Game Rader's top 7 nintendo failures

[8th lutz]

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/wii/game/feat...308165433320026

 

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?

[8th lutz]

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 ass 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? Fine. See you at Matt's house. He has a Genesis.

 

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.

[8th lutz]

3 - Pissing off the third parties from day one

 

There's no denying that Nintendo brought the videogame industry back from the brink of disaster. You also can't deny how much it used this leverage to lord over anyone who wanted to use the insanely successful NES to make money. If you could get a game published on the first Nintendo system, you had it made. But first you had to jump through whatever hoops Nintendo laid out for you. And you did it with a big fake smile on your face.

 

First you had to place an order for Nintendo-made cartridges - minimum of 10,000 - and Nintendo makes money off of each sold cart. Then you had to submit your game and all its related aspects (commercials, artwork, all of it) to Nintendo for approval. If it wanted to, Nintendo could censor whatever it liked.

 

The best part is the strict limit Nintendo placed upon its software rivals. No matter how many games you'd like to sell, you could only produce five games per year on the system. The thought was, if you can only make five per year, they're bound to be good, right? Not a bad idea... unless you're trying to make back the costs of buying all those blasted NES carts. Oh, and you couldn't release the game on any other platform for two effing years. That kinda stung too.

 

As game prices rose in the mid-'90s, Nintendo was able to put out its own games at reasonable cost - meanwhile, third parties, still paying cartridge royalties, had to bump their prices up to break even, causing another rift between the money Publisher X gobbled up versus the vast riches Nintendo usurped. With a near-90% stranglehold on the videogame marketplace, anything the company wanted, it got. Until congress got wind of this, that is.

 

After a hailstorm of bad press and allegations of monopolistic practices, Nintendo was more or less forced to ease up on its restrictions. Publishers could freely put their games on rival platforms (ensuring the Genesis' success) and could also finally control their gaming orders and inventory. But the point is, it took the actions of Washington to make it happen, and once it did, software publishers were all too ready to hand out their once-exclusive titles to someone else.

 

Cut to today, when Nintendo's allegedly not giving third parties access to its all-important Mii code, or info on how to take a Wii game online. The past two Nintendo platforms, N64 and GameCube, started strong with third parties, then fell flat after the first two years. Will the Wii be any different?

 

2 - Pretty much everything involving the Nintendo 64

 

Remember those pricy cartridges we mentioned earlier? Imagine having to continue paying for them in a time when Sega and Sony both went to CD, an immensely cheaper medium that also allowed much greater storage capacity. That's what publishers had to deal with during the entire run of the N64 (1996 through 2001). As the rest of the gaming world switched to an established format, Nintendo stuck to its proprietary-formatted guns, ensuring slightly higher prices for games and lesser quality sound for an entire generation. Count how many memorable soundtracks there were on the PlayStation. Then look at the N64. Pretty grim, eh?

 

But it wasn't about sound, obviously. Developers wanted to use these fancy new 3D graphics to tell stories, to show players worlds that just weren't possible on the Genesis and SNES. The N64's power was fine, but the limited storage space and high price of an N64 cart prevented games like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII from even being possible on the system. Squaresoft was once an all-Nintendo publisher, giving the company its valued Final Fantasy series exclusively. Once Square jumped ship and ran to Sony and its lovely CD format, the console war was already over. Hello cutscenes, hello CD-quality music, hello beautiful presentation.

 

But before the war had even begun, Nintendo was pissing people off. Instead of courting as many third party developers as possible, it tried to focus on a small number of hand-picked developers to keep its system afloat. Nintendo actually had the balls to call it a "dream team," basically saying to everyone else, "if you you're not part of our clique, oh well." As a result, the bountiful support Nintendo enjoyed on the SNES was drying up, and its own titles were trickling out too slow to pick up the slack.

 

We're still not done. The N64's controller was the most ghastly thing the world had seen since the Virtual Boy. Yeah, the analog stick was revolutionary, but did you look at the rest of this beast? Did you ever see a non-gamer or even a casual player try to hold it after playing a PlayStation game? It was painful. Hell, even us seasoned gamers couldn't get over the plastic trident, clearly designed to work with Mario and Zelda alone. Third parties had a constant battle to map controls that made sense onto the controller. It was especially unfriendly to fighting games, so no Tekken, Street Fighter or Soul Edge for us. Even more titles lost to Sony.

 

Then there's the 64DD, a laughable add-on that answered a question nobody ever asked. The re-writable discs were yet another Nintendo-owned property it could charge for, and its key titles were... wait a second, there were no key titles. Let's just move on. It's like Nintendo didn't watch add-ons kill Sega a few years earlier.

