Topic: IGN-Cube's on another Nintendo-rant

[Artimus]

Why are you guys so defensive? How can you deny Nintendo has gone from the #1 company to the last place company in just 8 years? And they're not making any changes so they'll keep failing. I'm not saying I don't want Mario games, I'm saying make something sleek, cool, full of the top third party games (GTA, a real Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, more RPGs) and some of those exclusive. FIGHT for exclusivity. I'm not saying their games suck, I'm not saying they're not right about multimedia machines killing gaming, but I want them to win. They can make Mario as well as do those things. You guys know very well Nintendo is only going to float or sink if it keeps on the path it is.

[PaLaDiN]

Well, I don't know about the others. But it's not that I'm defensive, it's that there are more important things than winning.

I didn't buy a Gamecube to get involved in some horse race. I bought a Gamecube because I like Nintendo games. I seriously don't give a crap if they're in last place or whatever as long as they're still making profits. If they start making losses and burn through most of the money in their bank account, then I'll start worrying about the money side of things.

Until then, I'd rather they kept making the games I like. Since they're doing that already, I see no problems and IGN just seems like a bunch of prissy little schoolgirls to me.

[KDR_11k]

There are two reasons console owners want their system to win: More third-party titles and blind fanboyism.
The DS already has some good third party support and being the only major system with touchscreen controls is a reason for third parties to develop for the DS. The GC had no such reason, you could go with the XBox, slightly more powerful, same userbase, better conditions or you could go with the PS2, weaker but huge userbase. The Cube didn't give devs any reason for developing games for it except to prevent Sony from getting an absolute monopoly. The DS gives you a real reason. The touch sacreen can be a major advantage if used right, things like target selection or quick orders would work a lot faster with the touchscreen.
Since Nintendo doesn't lose money on anything they can sustain operations for a long time to come. Even if the DS was a complete failure Ninty would live to make another system.

[Captain Olimar]

microsoft are losing the most money yet no one mentions this?  there may be a few thousand more xbox's sold worldwide( thanks to thick americans ) but who cares? its sony that run the console industry, while nintendo just relax and do their thing. its microsoft who are panicking because they are competing with the might of sony, so let them. if it wasnt for nintendo's presence , than microsoft could compete directly with sony, and that would be sad..

if nintendo sacked their whole european department maybe things would be different. nintendo europe do such a lousy job , most retailers take the same view as ign.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well Artimus last time i checked the Twin Snakes IS a real Metal Gear Solid.  And the gamecube also has a solid line up of RPGs now and RPGs do sell pretty well on Gamecube as well(if you dont count Skies of Arcadia).  

[KDR_11k]

TS is a remake, though. it's not an entirely new game so it doesn't count for a full game.
And to me "solid lineup" means a few more than three titles.

[Darc Requiem]

Hmmm I'm a huge Nintendo fan but this "they are last but they are still making profits argument" is getting old and its highly shortsighted. Nintendo makes a butt load of money of their software sales. As their marketshare shrinks they have fewer customers to sell their software to. If Nintendo continues on its current path they will go out of business. That stated, the DS gives me a renewed confidence in Nintendo. They seem to finally get it when it comes to marketing and the redesign of the DS. When similar concerns where raised about the look of the Gamecube, Nintendo turned a blind eye to an obvious error. I mean Nintendo did a lot of things with GC that we all knew were mistakes. I mean hindsight is 20/20 but the color of the GC, lack of buttons on the GC controller, and pathetic memory card size where obvious errors that required no hindsight.

I don't understand the view of "but hey they are still making a profit." Yes its the silver lining to darc cloud of Nintendo's situation but that doens't make the situation okay. Look at the software sales of Nintendo's top titles. Now imagine what they'd be if GC's sales were just double what they are now world wide. When you makes the worlds best titles and can't even post 2nd place in world wides sales, It shows that Nintendo as company is failing inspite of its quality software. Don't even get me started on its stance on on-line gaming. Oh and I'm not going to say what you think. I don't care if Nintendo makes on-line games themselves but that doesn't mean you should inhibit 3rd parties from making on-line games if desire too. I mean remember how Sega wanted PSO to be a launch title for GC? Well Nintendo dragged there asses on deliver the necessary tools for online software development so it put Sega behind. Oh it doesn't end there though. In addition to that, Nintendo dragged there feet on making modem and broadband adapters available. Now I sure other 3rd party developers saw this...I mean Sega pratically had to beg and plead with Nintendo. Thats not good and thats why we don't have on-line titles for GC.

