Kameo
04-10-2007, 03:14 PM
Anywhere you look in the world today, you'll see evidence of Sony's continuing downfall. It seems like every time someone from Sony opens his mouth, we want to twist our own heads off in disbelief. Can't that damn company go one day without embarrassing itself?
But if you think Sony's too cocky, arrogant and detached from the consumer base, you apparently weren't around for Nintendo's heyday. It was once just as influential, bossy and jerkish as Sony is today, and then some. Imagine a company with total control of an industry, where its word is law and no one can stand up against its decrees. Then imagine it falling from power so hard that companies practically lined up to walk on its back.
These are the mistakes that led to Nintendo's downfall. Sure, it's a lovely time for the company now, but if history repeats, Sony will fall, leaving someone else, possibly Nintendo, to get fat and lazy all over again. And by our reckoning, even its current console powerhouse is a possible misstep in the making.
7 - Creating the Wii
Can the same magic that made the DS an international phenomenon happen with a console? Nintendo's betting on it. Betting it all, really.
Because what do you do next? Five years from now, when the PS4 and NextBox show up, they're going to jump in hardware power again. And then Nintendo's left with a machine that looks two generations old instead of one. The motion controls, now considered somewhere in between "the best damn thing that's ever happened in the world" to "gimmicky stupid childish nonsense," will be super played out and exploited. Unless there's some other gameplay innovation on the horizon, Wii could be viewed as a fad, susceptible to the same fickle emotions that killed snap bracelets, pet rocks and Sega. And if Nintendo bites the bullet and gives the machine a visual kick in the pants, well there goes its whole mantra that graphics don't matter. There's just enough steam with this idea to last one generation, and none after that.
Today, the Wii is insanely popular with almost every audience. But if this wave of good vibes ever ends, Nintendo's gonna be stranded. Casuals will be tired of Wii Sports, with no interest in shelling out $50 for a Wii Sports 2, and the typical gamer will me more interested in playing something with a normal controller, one you don't have to clear the room for.
Sure we love Super Paper Mario and can't wait to see Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but do either of these games have anything to do with the Wii Remote's primary function? Nope. And most third party games that find their way onto the system have control setups that baffle even the most hardcore of gamers. Hold B while flicking up to swing a punch? Please. Nintendo better have some crazy unique ideas coming up or we'll have to start clutching our DS systems even closer.
6 - The Virtual Boy
"Eye Advisory: Virtual Boy is for players 7 years and older" - Virtual Boy box
No list of mistakes would be complete without mentioning the world's favorite piece-o-crap gaming device. Launched in 1995, just as the SNES was fading and a year before the N64 would arrive, this "portable" machine was stricken from memory the moment it hit the shelves. For some reason, Nintendo thought people would actually want to strap their heads into a clunky headset that only displayed red visuals on a black background (and caused incredible eye strain after moderate use). The faux-3D images looked like a Game Boy trapped in a crimson-laced Tron nightmare, never once offering the supposed "32-bit" processing power promised on the box.
It was ugly, It was heavy. It was uncomfortable. It was confusing. It was almost 200 damn dollars. Within a year you could find these things for $25, games for $10 and eager merchants desperately trying to get this abomination out of their stores. In a way, the Virtual Boy was the true beginning of the end for Nintendo's unquestioned dominance, the first bizarre misstep in a series of horrible mistakes. Some came before, sure, but they were obscured by the fact that Nintendo was the only game in town. In '95, Sega had chewed up half of the audience and Sony was ready for the rest - a product as ill-conceived as the Virtual Boy couldn't have struck at a worse time.
Virtual Boy's creator, the late Gunpei Yokoi, resigned from Nintendo following this disaster. It's a shame he left (or was forced to leave, as some surmise), as Yokoi is also the father of the gazillion-selling Game Boy. Who knows what other joys he could have brought to this world if he hadn't left the company?
5 - An ongoing battle against online gaming
"Customer's don't want online games." - Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, 2004
"More than six million people are Xbox Live members." - Microsoft press release, 2007
While this quote from Japan Economic Foundation may sound inaccurate today, what with Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection and all, but three years ago the company couldn't have been more anti-online. While Sega Saturn offered a modem, Nintendo never even approached the idea with the N64. A few years later, Dreamcast had a modem built in, the Xbox shipped with broadband support and PS2 rolled out its own way to take the system online. What did GameCube provide? A half-assed broadband adaptor that supported Phantasy Star Online games with zero first-party backing. If you wanted to game online, you did not play with Nintendo.
The rationale, for the time, wasn't without reason - most Japanese players got online in public places, not their homes. Even though the rest of the gaming world goes the other way, Nintendo was more concerned with its homeland than appealing to any other audience. Fair enough, but this led to Microsoft dominating the market with the attractive and easy-to-use Xbox Live.
And once Nintendo finally embraced online gaming, what did we get? Horrendous 16-digit Friend Codes that must be traded before you can play another person. Oh, and these codes aren't system specific - there are different codes for every game you buy. Who needs clever, easy to remember Gamertags when you've got a string of forgettable numbers to trade with each new title? Maybe they're safe for kids; maybe they're total pains in the *** too.
