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.)
Topic: Editorial: PlayStation or Xbox? (Read 31307 times)