Nintendo was a very aggressive company during they're rise. During they decline they became conservative....instead of trying to gain market share they seemed to be trying to hold on to market share. They appear to be very aggressive with DS so far and I hope they continue this stance and bring it to Revolution as well. I hate to have to choose between MS and Sony for my gaming needs.

Darc Requiem

[JeffTheMasta]

Hello, I am the author of the article in question.

I'd just like to say that anyone who read the article should know that it was a piece written and edited solely by me. IGN had no role in the creation of the piece, nor does it have any controlling stake in the actions of my site, N-Sider.com. The only reason it appeared on IGN is through a partnership IGN has with us, which is described at the top of every page in the article.

For those of you who seem intent on pinning it as yet another example of IGN's hatred of Nintendo or something along those lines, perhaps you should read into things a bit more. "Playing it Safe" was not even going to be in the top spot this weekend. The only reason it was is because another article was delayed or didn't pan out as planned. And if you think that I or N-Sider are somehow Nintendo haters then obviously you didn't really read through my article (or read through it after already making up your mind about it). There is an editorial going up on N-Sider this week alone that is practically a counter editorial to the one I wrote and we have a great many writers with diverse opinions on Nintendo.

I guess that's all I have to say about that for now. I thank anyone who read the article without a bias. Thanks.

[nemo_83]

Quote
Originally posted by: Darc Requiem
Hmmm I'm a huge Nintendo fan but this "they are last but they are still making profits argument" is getting old and its highly shortsighted. Nintendo makes a butt load of money of their software sales. As their marketshare shrinks they have fewer customers to sell their software to. If Nintendo continues on its current path they will go out of business. That stated, the DS gives me a renewed confidence in Nintendo. They seem to finally get it when it comes to marketing and the redesign of the DS. When similar concerns where raised about the look of the Gamecube, Nintendo turned a blind eye to an obvious error. I mean Nintendo did a lot of things with GC that we all knew were mistakes. I mean hindsight is 20/20 but the color of the GC, lack of buttons on the GC controller, and pathetic memory card size where obvious errors that required no hindsight.

I don't understand the view of "but hey they are still making a profit." Yes its the silver lining to darc cloud of Nintendo's situation but that doens't make the situation okay. Look at the software sales of Nintendo's top titles. Now imagine what they'd be if GC's sales were just double what they are now world wide. When you makes the worlds best titles and can't even post 2nd place in world wides sales, It shows that Nintendo as company is failing inspite of its quality software. Don't even get me started on its stance on on-line gaming. Oh and I'm not going to say what you think. I don't care if Nintendo makes on-line games themselves but that doesn't mean you should inhibit 3rd parties from making on-line games if desire too. I mean remember how Sega wanted PSO to be a launch title for GC? Well Nintendo dragged there asses on deliver the necessary tools for online software development so it put Sega behind. Oh it doesn't end there though. In addition to that, Nintendo dragged there feet on making modem and broadband adapters available. Now I sure other 3rd party developers saw this...I mean Sega pratically had to beg and plead with Nintendo. Thats not good and thats why we don't have on-line titles for GC.

Nintendo was a very aggressive company during they're rise. During they decline they became conservative....instead of trying to gain market share they seemed to be trying to hold on to market share. They appear to be very aggressive with DS so far and I hope they continue this stance and bring it to Revolution as well. I hate to have to choose between MS and Sony for my gaming needs.

Darc Requiem

Youre entirely right.  

It is never a good sign entering a new generation of consoles and handhelds with half of your fanbase (not even including what the rest of the industry thinks) believes your company is on the wrong track, a track that ends over a gulch.  Nintendo is only around today because of their fanbase.  Not really the quality of the games.  The same quality is present and even funner in many old Nintendo games already owned by many in the fanbase.  I play my old 2d Nintendo games more than the new ones.  Why?  Because despite the level of quality of their new games compared to the rest of the present market, they are still the same games I've played on three other consoles many times.  Or the games have simply changed from what they used to be about, like Mario Minus the Bros. Scavenger Hunt Sunshine.  I remember in the eighties when this bad ass company came out of nowhere and redefined my childhood with original games like Mario Bros, Zelda, Metroid, Kid Iccarus, Punch Out, and others.  It is a fact that as Nintendo has cemented its reliance soley upon their franchises they have lost market share every year.  Do they think that they can rely on their old NES and SNES carts to break down so we have to buy them again rehashed on future consoles?  Why can't Nintendo make something new??

