrike and romances are. There's absolutely no blame.

But that still leaves Nintendo lying squarely in the field of cultural irrelevance due to the very nature of their brilliant Nintendo games. Miyamoto and EAD create games that are so focused on amazing gameplay that they seem abstract and irrational and simplified from the viewpoint of modern culture.

And I don't think we can ask Nintendo to change that. Because to ask Nintendo to become culturally relevant, you'd destroy the legacy and style and quality of Miyamoto's work. How would Miyamoto or EAD develop a football game? There are already too many rules in football to follow, too much arcane trivia, too much obsession with glitz and pizazz. How would Miyamoto, the man who watches the ants in his garden, try to sell us a game where we're supposed to drive around a city stealing cars and commiting crimes? How would Miyamoto, the humble, salaried, family man, design a game that is focused on beautiful women and the fashion of wearing next to nothing? How would Miyamoto, who's always given us steadfast, straightforward heroes, give us a Max Payne? A Blood Rayne? A Daxter from Jak and Daxter? And doesn't he bike to work? How could we even expect Nintendo to give us a decent import car racing game then!?!

No, they would almost definitely fail. And they wouldn't be Nintendo anymore, because they'd have thrown away all their ideas about what videogames are about and how to make them. They'd have sacrificed their only strength, the only thing that makes them unique in this gaming industry, and they'd have exchanged it for a place at the bottom of the food chain being preyed upon not just by Sony and Microsoft and Electronic Arts, but also Midway and Atari and Tecmo.

And the thing is, as long as Nintendo's games stay culturally irrelevant, third parties will never, NEVER, make up the gap between the big N and the competition. They'd give Nintendo a few scraps, ports, an exclusive here and there, but it'd be lip service because anyone who actually wanted to sell to the market as a whole, the market that has a modern and evolving and inward-looking culture, would be on the PS3 or the XBox2. And Nintendo can wrestle as many exclusives from third parties as they want, but they'll never catch up that way. Viewtiful Joe 2 is coming out on the PS2: Nintendo's hard fought-for Capcom agreement is now moving over to PS2 territory.

It isn't about marketting. It isn't about technology. It isn't about corporate culture. That's all important, but they aren't the problem that keeps Nintendo out of the "PS2 or XBox?" question. The issue here is Nintendo's relevance to modern culture, modern times, and modern lifestyles. It's about people nowadays having the luxury to choose between a game inspired by gardenning, or exploring caves, or racing go karts and a game inspired by a sport, or a movie, or violence, and choosing the later.

I think it's time to face it. Nintendo's time for marketshare leadership has come and gone. They resurrected the gaming industry, they made it profitable, they made it international, they made it revolutionary. Now, it's time for other people to give the gaming industry what it didn't need in the 80's and 90's, but what it needs now.

But that still leaves each Nintendo fanboy his own dilemma.
Have my tastes changed? Am I now a modern gamer? Do I want to play Need for Speed Underground? Do I want to play The Guy Game (actually, I played The Guy Game recently... it rocked! The double-layered scoring system and the best 4-player minigames I've played in years! Even if it featured naked fat men I'd love it!)? Do I want to play Metal Gear Solid? Do I want to play Halo 2? Do I want to play GTA?
That's a personal question. Let me recommend this: Play Tales of Phantasia, then play Paper Mario 2. Compare. Play Mario Sunshine, then play Jak and Daxter 2. Compare. Play Harvest Moon, then play Animal Crossing. Compare. Play Yugioh, then Play Pokemon. Compare.
If, after you compare all those games, you think that you can live without Nintendo, you're a better man than me. Because I tried playing Dark Cloud 2, and it felt nauseous because I compared it to Windwaker. I just watched Jak and Daxter and had less fun than being crushed under the weight of a 260 pound friend of a friend of a friend (which happened that same night in fact).

For me, a gamer who can't afford two systems, and can tell if a game is Nintendo developed or not depending on the feel of the game control (for example: I hated F-Zero because it felt like a friggin Sega game...I want my F-Zero X back!)... for a person who's so attuned to Nintendo that I cannot enjoy 70% of the games out there in the market because I feel as if the developers were lazy and cheap and did little better than trained monkeys...
For a Nintendo fanboy like me, I couldn't care less whether other people even take the time to consider Nintendo when asking me what videogame system I play. Because the fact of the matter is, I've just come to care more about the games than Nintendo's prominence in the marketshare rankings, or their prominence in the mindset of a mass of unnamed teenagers and 20-somethings and whatevers out there. All I care about is that Nintendo keeps making Nintendo style games, Nintendo quality games, and Nintendo quality systems.

So yeah... Nintendo doesn't figure in the minds of others. Nintendo isn't culturally relevant. Nintendo games don't have complex and mature and cynical themes.
But given the choice between playing only Nintendo games vs. never playing a Nintendo game again, but playing anything else...basically, without Nintendo games, console gaming would be dead for me.