Even with the Wi-Fi Connection going strong on DS, there's still very little effort being put into Wii's online presence. When was the last time you sent a message to someone? Why do we have to wait six months before playing one damn Wii game online in the US (and when we do, it'll be Pokemon Battle Revolution )? If Nintendo had just embraced online gaming when it was in its infancy, it could be the one monopolizing the internet gamer community. As it is, that crowd belongs entirely to Microsoft, and with PS3's Home on the way, we need more than some cutesy Mii people running around to convince us of Nintendo's commitment to one of the fastest growing aspects of modern gaming.
4 - Censorship and the unshakable "kiddy" image
If you're trying to sell video games to kids in the '80s, the last thing you want to be seen as is "uncool." But for a while there it seemed like Nintendo was going out of its way to look and act like a parent desperately trying to protect his children from the outside world yet also appear hip and "with it." Initial censorship, like removing overt religious icons or scenarios from Japanese games, made sense. Scantily clad women would often receive a few extra strands of clothing, that's nothing too crazy either. But the constant badgering of third parties to remove references to Hitler or words such as "devil," "death" or "hell," had to be grating. Even more so when Nintendo's main rival, Sega, didn't seem to really mind a lot of the same content. Sega also left the precious blood in the first home port of Mortal Kombat - Nintendo saw fit to force publisher Acclaim to replace the blood with sweat.
With this one act, the thought that Nintendo was a little too family friendly came out into the open for all the playgrounds and college dorms to see. We can't rip off someone's head in the Super NES Mortal Kombat?
Once Mortal Kombat II came to the SNES, the blood was a go, due to the verbal and sales thrashing Nintendo received. But this problem isn't about lost sales, it's about perception. After this point, it wasn't "cool" to like Nintendo anymore. All the fanatics of the '80s were ga-ga over Sonic the Hedgehog, and all the mushroom-eating plumbers in the world couldn't make the company seem as edgy as Sega. To top it all off, once the videogame violence topic hit congress, Nintendo brought its own version of MK to prove how "safe" its version was compared to Sega's uncensored Kombat. Essentially, Nintendo was tattling on Sega. If there's a better way to simultaneously look like an asshat and make the other guy appear cool as hell, we'd love to hear it.
Nintendo, once the epitome of cool, was surpassed by Sega, then by Sony and astonishingly fast by Microsoft (the Xbox went from non-issue to major player in about a month). And whenever it tried to cover this image up with the "in your face" ads of the "Play It Loud" era, kids across the country were smart enough to tell the difference between real cool and real stupid.
Continue reading here: Top 7 Nintendo Mistakes - Part2 (http://www.coolrom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5786)
But if you think Sony's too cocky, arrogant and detached from the consumer base, you apparently weren't around for Nintendo's heyday. It was once just as influential, bossy and jerkish as Sony is today, and then some. Imagine a company with total control of an industry, where its word is law and no one can stand up against its decrees. Then imagine it falling from power so hard that companies practically lined up to walk on its back.
These are the mistakes that led to Nintendo's downfall. Sure, it's a lovely time for the company now, but if history repeats, Sony will fall, leaving someone else, possibly Nintendo, to get fat and lazy all over again. And by our reckoning, even its current console powerhouse is a possible misstep in the making.
7 - Creating the Wii
Can the same magic that made the DS an international phenomenon happen with a console? Nintendo's betting on it. Betting it all, really.
Because what do you do next? Five years from now, when the PS4 and NextBox show up, they're going to jump in hardware power again. And then Nintendo's left with a machine that looks two generations old instead of one. The motion controls, now considered somewhere in between "the best damn thing that's ever happened in the world" to "gimmicky stupid childish nonsense," will be super played out and exploited. Unless there's some other gameplay innovation on the horizon, Wii could be viewed as a fad, susceptible to the same fickle emotions that killed snap bracelets, pet rocks and Sega. And if Nintendo bites the bullet and gives the machine a visual kick in the pants, well there goes its whole mantra that graphics don't matter. There's just enough steam with this idea to last one generation, and none after that.
Today, the Wii is insanely popular with almost every audience. But if this wave of good vibes ever ends, Nintendo's gonna be stranded. Casuals will be tired of Wii Sports, with no interest in shelling out $50 for a Wii Sports 2, and the typical gamer will me more interested in playing something with a normal controller, one you don't have to clear the room for.
Sure we love Super Paper Mario and can't wait to see Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but do either of these games have anything to do with the Wii Remote's primary function? Nope. And most third party games that find their way onto the system have control setups that baffle even the most hardcore of gamers. Hold B while flicking up to swing a punch? Please. Nintendo better have some crazy unique ideas coming up or we'll have to start clutching our DS systems even closer.
6 - The Virtual Boy
"Eye Advisory: Virtual Boy is for players 7 years and older" - Virtual Boy box
No list of mistakes would be complete without mentioning the world's favorite piece-o-crap gaming device. Launched in 1995, just as the SNES was fading and a year before the N64 would arrive, this "portable" machine was stricken from memory the moment it hit the shelves. For some reason, Nintendo thought people would actually want to strap their heads into a clunky headset that only displayed red visuals on a black background (and caused incredible eye strain after moderate use). The faux-3D images looked like a Game Boy trapped in a crimson-laced Tron nightmare, never once offering the supposed "32-bit" processing power promised on the box.