Nintendo is only still around because their fans have been suffering from denial.  There are five stages of grief, they're not always faced in order, but they must be faced.  It is not the fault of gamers that Nintendo is failing.  Their failures cannot be explained away by their fans being cheap or high brow (Nintendo only gamers).  Also it is denial that has pushed Nintendo to where it is, not listening to gamers.  There is a line that Nintendo must not cross, it is a line that once passed, they cannot return.  I hope they have not crossed that line.  We will have to wait and see how things look in a year to find out if they have crossed the line and alienated too many customers.  Or if they are able to regain the market from Sony with a real Revolution.

[Infernal Monkey]

Four pages of complaining. Four pages of the same stuff every Nintendo site feels the need to complain about now and then. Yes, very good. I think we're well aware that Wind Waker is cel shaded, Mario Sunshine wasn't as good as Mario 64, third parties don't like to shovel their crap on GC because they know we won't buy the majority of it, GameCube doesn't appeal to casual game players.

Four pages to tell us this. Again.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well KDR as it stands the cubes RPGS are Skies of Arcadia,Tales of Symphonia,Paper Mario 2,MMX: Command Mission, Baten Kaitos, Lord of The Rings: The third age in terms of traditional RPGs and there are many others if you would count action RPGs.

[BigJim]

Quote
Originally posted by: Darc Requiem
I don't understand the view of "but hey they are still making a profit." Yes its the silver lining to darc cloud of Nintendo's situation but that doens't make the situation okay. Look at the software sales of Nintendo's top titles. Now imagine what they'd be if GC's sales were just double what they are now world wide. When you makes the worlds best titles and can't even post 2nd place in world wides sales, It shows that Nintendo as company is failing inspite of its quality software.

It isn't just that Nintendo is still profitable. They are the *most* profitable as well. Even with all of Sony's tens of millions of Playstations sold, they are moving a lot more money around, but the bottom like is still not as strong as Nintendo's.  Popularity is important, but profitability is what keeps a company alive. As "minimized" as Nintendo appears in the marketplace, of course there is room for a lot of improvement, but it's also hard to argue with success.

My feeling about them is, "OK, they've done good. Now do great."

I for one have been quite energized by Nintendo since E3. The DS has momentum. Zelda will likely sell a good load of new consoles in the system's late cycle, and if the DS is any hint at Revolution, I think they will have a system much more competitive than GameCube. I'm just one person, but I've been pretty hard to impress lately. I think the sleeping giant is waking up.

If anybody expects Nintendo to suddenly be a Sony ass-kicker tomorrow, they're going to be disappointed. There's simply not much point in trying to be so aggressive this late in GameCube's life. At this point it is all about the people looking for cheap fun. There's less profit to be had going forward than there was the last 3 years.

I think the "new" Nintendo is showing itself in the DS. They are going to try to fend off the PSP to the death to keep their monopoly. They also appear to be working on some aggressive plans for Revolution. It's certainly going to be pretty close in spec to Xbox2, and it will have a hell of a much more timely launch. The only question to me, really, is 3rd party support. They've been given general guidelines, but there probably won't be actual dev kits distributed to them until next year.

[BiLdItUp1]

Nintendo might be albe to pull in a larger profit on lower revenue, but at the expense of who? The gamers, that
's who. Because gamers don't want hi-def, why don't we just yank it out, so we make another couple of bucks? Why don't we make higher licensing fees, even though our discs have a sixth capacity of our competitors? Why don't we skimp on DVD playback and all those other needless features our competitors are trumpeting? Why don't we keep touting our profitablity as a cover for being third in the most important game market in the world, and mask the fact that that profitability comes its Game Boy monopoly, which is about to be assaulted!

I didn't need to rant like that(I don't really care about most of what I just wrote about)I wonder- without the Game Boy division, would the last couple of years profits been losses? Until we know, we should stop letting Nintendo use its profitability to shield not-so-great sales and its go-it-alone attitude. Eventually, profits'll wither away if there aren't enough sales to begin with....

I do believe that Nintendo is getting better in will soon realize what they have to do to make an effective comeback.

[Artimus]

Quote
Originally posted by: JeffTheMasta
Hello, I am the author of the article in question.