So I guess I've finally made my choice. My dilemma as a Nintendo Fanboy is over. I'm sticking with Nintendo, even if their as culturally irrelevant as a Japanese mastercraftsman in a world of slick businessmen and brutally efficient product cycles.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Fall of the Video King]

14929

TalkBack / RE:Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox?

« on: October 26, 2004, 10:01:04 AM »

You guys can argue this in circles all you want and nitpick marketting, or dev kits, or corporate culture, or whatever you want all you want. But the fact is that the most powerful reason why the Gamecube isn't included in the "Playstation or XBox?" question is simple. Look at Sony, look at Microsoft.  They can sell their images as distinctly modern American. Look at Nintendo. Nintendo is wholly a product of Miyamoto, a Traditional Japanese craftsman who represents a Japan of the past.

Refer to the October 18, 2004, Newsweek, U.S. Edition, By N'Gai Croal With Kay Itoi in Tokyo, Fall of the Video King newsweek article on the decline of Japanese Game Developers (Link unavailable because a subscription is required to view Newsweek archives, please check your local library).


Since you probably don't have the above-mentioned article at hand, it shows how EA has come to virtually dominate the American Top 10 charts whereas a few years ago, Japanese develops did. It has Namco executives talking about how they need to pursue sports licenses and movie licenses. It starts off with Nintendo's E3 2004 showing of Zelda, and commenting on the reduced effectiveness of mascots like Mario or Link. It's driving point is that Japanese developers are less culturally relevant to the US gaming market (and thus less relevant to US gamers) compared to American developers like EA.

The answer why Nintendo isn't nearly as omniprescent as Sony or Microsoft is just that: cultural relevance. Nintendo's strength is all based on Miyamoto's game design, and concentrated in the Japanese EAD development studios. And as high-quality and critically-acclaimed as Nintendo's games are, they aren't in step with the rapidly mutating American culture, and perhaps also the vapidly consumeristic and trend-driven Japanese culture too. Nintendo represents the one-man integrity of a traditional Japanese master craftsman, recalling subtle yet complex Japanese gardens and lifetimes in the pursuit of perfection. The world today is a rapidly mutating rat race through a concrete jungle where realism and market forces are valued over ideological preservation. Sony and Microsoft are good at this game.

Nintendo is not, because if they were to become culturally relevant to the vast horde of American consumers and public mindset, that would mean their games would have to drastically change nature from Miyamoto-crafted individual works of art to the sports/movie/shock/trend/cool-driven products of today. For Nintendo to become culturally relevant is for Nintendo to sacrifice it's greatest and possibly only strength, the value of it's culture and Japanese developmental roots, and to have to impossibly reinvent itself to catch up to the developed machinery of Sony and Microsoft.

This brings up an interesting dilemma for any Nintendo fan: Nintendo at it's purest and most valuable form is Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Nintendo is NOT Jak and Daxter, nor is it Grand Theft Auto. And as long as that is true, Nintendo will never be as culturally relevant, nor as successful, as international conglomerations like Sony or Microsoft. But, if that were not true, if Nintendo ditched it's Miyamoto legacy and made Rachet and Clank or Blood Rayne, then Nintendo would lose it's only bargaining chip in the game industry, it would lose it's only strength, and replace it with mediocre weakness.

The problem for Nintendo fans like you and I is this:
Are we stuck with them? Do we still value Nintendo-style games, or would we rather be playing Metal Gear Solid?

It looks like the rest of the world has made up its mind and has helped propel Electronic Arts to the pinnacle of relevance and success. It's only Nintendo fans who stubbornly want to have their cake and eat it too.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

Basically put: Nintendo, it's games and it's style and it's values, are a relic of a bygone age. Because of this, they will never be as appealing to the casual, modern consumer of today.

(Moderator's note: I removed some redundant text that had been pasted twice in your post.)

14930

TalkBack / RE:NOA Confirms American DS Titles

« on: October 08, 2004, 07:51:51 AM »

Hmm.. let's see, The Nintendo DS launches 6 months to a year BEFORE it's competition, it has adequate third party support including SQUARESOFT, it launches at the lower end of the anticipated price range, with a possibility of a price DROP when the PSP comes out, it's games are AS CHEAP as GBA games, it's got a host of unique technical abilities, and by the time the PSP comes out we'll be into SECOND or THIRD-generation DS software! PLUS, one of the criticism's levelled at Nintendo is that their first-party offerings out-compete third parties, and now we see the DS launching that isn't completely overshadowed by a Nintendo title...

Gee, it looks like Nintendo's finally taken a page from Sony's play book with the first-out-of-the-gate's launch and less emphasis on first-party software, while successfully combining that with a low-price point for hardware AND software, technical innovation, plus 20 in-house games that Nintendo will be trickling out to us over the next couple months...

I think the only thing we have to complain about now people, is that this launch is the exact opposite of any Nintendo launch strategy before! And we all know how we criticized Nintendo's launch strategies before...

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14931

TalkBack / RE:Yamauchi Announces Advanced New Animation Studio

« on: September 29, 2004, 11:29:56 AM »

Good 'ol Hiroshi Yamauchi.

