You do realize that the era when Nintendo had more influence was when Hiroshi Yamauchi was illegally opressing the other game companies right? They would dictate which games WOULD and WOULDN'T be released due to their own interpretation of the game's quality, they put restrictions on the number of games third parties could release in any one year, they were also naturally conservative in the content of games, though the quality of graphics those days probably made it unnecessary.
The Nintendo you want is a Nintendo made possible only by the incompetence of third parties, the collapse of the videogame industry in '83, and by Hiroshi Yamauchi's hated tactics.
It certainly was a golden age, but it was a golden age because the genies we have today hadn't been let out of the bottle. Those genies are competent third parties who can make decently successful games, the evoltuion of technology to a point where Nintendo can no longer stay on top, and the successful rebirth of an Industry that Nintendo saved, such that it has more stylistic directions than Nintendo could probably care about.
Sure, that golden age was great, and it was necessary. The collapse of '83 put the industry in a spot suchas where only Hiroshi Yamauchi and Nintendo could save it. They saved it by impinging on developer's freedoms (Nintendo dictated Q & A, max # of games that could be released in a year) and by completely obliterating the "adult" portion of videogaming, instead, recasting it towards children.
In a sense, Nintendo's success at saving videogames has evolved the market to such a point where Nintendo simply can't take the game industry further in certain ways. This is when Sony came in, to do things with games that Nintendo couldn't. (Become more hardware centric, let third parties blossom, re-enter the adult videogame market)
This isn't a bad thing, but the viewpoint allows one to reinterpret Nintendo. Nintendo is perhaps the most important videogame company of all time: they saved videogames. But the period where videogames needed intensive care is over. Gaming, now constantly changing and evolving, is too large an enterprise to be overseen by one micro-managing perfectionist company like Nintendo.
Nintendo still has a lot to give to videogaming, but not as the be-all and end-all of interactive entertainment. I agree with you, a lot of todays games are simply...lacking... and Sony and Microsoft have turned the entire gaming world commercialistic and mass market. Yet that's part of what gaming is now, for better or worse, and it's precisely that way because Nintendo taught the world that videogames were fun.
I wouldn't know what to make of it if Nintendo was in the top dog position again. I bet it would be good overall, but I doubt that Nintendo has anywhere NEAR the energy, resources, to last long in such a position. But I feel that Nintendo has already been in that position during the 80's and early 90's, and that they were able to give the gaming industry so much in that time that there's probably nothing left the game industry could learn from them in that form.
Now I see a Nintendo who's still creating amazing games and still driving forward with their beliefs in innovation, game control, all-age access, and quality. I don't see a company that used to BE videogames, I see a company that is more successful than ever at making new and brilliant games in their own style, a company that innovates, and can lead by example instead of merely by monopolistic Yamauchi-esque edicts.
I agree though... EVERY Nintendo fan wants Nintendo to be #1 again. But I'd hope that Nintendo fans also realize that they never really loved Nintendo because they were in a position of power over other companies. I'd hope they realized that Nintendo gave us the first battery-backed saves in the original Zelda, gave us warp zones in Super Mario Bros., the portable gameboy, Mario Paint and Pokemon, the oft-copied light world/dark world mechanic from Zelda:Lttp, the analog control from the N64 and the lock-on battle system from Zelda: OoT and WW.
All of these never came because Nintendo was #1. They came because Nintendo refused to compromise their values in the face of adversity, and even though this may have cost them the #1 position in the industry, their games were able to be realized in the way that Nintendo wanted them to be.
In a way, I ultimately believe that the world benefits more from Nintendo's freedom to create things the way they want to, than from Nintendo being in a position to babysit all the other companies.
Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com 
Topic: Miyamoto interview on IGN (Read 16036 times)