 

The N64 may have spawned some of the best games ever made, but honestly, how many systems can make the same claim? Sure we adore Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye 007 and Super Mario 64, but most of the other titles are crap. This entire console generation was like watching a king get quartered in front of the entire village. And you know what? Our number one mistake explains why it's all Nintendo's fault.

[8th lutz]

1 - Opening the doors to PlayStation

 

If there's one moment in time that forever changed the videogame world, it's the day Nintendo stabbed Sony in the back in front of the whole world.

 

Multimedia isn't much of a buzzword these days, but back in the early '90s, it was everything. Entire libraries could fit on a disc, symphonies could finally sound crystal clear and even educational games could be played all off of one disc. CD-ROM supporters wanted this medium in as many hands as possible, and Nintendo was the best possible way to get it there.

 

Electronics superstar Philips decided to ally itself with Nintendo and bring a CD attachment to the Super NES. With Nintendo's clout, Philips' CD tech could reach millions in record time. It seemed like a mutually beneficial setup - except for the fact that Nintendo had already signed a contract with Sony in 1988 for pretty much the exact same thing.

 

This contract had Sony creating a "Play Station" that would feature an SNES cartridge port and a CD slot for new, enhanced games. Problem was, this contract gave Sony complete control over any CD-based games that touched the system, Mario included. Once Nintendo's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, realized that he would not have the final say on something with Nintendo's name on it, he demanded a solution that put Nintendo back in the saddle. The result was announcing the new partnership with Phillips during the 1991 CES trade show, despite the fact that Sony had just announced the Nintendo-powered Play Station the night before.

 

This slap in the face was unheard of for several reasons. First, a Japanese company ditching another for a foreign rival was unspeakable. Second, such blatant disregard for contracts made the company appear like a power-hungry monster, always trying to get its way regardless of who it has to humiliate or crush. Third, how the hell did Yamauchi's signature get on that Sony contract in the first place? Nintendo had made its vast fortune on licensing games, so hearing that it gave Sony the rights to any and all future CD titles was appalling.

 

The three giant companies did finally work out a crazy ménage a trios agreement, but wouldn't you know it, the whole deal fell apart. Nintendo went its own way, Philips carried on with its terrible CD-I system and Sony, while briefly considering abandoning the venture altogether, decided to make the Play Station a standalone system that played Sony-branded games. Thus, the PlayStation was born. Nintendo effectively created its own worst enemy.

 

Sony's CD resources led to the defection of Square, countless exclusives that Nintendo never saw and for the first time ever, a sound beating at retail. Sega's own inept ability to provide gamers with quality products essentially left the whole industry open to Sony's powerful charge. After a bit of back-and-forth in 1995 and 1996, the PlayStation jumped ahead in 1997 and has been on top ever since. It's crushing blitz forever buried Sega and put Nintendo on perpetual defense, a position it never once had to consider.

 

So now, the publishers and developers of the world had a viable alternative to consider. No more expensive cartridges, no more Sega bumbling its tacky add-ons, no more insane restrictions. Games became part of pop culture, and the PlayStation went on to become one of the best-selling objects in electronics history. If Nintendo had merely tried to rework that original Sony contract (something Sony probably wouldn't have gone for anyway), things could have been much different.

 

But, after all the ludicrous profits of the '80s, the slow and steady downfall of the '90s, and the gradual regaining of trust and cool factor going on today, the company is poised to be back on top again. The DS, a seemingly mental design decision, turned out to be the clear winner of the current systems. And Wii, well, if the momentum lasts, Nintendo's got nothing to worry about. Let's just hope it remembers its own history and steers clear of any more jerkholish moves.

[Tempest]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

 

Tempest

[8th lutz]

Your thoughts?

 

I felt they had the wrong order.

 

The wii is too soon to be mentioned as a failure.

 

My top 7 is top 7:

 

7.) Game Cube not having the Dvd format

6.) Nintendo not having the "playstation" As a cd Attachment

5.) Nintendo's Censorship and the unshakable "kiddy" image

4.)The virtual boy

3.) Nintendo's lack of online gaming

2.) The N64

1.) Nintendo's treatment of 3rd parties during the 8 bit and 16 bit era.

 

I felt the playstation was only 6th ranked on my list due to the fact Attachments are not sucessful. You can look at the turbo cd, sega cd and the 32x as examples of being attachments and being failures. The only reason it is not 7 due to the fact Sony was the leader by far during the 32/64 era and the 128 bit era.