File this idea alongside with previous Yamauchi-led Nintendo ventures (as in, BEFORE Nintendo got into videogames) into love hotels, taxi service, and...if memory serves me right... instant rice?

This has nothing to do with online gaming or what constitutes a good risk, only Yamauchi's restless and pell-mell business appetites.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14932

TalkBack / RE:Miyamoto speaks on DS WiFi

« on: July 13, 2004, 02:42:28 PM »

Nice to see that the knee-jerk reactions have subsided.

Really the biggest disappointment here is the revelation that Miyamoto doesn't have any working ideas for online gameplay yet, at least for the DS. Nintendo's certainly onboard with the wireless LAN opportunities of the DS (since every multiplayer game will use that feature), and they've thrown on Wi-fi so that they can keep their future options open, especially for third-parties.

But despite making allowances on the hardware side of it, it doesn't look like DS online titles are in development at Nintendo... not that playing portable games Online is necessarily a good idea... actually, it's downright weird. Forget it...

I just wonder if Miyamoto's and Nintendo's Online "writer's block" is limited to the DS, or if it extends to the console arena as well?

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14933

TalkBack / RE:Miyamoto speaks on DS WiFi

« on: July 13, 2004, 10:33:50 AM »

Sounds like Nintendo still doesn't really know what they would do with the online medium. Oh well.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14934

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 08, 2004, 01:28:19 PM »

There's no question that Nintendo has to survive as a business. But you're the first one here to suggest that Nintendo would go out of business if they let Miyamoto continue to create games the way he wants too. And to suggest that Nintendo presents a close analogy to pre-fall Sega is amusing at best. To start with, Nintendo's never posted a Fiscal Year loss: they've always made money. They had one or two red-ink Fiscal quarters, but that was mostly due to the dollar-yen exchange rate rather than sleepy game sales.

And the largest arguement that people put forth for Nintendo impinging on it's developer's abilities is that Nintendo won't be the number one console maker without that course of action. But that's ridiculous. The Nintendo we love was never about being the biggest kid on the block, nor was it about holding some arbitrary title of "Marketshare Leader." in an industry big enough for THREE console makers. Nintendo was always about the great games that can arise from creativity.

And when it comes down to it, holding more than 50% market share is vastly less important than allowing people like Miyamoto to develop new and exciting games the way they envision them.

In essence, Greed and Bragging Rights should not become Nintendo values. Vision should be.

Let buyers go elsewhere if they want: thhy're entitled to their opinions. But a true Nintendo gamer should know that they won't be able to find a Miyamoto game without the freedoms he enjoys at the Nintendo of today. Let's face it, if you listened to consumers all the time, we wouldn't have the NES and Super Mario Bros.: focus groups - buyers and consumers, 12-year olds - trashed it. In fact, if we always listened to consumers, the videogame market would be non-existent. It's Nintendo's stubborn actions DESPITE consumer opinion that we have to thank for the videogame revival after Atari destroyed the reputation of videogames in America.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14935

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 08, 2004, 10:35:59 AM »

I don't think I'm putting any more trust in Miyamoto than realistically. In fact, go back through my posts and point out where I declare that I expect Miyamoto to come up with any Holy Grail. I'm sure if I do it is merely an unfortunate choice of words. The only trust I'm putting in him is to make games as HE wants to make them, nothing more, nothing less.

And that's what this comes down to: can we let people like Miyamoto have the freedom to make games the way they envision them, driven by their own ideas and interpretations of the medium, or do we, as people outside the development process, have the right to interfere in their artistic integrity by dictating to them that they should make certain types of games, regardless of their wishes?

I'm doing nothing more than trusting Nintendo to continue developing Nintendo games to their own artistic beat, and critics are doing nothing more than demanding that Nintendo games be dictated not by the people like Miyamoto who have essentially made Nintendo what it is today, but by faceless corporate forces and ravenous, mainstream fans.

I'm not even argueing that by proceeding at their own pace that Nintendo will regain market prominence. No. What I am argueing is that if Nintendo would sacrifice the respect and freedom of people like Miyamoto, it would no longer be the Nintendo that we've grown to love, nor will it be a Nintendo that will create the "Nintendo" games we could always depend on them for (which were a result of Miyamoto's and other's free-wheeling creativity in the face of a vacuum of ideas).

I'm only argueing that Nintendo not say: "Look, there's a lot of people who seem to think that online games are the way to go, let's bang out a game to keep up with the Jones'(read: Sony and Microsoft)." The Nintendo I know and love would say, "Look at this interesting new medium that allows people to connect in ways that weren't possible before. Let's see what ideas we have, work on them, get them right, and put out something that we can be proud of."