I'd just like to say that anyone who read the article should know that it was a piece written and edited solely by me. IGN had no role in the creation of the piece, nor does it have any controlling stake in the actions of my site, N-Sider.com. The only reason it appeared on IGN is through a partnership IGN has with us, which is described at the top of every page in the article.

For those of you who seem intent on pinning it as yet another example of IGN's hatred of Nintendo or something along those lines, perhaps you should read into things a bit more. "Playing it Safe" was not even going to be in the top spot this weekend. The only reason it was is because another article was delayed or didn't pan out as planned. And if you think that I or N-Sider are somehow Nintendo haters then obviously you didn't really read through my article (or read through it after already making up your mind about it). There is an editorial going up on N-Sider this week alone that is practically a counter editorial to the one I wrote and we have a great many writers with diverse opinions on Nintendo.

I guess that's all I have to say about that for now. I thank anyone who read the article without a bias. Thanks.

Don't worry about them. They just don't want to face it. I used to be like that too, I was a die-hard fanboy, my people could do no wrong. But now I've faced facts. Good editorial.

[PaLaDiN]

How nice of you to condescend to us, the unenlightened masses. To what do we owe the honor?

Maybe it's not so much that we don't want to face it as it's we don't work for the company.

Whine and bitch all you want. The fact of the matter is that I'll be enjoying my games and you'll be bitching.

[Infernal Monkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Artimus

Don't worry about them. They just don't want to face it.

Yeah, I can't handle the fact that thousands of people I don't know or care about missed out on playing Wind Waker because they thought it would make them homosexual or something. "DUDE, IT'S GOT CARTOON GRAPHICS! A VIDEO GAME WITH CARTOON GRAPHICS, EEEEK MY LUST FOR WOMEN, FAILING" or that Acclaim did not care about the GameCube. We missed out on quality Acclaim goodness.

I must go commit suicide over these hard hitting deadly boring facts we were all aware of two years ago.

[KDR_11k]

The Cube isn't going to come back, anyway. Nintendo knows that. They've lost this round and there's nothing they can do now. They'll have another chance with the Rev, if they play out all the dirty tricks they can they might stand a chance. The Rev has a chance. It's different, that might be its downfall or its salvation, depending on how Nintendo plays its cards. It's really way to early to make any predictions, but the DS shows that Iwata seems to have skill when it comes to launching a system.
Anyway, it's currently a slow phase in the home console market, all decisions have been made, the outcome is clear and everybody is waiting for this phase to end so they can reap big profits again without alienating people with an early release. The DS is where the battles will be fought next year and Nintendo seems pretty aggressive on that front.

[Artimus]

RE4. Case in point.

Personally I want to play Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, etc. but can just afford one system...

[couchmonkey]

Okay, I get the impression that most of the people here either didn't read the article, or read something they didn't like and decided to pick on it instead of taking the article as a whole.  The main point of the article was about a lack of innovation in Nintendo's products due to it's extreme dependence on franchises.  It also implied that Nintendo is losing popularity partially because it is playing "safe".

I disagree somewhat with the second part, but I do agree with the first part.  There are FIVE FRICKING MARIO GAMES this Christmas.  Why?  Paper Mario is awesome, but there's not a lot of reason for Mario Pinball Land, Mario Power Tennis, Mario Party 6, or even Super Mario 64 DS to exist.  At E3 Nintendo showed us two Metroid games, three Zelda games, four Donkey Kong games, and around eight Mario games.  I think it's well worth asking if some of these games might be better if Nintendo let it's developers try something new.

I disagree with quite a few of the article's points about why Nintendo is doing poorly in this generation.  I don't think Nintendo will magically fix its problems by making more brand-new games instead of relying on franchises.

I'm as tired of the self-hating attitude of a lot of Nintendo sites as everyone else, but I think the guy has a good point about Nintendo's extreme reliance on it's franchises.  The Pikmin games are (for me) the most exciting games Nintendo has made this generation.  They're exciting because they're new.  While I don't know if that's the key to making Nintendo more popular, I do think more brand-new games and fewer franchise spin-offs would be a dream come true.  

[PaLaDiN]

"Personally I want to play Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, etc. but can just afford one system..."

Then buy a PS2 only. Nobody's stopping you.

Seriously, dude, the only reason to care about GC sales is third-party support. If you want third-party that bad, buy the console that has the most of it.

Nintendo consoles should come with a warning like, "Do not expect anything other than Nintendo games." Maybe then the bitching would stop.