 

The N64 is 2 due to the fact it used the cartridge, expensive game prices, and the format scared off 3d parties and Allowed games like Final Fantasy 7 to be released on other game consoles as a result along with the fact the system caused the playstation to be number 1 in sales.

[Gregory DG]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

No kidding! Isn't it a bit early to call the Wii a failure? I wonder if these guys are calling the PS3 a "great success!!!"

 

Let'see... I think the Virtual Boy should be #1. That's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think "Nintendo Failure."

 

#2 ought to be sticking with the Cart format for the N64.

 

#3 the monopolistic practices during the NES days.

Edited April 10, 2007 by Gregory DG

[TimsterAA]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

No kidding! Isn't it a bit early to call the Wii a failure? I wonder if these guys are calling the PS3 a "great success!!!"

 

Let'see... I think the Virtual Boy should be #1. That's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think "Nintendo Failure."

 

I guess this is a case of "different strokes for different folks". I think the VB is a lot of fun, actually! A literal pain-in-the-neck, but I've always enjoyed playing it. Oh well...

 

--Timster--

[Scumdogg]

I agree that it's too soon to assuredly call the Wii a failure, but i applaud them for at least bringing it up.

 

My wife and i own a Wii. Yeah, it gets played pretty frequently. For now. But we had this conversation the other day...look at the gap now between the graphics on the Wii and the other two current systems. Now realize that developers are only going to get better with the 360 and PS3 hardware as time goes on. Sorry, but everyone already figured out how to push the limits of the 'Cube hardware. We're not going to see anything visually amazing here, at least not in 3D. That might not matter now, but when another generation of graphical powerhouses rolls up and Nintendo's still convinced that nobody cares about graphics, they're going to get an incredibly high poly-count boot up the ass.

 

Nintendo's had a great little rush of success with the Wii, but as far as ever being a pioneer of the industry again, well...they've set themselves up to fail. Like the article said, how long can you make motion sensitivity feel revolutionary? What has Nintendo done with a home console since the SNES that makes you think they even have the attention span to make sure standing up and waving your arms around doesn't get stale? I think the Wii and its current crop of games are a nice little diversion sometimes, but i'll never buy a game for it that's available for any other system. That means first party development needs to keep rolling, none of this tired "let's hold it for the next system" crap. And if Nintendo can actually keep decent exclusive games rolling out for this thing after the first year and a half, i will eat my hat. Literally.

[AtariJr]

ummm.. it says how nintendo became the biggest underdog.. not a failure. making a system not like the others is a good way to become the underdog.

 

and the console is less than a year old. there are many many more titles coming out for the system by fall, just hold on people lol. the other systems really arent getting much at this time of year either.

 

and the n64 did pretty well. my favorite system didnt make it, at least the 64 made enough profit to live to a nice old age. and i kinda liked the vboy controller. in a way i wish they just added more buttons onto it and had that for the 64 instead. ah well.

 

also i like how he complains that smash bros and super paper mario dont use the primary unit of the remote (the pointer)..... do people forget??? its like the ds, you use the functions that pertain to the game.. not ALL of them if you dont need them. if you had to use all them then more games would seem more gimiky as they were doing things just do use the hardware, and not to improve gameplay. yeesh. the perfect example of where the wii will be in a few years is the ds.. selling out in japan after a redesign and beating the playstation in sales all over the world.. boom.

Edited April 10, 2007 by AtariJr

[JB]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

No kidding! Isn't it a bit early to call the Wii a failure? I wonder if these guys are calling the PS3 a "great success!!!"

 

Let'see... I think the Virtual Boy should be #1. That's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think "Nintendo Failure."

 

I guess this is a case of "different strokes for different folks". I think the VB is a lot of fun, actually! A literal pain-in-the-neck, but I've always enjoyed playing it. Oh well...

 

--Timster--

That's WHY it should be #1. It was such a great concept, and died so incredibly rapidly.

 

 

As for the claims that it never displayed a hint of the "32-bit power" it was supposed to have...

I'm pretty sure it did as much, if not more, than early GBA games.

 

 

 

 

I'm also baffled as to how much weight really mattered. It's not child-killing heavy like the manual says the XBox is, and the user doesn't have to support the weight at any time like Game Radar seems to think they do.

[Atarifever]

It amazes me that people are so blindly one dimensional about hardware. Yeah, the Wii's graphics don't stick up to the others, so they'll look dated by the PS4. So what?

 

By the PS4, if motion sensing becomes a big deal, the limited motion sensing in the PS3 will look terribly underwhelming and dated. The 360 won't have had it during the entire generation before, making it look primitive.