The Nintendo I believe in has at it's heart the creative forces of game development, innovation and excellence. The Nintendo I cannot accept, and cannot perpetuate, is the one that does something merely because it needs to make more money and gain access to the pockets of more consumers.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14936

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 07, 2004, 10:08:55 AM »

"How did LAN mode break the game? Most people don't even have the ability to play it. Flaws aside LAN mode in Mario Kart is widely considered to be a total blast. I've heard complaints about the dumb limitation that prevents one from picking their character but the experience itself is supposed to be great. Plus you can't blame market pressure. We wanted online support. They instead chose to half-ass it and give us a limited LAN mode instead. It was their choice to "break" the game. Had they put any effort into an online mode there wouldn't be any problems. It's like how Pokemon Colloseum doesn't suck because it included an RPG mode that the fans asked for, it sucks because it included a CRAPPY RPG mode that was not at all what the fans wanted. Nobody asked Nintendo to include a non-online LAN mode that doesn't allow you to pick your own character in Mario Kart. Nintendo chose to wang that feature themselves."


When people say that the MK: DD LAN is a blast to play, that's the Nintendo fanboy in them ignoring the facts. 8-player MK: DD IS broken because the game all of a sudden has no reward for skill, and it's completely arbitrary who wins. I'm a decent player, but in eight-player mode, I consistently end up in last place, behind people who never picked up the game before. If you play it, you'll see that LAN is a failure NOT because it's poorly dressed up, but because the very concept behind the game's items, the item spread, and the innate gameplay was created with a maximum of 4 players in mind, not 8. In effect, the game was developed to be a Mario Kart game, but when they added the LAN mode to try to quell clamorings from people who demand online connectivity or some fascimile thereof, they exposed the game to broken gameplay. Miyamoto made his Mario Kart game, and it could stand on it's own; but when corporate thinking like "we need to appeal to those fans who think that they want online or something like it" got it's hold on the game, an extraneous and gameplay-breaking mode was added to the game.

Could Miyamoto have designed the game to accomodate more than 4-players comfortable? Yeah, sure. Just let him go back to the drawing board, because the MK: DD gameplay he was making was absolutely not fit for anything beyond one system. He was making his game, until petty corporate attempts to appeal people like you pushed aside the integrity of his creation, and crammed in something that compromised the entire game.

And then of course we see fans clamoring for a 3D Pokemon that they would've liked to see on the GameCube. That's ridiculous, the designers know what they're doing, because Pokemon would benefit more from it's portability on the GBA than from being dressed up prettily in polygons. It would benefit more from being played on the subway, in-between school-periods, and during car rides than it would from being played in one spot in your house only. It would benefit from being played on a portable system that could easily be played with other people around, rather than being played on one console, a big TV, and in what is usually a solitary setting. Oh, and should Pokemon go online? Of course not. The entire Pokemon concept is based on PvP, one of the thorniest issues in MMORPGs. Can you imagine playing Pokemon online just to be trash talked by the kid with 6 MewTwos who then proceeds to take half your money?

Pokemon is just another example of how the developers need to be given the room to re-imagine their base concepts that work so well off-line, but would be broken online. They need to be given time to figure it out, because while fans can shout real loud, they can never make the next big thing, or we'd have a lot more of a crowded games market today.

And Pokemon Colosseum, as well as Mario Kart: Double Dash's gamebreaking LAN mode, is an example of what happens when you shortcut the time and respect you need to give developers to figure things out on their own. You break games by throwing on modes that the innate gameplay doesn't allow, and you pretty something up with polygons, only to realize that the innate gameplay simply that's been so successful for so long doesn't work outside the GBA environment. They circumvented the artist and subjugated his work to corporate thinking, market trends, and fan pressure, and they got a pile of unworkable sludge because of it.

Nobody asked for it? That's untrue. People like you are asking constantly that the creativity and hard work of people like Shigeru Miyamoto, his personal visions and ideas, his near-completed games, be sacrificed so that you can have games in an online medium you don't understand and before the people developing those games themselves don't have a full grasp of the medium.

Could we eventually see Pokemon in full 3D, and MK online? Sure. But not until the developers are given the time and free-reign to re-imagine the basic gameplay of their games in such a way that bringing them online wouldn't break the gameplay, but fulfill it. Circumvent that process, and demand online gameplay NOW, before the developers themselves have fully worked out the concepts, and you get games that are a smear on Nintendo's reputation of quality.

Nintendo only delivers hits consistently because they gave their developers the time and freedom to develop things as they saw fit. And Nintendo is only delivering sludge now because people are demanding that the developer's freedoms be pushed aside so they can have whatevcer they think they ought to have. The fact is that Nintendo only creates such great games because they put dedication and integrity and artistry into their work, and Nintendo has almost always created bad games when they've sacrificed that reputation to imitate trends, or to appease vocal trends.


"The Cube could be the market leader and it probably would have less online titles just because of Nintendo's attitude."


And how would Nintendo support online titles? Simply by having online games of their own. But let's be happy that we don't have those now, before Nintendo is ready to enter the online medium, because we'd get broken games like MK: DD and pitiful player matching from current genre.
Simply put, Nintendo can't afford to even think of supporting Online titles more fully because they don't have the resources of their own games to hope to make any dent in Microsoft and Sony's presences. What they have now are half-thought out concepts and tired implementations, hardly the stuff of dreams.