And I did read the article. I disagree with it because I like Mario, Zelda and Metroid... they're the reason I bought the GC in the first place, and I doubt I'm the only one. As long as the quality is consistent I'm happy with what they're doing.

Besides, Animal Crossing, Wario Ware and Pikmin are new franchises. I think Nintendo making 2 or 3 new franchises per generation is pretty good, as long as they build upon them in future generations and let them grow into something big, like Smash Brothers from the N64 generation.

[Artimus]

Quote
Originally posted by: PaLaDiN
"Personally I want to play Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, etc. but can just afford one system..."

Then buy a PS2 only. Nobody's stopping you.

Seriously, dude, the only reason to care about GC sales is third-party support. If you want third-party that bad, buy the console that has the most of it.

Nintendo consoles should come with a warning like, "Do not expect anything other than Nintendo games." Maybe then the bitching would stop.

And I did read the article. I disagree with it because I like Mario, Zelda and Metroid... they're the reason I bought the GC in the first place, and I doubt I'm the only one. As long as the quality is consistent I'm happy with what they're doing.

Besides, Animal Crossing, Wario Ware and Pikmin are new franchises. I think Nintendo making 2 or 3 new franchises per generation is pretty good, as long as they build upon them in future generations and let them grow into something big, like Smash Brothers from the N64 generation.

Um...what part of 'can just afford one system' didn't you understand? I CANNOT AFFORD A PS2 AND XBOX. And your argument is idiotic. If Nintendo is going to waste money jsut so people can only play THEIR games, why bother? And why the heck shouldn't I want third party games? XBOX gets MGS, XBOX gets GTA. Why not Nintendo? Why wouldn't you want Nintendo aggresively court third party games and actually make their system something that people want? Then they get more money to make more games. You're acting like I'm saying Nintendo should never make another Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. I'd never say that. But they're acting like stuck-up children.

[Bill Aurion]

Hardly...Ninty has been trying to garner third-party support this entire generation...How else can you explain their involvement with Namco(Starfox, Donkey Konga, SCII with Link), Capcom(which has basically fallen through thanks to moneyhats), Sega(F-zero), N-space, etc?  The thing is that Ninty just isn't powerful enough to work this out as well because of thick-headed publishers that would rather have their game for the system with the most market-share(Enix, Konami) or moneyhats(Tecmo)...I really feel there is absolutely nothing Ninty can do without becoming just like Sony or Microsoft which would fortell the end of gaming to me...Nintendo HAS been trying, so it's not their freaking fault...

[PaLaDiN]

"Um...what part of 'can just afford one system' didn't you understand? I CANNOT AFFORD A PS2 AND XBOX."

I thought my argument was clear enough. If you can just afford one system and you like third-party support so much, why did you choose GC instead of PS2 or Xbox?

"And your argument is idiotic. If Nintendo is going to waste money jsut so people can only play THEIR games, why bother?"

Because people want to play their games? I know I do, for one.

"And why the heck shouldn't I want third party games? XBOX gets MGS, XBOX gets GTA. Why not Nintendo? Why wouldn't you want Nintendo aggresively court third party games and actually make their system something that people want?"

What the hell? The Gamecube is something that people want. I don't care how many people want it, as long as it has Nintendo games on it at least some people will want it, and I'll be one of them.

"Then they get more money to make more games. You're acting like I'm saying Nintendo should never make another Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. I'd never say that. But they're acting like stuck-up children."

No, I'm acting like you're saying that Nintendo is making too many Mario, Zelda and Metroid games. Isn't that the point of the article, which you agreed with? I disagree. I can never have enough of those games, and I don't want Nintendo to make less of them so whiny little kids can have all their games on one system. The world doesn't work that way. There are always tradeoffs.

Next generation, you should really reconsider if you want Nintendo games badly enough to warrant purchasing a console just for them. That's all it comes down to.

[Perfect Cell]

IGN is right. Whats so dispicable about it?


After 2002. Nintendo promised us new franchises... E3 2003 would be all about New Franchises ? yeah right...

Pikmin, thats it.


Nintendo needs to get its junk in gear today.  

[The Omen]

Quote
Next generation, you should really reconsider if you want Nintendo games badly enough to warrant purchasing a console just for them. That's all it comes down to.

The sad part is, a lot of peole are going to decide against buying the Rev if something doesn't change.  They need to hype the Rev from e3 with commercial after commercial and game announcements for the launch.   Thats about the only way to gain some of these people back, including me.