 

By the PS4, the fact that you had to buy wi-fi for the 360 will seem almost unbelieveable.

 

By the time the PS4 hits, it'll seem crazy that many 360s actually sold with wired controlers.

 

With the other two companies keeping force feedback, making it unlikely to go away, the PS3s lack of it will make it's controller seem antique.

 

By the time the PS4 comes out Sony's price point may finally be down to somewhere where the 360 and Wii were years before, giving it a reputation as an elitist piece of hardware, like a laser disc player.

 

This is ignoring the very simple fact that if the Wii does do incrdibly good compared to say the PS3, then a ton of great stuff will end up on the Wii, and the PS3, for example, won't be setting th grahical standard anyway. I don't remember people saying the SNES looked dated during the 16 bit generation just because of how nice Neo Geo games looked. The big seller sets the accepted standard.

 

I'm not knocking anything missing from any system. However, to say the Wii will be so dated it proves to be a mistake just because Johny chavalot can't see nipple outlines in the shirts of the girls in his fighting games is ignoring the fact that no system has it all.

Edited April 10, 2007 by Atarifever

[AtariJr]

It amazes me that people are so blindly one dimensional about hardware. Yeah, the Wii's graphics don't stick up to the others, so they'll look dated by the PS4. So what?

 

By the PS4, if motion sensing becomes a big deal, the limited motion sensing in the PS3 will look terribly underwhelming and dated. The 360 won't have had it during the entire generation before, making it look primitive.

 

By the PS4, the fact that you had to buy wi-fi for the 360 will seem almost unbelieveable.

 

By the time the PS4 hits, it'll seem crazy that many 360s actually sold with wired controlers.

 

With the other two companies keeping force feedback, making it unlikely to go away, the PS3s lack of it will make it's controller seem antique.

 

By the time the PS4 comes out Sony's price point may finally be down to somewhere where the 360 and Wii were years before, giving it a reputation as an elitist piece of hardware, like a laser disc player.

 

This is ignoring the very simple fact that if the Wii does do incrdibly good compared to say the PS3, then a ton of great stuff will end up on the Wii, and the PS3, for example, won't be setting th grahical standard anyway. I don't remember people saying the SNES looked dated during the 16 bit generation just because of how nice Neo Geo games looked. The big seller sets the accepted standard.

 

I'm not knocking anything missing from any system. However, to say the Wii will be so dated it proves to be a mistake just because Johny chavalot can't see nipple outlines in the shirts of the girls in his fighting games is ignoring the fact that no system has it all.

 

very true. every system has setbacks that will seem pathetic in a few years. gamecube was purple, had no dvd player, and had a handle lol. xbox had gorilla sized controllers and a system that was the same size of my dashboard, and the ps2's graphics in hindsight really werent that much better than that of a dreamcast unlike what they tooted.

 

also... when was the last time a console with the best graphics actually did the best... i dont think thast ever happened. 2600 didnt look as good as the competition.. even won out against its successors. neo geo didnt beat the snes or geny, gameboy beat out the gamegear, playstation won against the n64 and even to a degree against the dreamcast, ps2 beat the cube and xbox, ds is doing better than the psp... now the wii is kicking a lot of ass in sales. those are all graphically inferior systems next to competition.

 

oh and speaking of the 360, i think the biggest thing that makes it seem outdate is the fact it still uses a disk tray. it would have been smart of m$ to update that with the elite.. i mean with the money your pooring out for the thing , it would be nice to have a drive thats been in use since the imac g3s.

Edited April 10, 2007 by AtariJr

[thomasholzer]

At least there's always the Game Boy

[Kripto]

How wildly bitter is it to forecast failure for the Wii? This writer is an obvious fanboy with an anti-Nintendo axe to grind.

 

I personally think it's brilliant to go after the BILLIONS of people who are not interested in the hours-long, super complex investments that most current videogames have become.

 

Whatever happened to intuitive games which are just fun to play immediately? Nintendo understands the answer to that question best at the moment.

[Vic George 2K3]

The Virtual Boy ranks as the #1 worst failure of Nintendo. Fortunately this disaster only lasted a few years in the market. At that time, I was more interested in wanting to play Doom or Quake in 3D, rather than what the Virtual Boy had to offer.

 

Anyway, it's too early to call the Wii a failure, since it basically needs a year or so to really prove itself as a proven game system or one with an annoying fad of a novelty controller.

[JB]

The Virtual Boy ranks as the #1 worst failure of Nintendo. Fortunately this disaster only lasted a few years in the market.

The VB didn't even survive to it's first birthday.