"Of course they weren't viable then. Very few people even had access to the internet. Online PC games were obscure at the time. You can't compare the f*cking SNES to the Cube. In technology terms that's eons ago. So Nintendo tried it when it wasn't viable, failed, and now won't try it when it is viable. Yeah that makes lots of sense. That's like Enix not releasing Dragon Warrior in the US because DW4, an NES game released well after the SNES launch, bombed. "


Obviously, Nintendo still believes that it's not very viable with the Cube. Broadband is slow in catching on. Already the MMORPG market, a market that appeals to PCs, which are predominantly connected to the internet, is having problems. And the business models of subscription (especially when applied to consoles) are vastly alien and unappealing to a great number of casual players.

AND, Nintendo knows that even if conditions permitted it, and even if they could go online, they'd have no software to sell it. Nintendo online would bomb without Nintendo games, and Nintendo games can't be developed without time, understanding, and vision from people like Miyamoto. Nintendo games can't be forced, demanded, or expected. They have to be subject to the developers visions and artistry, instead of to marketting polls, noisy fanboys, and corporate thinking. Nintendo games are fragile and special and all the more beautiful because of it.

We had to wait for Super Mario 64. We had to wait for Ocarina of Time. We had to wait, because mediocrity comes quick, and Nintendo-style excellence takes longer. We had to wait because a great idea released half-developed doesn't even deserve to be called a game. We had to wait because you can't simply tack Online onto a game, and expect it to be anything but a deadweight addition: it has to be fully integrated into the game's design from day one.

And if you're a Nintendo gamer, you'll realize that you can wait for Nintendo to go online. You can wait because when they do go online, it'll be out of their own fully realized visions and not half-hearted fan-service. You can wait, because you realize that the only reason you want Nintendo to go online is so that you can brag to others, win fanboy arguements with Sony kids, and be part of the winning team.

But Nintendo was never about being on the winning team, Nintendo was always about making great games, and because of that, Nintendo gamers are willing to wait. Because we can see that anything less, be it the FMVs in SMS, the game-breaking LAN mode in MK: DD, the forcing of Star Fox Adventures, anything half-implemented, not-fully realized, or lacking of artistic vision and spirit...anything less wouldn't be worthy of being called a Nintendo game.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14937

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 06, 2004, 11:08:37 PM »

Well, the reason Nintendo isn't going online has to do with money, but in such a way that innovation plays a major role: unless Nintendo can innovate in a fundamental manner, they can't hope to set themself apart from Sony or Microsoft, they can't leapfrog major third party online efforts, and they'll be stuck in a catch-up position that simply won't pay off.

And the closest that Nintendo has gone to making Cookie Cutter games was Pokemon Yellow and Crystal, and perhaps the Mario Party games. And even then, the Mario Party game's concentration in mini-games has kept the series fresh and in no way a carbon copy of earlier incarnations. There's an essential difference between cookie-cutter games and Nintendo sequels. Even Super Mario Sunshine can't be called cookie-cutter. They experimented with new ways to introduce and present traditional platform play while trying to escape jump-mechanics that have dictated every mario game. Even their level design was philosophically different: instead of the "seperate paths within one level" that Super Mario 64 had, SMS had levels whose paths wound tightly around each other, overlapped, and made amazingly efficient use of the space.

Ian Sane, I love your examples of how corporate behavior has seeped into and corrupted Nintendo. Mario Kart works fine for four-players...but anyone who's played LAN with 8+ players can tell you how broken and arbitrary the game becomes. Basically, when market pressure, the clamoring for online, and the resulting need to appease those who want Online but didn't get it; when all this made it's way to MKD, they combined not only in a poorly implemented LAN mode, but a LAN Mode that completely broke the game, a LAN mode that didn't work with the game's essential gameplay, a LAN Mode that was a smear on the game NOT because of poor technical implementation, but because the game simply became fundamentally flawed with more than 4 players. THAT is an example of the corruption of artistic integrity that lies beneath every fanboy's demand for Nintendo to cater to their own personal tastes.
Another example is the pitiful FMVs thrown into SMS, ideally to prove that FMVs could be done on the GC, but in the end a soulless, ham-handed and idiotic decision that came about when market and image concerns were for a moment held in higher esteem than hands-on game development, experience and artistic vision.

And then you mention Dinosaur Planet, a forced Star Fox franchise and yet another key example of Nintendo acting as a corporation instead of as a visionary, game-centric artistic force. You end up with what could be the single most compelling argument for why Nintendo sold their 50% stake in Rareware. And you want Nintendo to act even MORE as a corporation with this track record?

Anyways, the fact is that Nintendo can be accused of a lack of enthusiasm in regards to online. But that's a far cry from saying that Nintendo intends to keep developers from going online. In fact, that's ridiculous. The only problem a developer faces going online in a Nintendo game is creating a market. Surely, Microsoft makes that part easy with their XBOX Live, and Sony's specifically chased after online games as part of their overall strategy, but look at Sega: if a third party wants to go online with a Nintendo system, they can.