It was ugly, It was heavy. It was uncomfortable. It was confusing. It was almost 200 damn dollars. Within a year you could find these things for $25, games for $10 and eager merchants desperately trying to get this abomination out of their stores. In a way, the Virtual Boy was the true beginning of the end for Nintendo's unquestioned dominance, the first bizarre misstep in a series of horrible mistakes. Some came before, sure, but they were obscured by the fact that Nintendo was the only game in town. In '95, Sega had chewed up half of the audience and Sony was ready for the rest - a product as ill-conceived as the Virtual Boy couldn't have struck at a worse time.
Virtual Boy's creator, the late Gunpei Yokoi, resigned from Nintendo following this disaster. It's a shame he left (or was forced to leave, as some surmise), as Yokoi is also the father of the gazillion-selling Game Boy. Who knows what other joys he could have brought to this world if he hadn't left the company?
5 - An ongoing battle against online gaming
"Customer's don't want online games." - Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, 2004
"More than six million people are Xbox Live members." - Microsoft press release, 2007
While this quote from Japan Economic Foundation may sound inaccurate today, what with Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection and all, but three years ago the company couldn't have been more anti-online. While Sega Saturn offered a modem, Nintendo never even approached the idea with the N64. A few years later, Dreamcast had a modem built in, the Xbox shipped with broadband support and PS2 rolled out its own way to take the system online. What did GameCube provide? A half-assed broadband adaptor that supported Phantasy Star Online games with zero first-party backing. If you wanted to game online, you did not play with Nintendo.
The rationale, for the time, wasn't without reason - most Japanese players got online in public places, not their homes. Even though the rest of the gaming world goes the other way, Nintendo was more concerned with its homeland than appealing to any other audience. Fair enough, but this led to Microsoft dominating the market with the attractive and easy-to-use Xbox Live.
And once Nintendo finally embraced online gaming, what did we get? Horrendous 16-digit Friend Codes that must be traded before you can play another person. Oh, and these codes aren't system specific - there are different codes for every game you buy. Who needs clever, easy to remember Gamertags when you've got a string of forgettable numbers to trade with each new title? Maybe they're safe for kids; maybe they're total pains in the *** too.
Even with the Wi-Fi Connection going strong on DS, there's still very little effort being put into Wii's online presence. When was the last time you sent a message to someone? Why do we have to wait six months before playing one damn Wii game online in the US (and when we do, it'll be Pokemon Battle Revolution )? If Nintendo had just embraced online gaming when it was in its infancy, it could be the one monopolizing the internet gamer community. As it is, that crowd belongs entirely to Microsoft, and with PS3's Home on the way, we need more than some cutesy Mii people running around to convince us of Nintendo's commitment to one of the fastest growing aspects of modern gaming.
4 - Censorship and the unshakable "kiddy" image
If you're trying to sell video games to kids in the '80s, the last thing you want to be seen as is "uncool." But for a while there it seemed like Nintendo was going out of its way to look and act like a parent desperately trying to protect his children from the outside world yet also appear hip and "with it." Initial censorship, like removing overt religious icons or scenarios from Japanese games, made sense. Scantily clad women would often receive a few extra strands of clothing, that's nothing too crazy either. But the constant badgering of third parties to remove references to Hitler or words such as "devil," "death" or "hell," had to be grating. Even more so when Nintendo's main rival, Sega, didn't seem to really mind a lot of the same content. Sega also left the precious blood in the first home port of Mortal Kombat - Nintendo saw fit to force publisher Acclaim to replace the blood with sweat.
With this one act, the thought that Nintendo was a little too family friendly came out into the open for all the playgrounds and college dorms to see. We can't rip off someone's head in the Super NES Mortal Kombat?
Once Mortal Kombat II came to the SNES, the blood was a go, due to the verbal and sales thrashing Nintendo received. But this problem isn't about lost sales, it's about perception. After this point, it wasn't "cool" to like Nintendo anymore. All the fanatics of the '80s were ga-ga over Sonic the Hedgehog, and all the mushroom-eating plumbers in the world couldn't make the company seem as edgy as Sega. To top it all off, once the videogame violence topic hit congress, Nintendo brought its own version of MK to prove how "safe" its version was compared to Sega's uncensored Kombat. Essentially, Nintendo was tattling on Sega. If there's a better way to simultaneously look like an asshat and make the other guy appear cool as hell, we'd love to hear it.
Nintendo, once the epitome of cool, was surpassed by Sega, then by Sony and astonishingly fast by Microsoft (the Xbox went from non-issue to major player in about a month). And whenever it tried to cover this image up with the "in your face" ads of the "Play It Loud" era, kids across the country were smart enough to tell the difference between real cool and real stupid.
Continue reading here: Top 7 Nintendo Mistakes - Part2 (http://www.coolrom.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5786)