In fact, the only un-artistic limitation and discouragement is coming from the gamers who demand that developers drop whatever they're doing to jump on the Online bandwagon. Cancellations of MMORPGs like Mythica, True Fantasy Online and many others show the perils of embarking on an online route without the requisite vision to make the game complete. And without that integral artistic vision, Nintendo would be just as lost, wasting energy toiling away at projects that a soulless corporation believes gamers want, instead of pursuing their own ideas and visions.

Nintendo will go online when they're ready, but to demand it of them prematurely is to mortgage Nintendo's experience, vision and artistry in order to buy a replica of online gaming that has already been done, to tack on unnecessary and game-breaking features to otherwise decent games, and to cash in on consumer's loyalty to trusted and valuable franchises.

Better to realize that we won't love Nintendo because they are in a strong market position if they jumped on the online bandwagon... in fact this is the Nintendo we hate, the price-fixing Nintendo of the 80's, the censoring Nintendo of the 90's, the artistically compromised Nintendo of Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet and broken Mario Kart Lan gameplay.
Better to wait for Nintendo to come online naturally, when they can do something worthwhile and meaningful, and give Online all their creative energy and vision.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com  

14938

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 06, 2004, 04:14:04 PM »

So, in essence, let's forget everything that makes Nintendo who they are, and let's chain Miyamoto to his desk and FORCE him to turn out something he doesn't believe in. Let's sugjugate the artistic to the commercial, and the human to the machine. Let's turn Nintendo into Sony, or Microsoft.

Hyperbole, I know, but the fact is that Nintendo IS it's developers, it IS it's games. Without it's games and the people who make them, Nintendo is nothing. It isn't a wheeling and dealing business whose main form of survival is throwing money and numbers around. Nintendo is little more than a reputation built on the successes of people like Miyamoto who believe and protect and embody that Nintendo-style drive for videogame excellence and innovation.

Hiroshi Yamauchi may have done one thing right in his reign, and that was to believe in Miyamoto and to enable him to fill the role he now so ably embodies: a creator more than a developer. In this environment, Yamauchi at least gave Miyamoto something that you don't: respect. A respect for integrity, a respect for intelligence, and a respect that means that you trust them to give you only the best they have to offer.

As soon as we start thinking that the consumer dollar and market trends are more important than these developers ideas, visions, and integrity, then we destroy the very thing that has enabled Nintendo to accomplish so much and become so successful. As soon as we don't respect the talents of people like Miyamoto, who have consistently delivered, then we argue that market forces, popular perception, and petty greed are more important to us as videogamers than the next Zelda, Mario, or Metroid.

As soon as it's more important to us that Nintendo be the arbitrary leader in numbers like marketshare of an industry $11 Billion dollars large and with room for three consoles, rather than being the Nintendo represents visionary innovation and artistic excellence, then we kill Nintendo.

Why should Nintendo go online before they feel like they can do something new in the medium? Why should Nintendo force Miyamoto to make something he doesn't yet have a vision for? Why should Nintendo sacrifice it's respect for the independence and skill of it's developers and creators? Why should Nintendo, instead of sticking out, start playing catch-up and lap-dog to Sony and Microsoft by rehashing old and tired concepts?

Your answer is basically this: So Nintendo can sell more consoles, and so they can have another line to stick onto their PR spin sheet.

I'm sorry, but that's not the Nintendo I believe in.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14939

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 06, 2004, 12:21:32 PM »

Simply because MarioKart 64 required us to buy 4 controllers doesn't mean that it was a gimmick to get us to buy more and more Nintendo stuff. And let's not forget that Animal Crossing was developed for the N64, when the only GB connectivity we had was the Transfer pack. And while the cynics may scoff at Pokemon and say that it was a gimmick to get people to buy multiple packs, it doesn't erase the fact that Pokemon not only brought in a "collecting and trading " mindset to gameplay, but it also got myself, my younger brother, and my uncle all playing on our GBAs in the same room, each of us with a different pak, and each of us making plans for the future. Nintendo connectivity has allowed players to make connections with each other BEYOND throwing virtual punches and kicks and exchanging bullets.

"Nintendo likes connectivity because it requires people to buy a bunch of their proprietary hardware. It sells GBAs to Cube owners and vice versa."

This is very close-minded and exceedingly cynical, especially when you said that:

"The limitation is the real problem. How can one innovate if they're enforcing limitations on themselves?"

Don't write off owning two independent pieces of hardware as bad. You're limiting yourself immensely to the possibilities of intersecting mobile and console gaming. How can you innovate that way?

And besides, let's remember that add-ons simply don't work. Droves of people aren't going to buy a $99 piece of hardware just to play this "connectivity game." Looking at the connectivity angle as a scheme to get GBA owners to own GCs and vice cersa is ridiculous. Nintendo isn't inspiring new consumer behavior as much as it is exploring new channels of gamer's relationships to games, and making use of the already present number of gamers who own both a GC and a GBA (thanks to the GBA's current monopoly).

Perhaps Satoru Iwata is hitting the nail on the head a bit hard. Perhaps he's fighting a rear-guard action to save face. Perhaps it'd be folly to ever believe corporate speak at face value. But no matter the distortions you or others may throw at him, he's essentially right. Nintendo isn't in a position to merely copy player-matching and persistent online content, and they can't condone the online arena until they can use it to, yes make money, but even more: until they can use it to make a real original and groundbreaking Nintendo game, instead of merely a Mario Kart DD: Online Edition or SSBM: Online Edition that'll be nice, but ultimately meaningless and futile against juggernauts Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo is eager to explore new modes of gameplay and new ways to alter the relationship between player's and games. And Miyamoto's willing to take his time to fully realize his vision, or to go against the grain, or to simply wait on the sidelines until he can figure out a way to do things (after all, they've been messing around with Mario 128 for HOW long?)

If you think the rewards aren't worth the wait, I'm at a loss as to how you can call yourself a Nintendo fan.

14940

TalkBack / RE:Iwata Talks About Online Games

« on: July 06, 2004, 10:17:18 AM »

IanSane, your view of Nintendo is quite off-base. In no way are they a company that is eager to jump on a bandwagon merely because it exists nor are they willing to skydive off the next supposedly-innovative precipice. They innovate, but they innovate principally around Miyamoto philosophy. If you want a crazy company willing to try new things out, go for Sega, which has gone Online, given us Seaman, made the Saturn Multiprocessor before it was feasible, chased CD technology to their doom, and, as a videogame company strongly rooted in the arcade tradition, is much more zany than Nintendo. Nintendo has always been more restrained, cautious, yet at the same time more impressive with their innovations than Sega.

Iwata's statements, when taken in context, prove one thing: Nintendo looks at the state of online games today, and realizes that fundamentally all Online games are is player-matching and persistent content. Even your ideas on how to innovate in the online field amounts to simple player-matching a Fighting game: bring Soul Caliber online and make it more than 2 player! Yay!

True online innovation has to use the medium beyond letting people play preset genres together from different screens. It has to use the connectivity inherent in the internet to craft new relationships that players have with their games, and with their opponents. And it has to use the internet to not say "there's another person, play with him!" but to say "there's another person, what is your relationship to them?"

All you want to do is use the internet to make people fight each other in glorious polygons. Until the internet can somehow amount to more than long-distance multiplayer, I highly doubt that Nintendo will bite.

Oh, and for the record, Nintendo has been experimenting with the idea of a network for their consoles since the Famicom. It's sort of sad that today's biggest examples of online gamplay, MMORPGs, are simply prettied-up MUDs. And if online gaming hasn't progressed further than that since the Famicom, I doubt Nintendo has much reason to be optomistic that if it merely intends to copy what's already been done.

Nintendo believes in connectivity, Nintendo believes in people playing together. Pokemon created a "trading and collecting" mindset among players. Animal Crossing lets players share their landscaping, interior design creativity, and interpersonal relationships (such as when you visit someone else's town and a villager shows you a letter that the town's resident wrote them: gossip, invasion of privacy, voyeurism). Even the poorly implemented GBA connectivity feature in WW showed innovative drive: the GBA player was imagined as the role of the parent, helping and guiding their child through the game (much the way I would draw maps of the first Zelda's Dungeons to help my Mom beat the game, after which she'd teach me how to play). But they don't believe in connectivity with little purpose, which is what most online games today amount to. They don't believe in merely throwing two people in a room together and expecting them to race, fight, or chat. They believe in giving those people a framework so that they can communicate meaningfully.

Nintendo doesn't believe in Online in it's current form, because Nintendo wants Online to mean something more.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14941

TalkBack / RE:EFF Challenging Nintendo Emulation Patent

« on: July 01, 2004, 08:33:19 AM »

Yeah, Nintendo is sorta forced into this line of action because today we may be playing GBA games on the Palm, but soon we may be playing GBA games on the PSP...

No matter the legality of the issue, emulators completely destroy the business model (console maker charging licenses for developers making games on its console) that has been in place for years now. I'd be perfectly fine with destroying that business model... except that it doesn't seem toc ause any large ills in a highly competitive market like the one we have today, and I don't see any alternative business models to replace it with that'd create more chaos than good.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14942

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Holds Briefing in Japan

« on: June 10, 2004, 06:54:48 AM »

You're certainly afraid of Nintendo going all radical on us Ian. But I don't see anything to support those fears.

Nintendo is trying to figure out how to create new relationships and interactions that people can have in, with, and revolving around videogames. They're not looking for some sort of gimmick to set them apart from the rest. As long as Miyamoto is involved, it's quite apparent that Nintendo will only dive into a technical innovation when they have a good idea of implementation to back it up.

This goes for online connectivity too. Nintendo isn't going to set up a server farm until they can figure out a way to do something beyond mere player-matching and persistant worlds.

Nintendo isn't necessarily looking to abolish the old-school, and they probably never will as long as the market keeps reminding them of it's importance (like they reminded Nintendo that they wanted a D-pad on the GC controller, which they got). Instead, Nintendo is looking to move videogames beyond the normal boundaries of the medium and open up new frontiers and fields in the way relationships and interaction can be interpreted. They don't want videogames to forever be someone simply looking at pretty graphics and pressing buttons to get more pretty graphics.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14943

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Says New Console Probably at E3 2005

« on: June 04, 2004, 08:18:06 AM »

I'm sure Nintendo will go online, just as soon as they figure out a way to do it that consists of more than player-matching, and can create a paradigm shift so that by radically changing the online landscape they aren't fighting an uphill battle or imitating what's been done before, but having something to show that's new and gives them a fighting chance against electronics and information technology giants like Sony or Microsoft.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14944

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Says New Console Probably at E3 2005

« on: June 01, 2004, 07:48:36 AM »

I agree that innovation that immediately locks out previous playing styles can have a detrimental effect.

But this is all paranoia. Not only do we not know much about the Revolution (Though I'm betting it'll come with wireless technology to work in conjunction with the DS... which has both a touchpad and built-in microphone...), but ever since the Virtual Boy (which, Gunpei Yokoi's creation, demonstrates a completely different school of thought than Miyamoto's current day philosophies) Nintendo has tried to create new input and gameplay relationships that are as intuitive as they are innovative. Nintendo doesn't have Sega's arcade background or their wackiness, but they are definitely experimental in their internal projects. But even then, these projects are not meant in a way to exclude users, but to create game systems that are more inclusive.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14945

TalkBack / RE:Colleseum Selling UK GameCubes

« on: May 27, 2004, 03:20:16 PM »

Why anyone would buy a Gamecube for Pokemon Colisseum is beyond me...

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14946

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Says New Console Probably at E3 2005

« on: May 27, 2004, 12:21:14 PM »

Oooh. Good point. Agreed.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Ian Sane]

14947

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Says New Console Probably at E3 2005

« on: May 27, 2004, 11:28:38 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane

"Earlier this month at the 2004 E3 expo Nintendo's President, Satoru Iwata, told the world that Nintendo's next console wouldn't just be about high specs and fancy graphics. Instead, while the system would be powerful, they will be focusing on innovation."

Even though the DS turned out to be pretty cool and had much better graphic capabilities than I thought it would this statement still makes me nervous every time I read it.  I just get visions of standard power glove controllers or something equally useless and bizarre.  It should all be fine if Nintendo remembers this rule: no matter what the hardware still has to be able to play the same types of games that are on the PS3 and Xbox2.  Oh and make a bigger d-pad this time too.

Sadly, whenever Nintendo says that it won't turn into Sony or Microsoft, fans cringe.

Look, I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but I'd still like to think that Nintendo should be respected for it's integrity and focus as a game developer and innovater, and not looked down upon for not being able to outmarket the all powerful Microsoft, or out tech-geek the consumer-electronics powerhouse Sony.

And it may be that Nintendo is doomed to never regaining the top spot because it can't magically transform into Sony or Microsoft. But I'd like to think that real Nintendo fans have gotten past marketshare numbers to see what's really important: the videogame medium. And real Nintendo fans should be proud to see that Nintendo's dedication to the videogame medium and their enthusiasm for its future cannot be questioned, no matter how many PS2s fly off the shelves, or how many commercials for XBox we get exposed to.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14948

TalkBack / RE:Realistic Zelda!

« on: May 11, 2004, 11:34:51 AM »

I love Nintendo art direction. The Namco Soul Caliber 2 Link was butt ugly... thought the SW2000 Link looked like a girl...

The stonework on the castle and dungeon is the most lackluster part I see, but everything else looks neato. At first it all looked like a tech demo... ... but the horseback and mounted combat scenes look like they use in-game graphics... but are they actual gameplay? That's the real question: whether these scenes are scripted/FMV/Demo or whether they indicate real gameplay?

By the way, the new Bokoblins and Lizalfos (?) rock.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14949

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo DS Attracts Worldwide Developers

« on: May 06, 2004, 07:23:19 AM »

Isn't the DS's biggest selling point is that, unlike the PSP, designers have a new innovative format with which they can make a name for themselves? Instead of being forced to compete in terms of pure graphics of marketting, which both require money?
With an entirely open field for innovative game design, and a relatively low graphical ceiling (as compared to the PSP), designers are less likely to be forced to spend millions on technical work eeking out every last pixel/polygon in a rush to keep up with EA or Squaresoft, and can more easily make a name for themselves in the industry if they can execute new and well-thought out ideas that the format will require.

This is a strange strength to throw up next to the PSP's technological superiority, but in my opinion, with Nintendo not as technically savvy as Sony, it's all they could offer, and may just be enough if the DS hits a mass-market pricepoint. Unfortunately, the early adopters will screw this all up and subsidize Sony's PSP early on, building hype and word of mouth (deserved or undeserved) and...bah. I guess we might as well give up on the handheld market now. There's just no beating the corporate machine.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

14950

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Patents GBA Emulation

« on: April 29, 2004, 01:29:18 PM »

And has no one paid attention to my fear of GBA games showing up on competing handheld PDAs and systems? Especially with reference to the TapWave's soon-to-be emulation software for GBA games?

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com