[+remowilliams]

Anyway, it's too early to call the Wii a failure, since it basically needs a year or so to really prove itself as a proven game system or one with an annoying fad of a novelty controller.

Exactly. Time needs to actually elapse before declaring the winners and losers of the current round.

 

Time apparently does not need to elapse here to consistently bring out the self congratulating Nintendo apologists every single time.

[thomasholzer]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

No kidding! Isn't it a bit early to call the Wii a failure? I wonder if these guys are calling the PS3 a "great success!!!"

 

 

Exactly, calling the Wii a failure is as stupid as some people here on the board calling the PS3 a failure. There you go, a taste of your own medicine, as we say in England.

[jesusc]

3 - Pissing off the third parties from day one

 

There's no denying that Nintendo brought the videogame industry back from the brink of disaster.

 

ugh. I hate seeing this spouted over and over. There was no videogame disaster. There was a CONSOLE disaster, sure, but videogames were fine. People were just playing them at arcades or at home on their computers.

[misspent_youth]

Arcades died their own death until fighting games (i.e. Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat) rescued them for a spell. It was directly a result of the perceived lack of interest in gaming resultant from the console bust.

 

It should also be noted that the 'great crash' was mostly a North American phenomenon.

[AtariJr]

Creating the Wii was a failure? I wish my failures turned out like that...

No kidding! Isn't it a bit early to call the Wii a failure? I wonder if these guys are calling the PS3 a "great success!!!"

 

 

Exactly, calling the Wii a failure is as stupid as some people here on the board calling the PS3 a failure. There you go, a taste of your own medicine, as we say in England.

 

its like when the psp came out and sold well for the first week and peopel declaired the ds dead. yeaaaah

 

i mean we havent even gotten to the first anniversary either the ps3 or the wii. its too hard to tell for sure on either one. however, i think its safe to say the wii wont be a failure. i mean, hell.. they're already nearing the total number of units that the gc sold in its total lifespan. so even if the wii spontaniously combusted next january, and disappeared from the market, it would have done pretty darn well.

[superjudge3]

I'm so sick of these "Best of" and "Worst of" lists. We don't need someone to tell is all these things. Besides, I like the Virtual Boy, the N64 is one of my favorite systems, and Sony makes me want to puke. There I said it.

Edited April 11, 2007 by superjudge3

[Lauren Tyler]

5 - An ongoing battle against online gaming

 

"Customer's don't want online games." - Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, 2004

 

Apparently Iwata needs to get his head out of his ass and consider all of the markets instead of just Japan. What might not work in Japan might work in the US. Of course, he may be too drunk on sake again to even consider that thought. (Do they have an equivelant of AA in Japan I wonder?)

[Shannon]

Where o where to begin...

 

"Graphics don't matter". I think people are taking this a little too literally. Upping the price of the hardware to insane prices in the name of graphics is not always the best way to go. That does not mean they have no plans on improving the graphics in the next generation. Dohhh. People need to stop taking things so literally.

 

"Next gen Graphics". Sorry guys just like DVD vs HDVD/Blu-Ray graphics have pretty much plateaued to a point where the average consumer is not gonna care. Especially if there is a significant cost increase. Is there a difference? Sure, but notice the KEY phrase here. "Average consumer".

 

Third party's use, or lack thereof of the Wii controls. This I can see as a problem. Mostly because it is a new concept so developers are still feeling this one out.

 

"More than six million people are Xbox Live members" - Note he does not say Xbox Live GOLD members which is where the REAL online is at. Does this include multiple accounts on one machine? Sounds like the usual statistics craps companies seem to like to use these days. The big killer for the Wii is the stupid friend code nonsense. Plus I don't see no web browser in the Xbox either.

 

Zero first-party backing of the broadband adaptor - NOT!!!! The mario Kart double dash game has support for the broadband adaptor. Albeit that's the only support it got.

 

My rankings by karma...

 

1.) Nintendo's treatment of 3rd parties during the 8 bit and 16 bit era.

2.) Nintendo's Censorship and the unshakable "kiddy" image.

3.) Nintendo double crossing Sony, thus causing the playstation to be created.

4.) The N64 not using CD. (Was this a legal issue due to number 3?)

5.) The virtual boy.

6.) Friend codes.

 

I dropped the others cause being at the forefront technologically wise does not always equal success in the end.

 

Just my humble opinion (listed below)..

 

Graphics are overrated. Sure they help but ultimately bad gameplay can kill a game and personally I think developers focus too much on graphics and not enough on gameplay. I think graphic "style" is far more important. A big difference.

 

Cutscenes are overrated.. Watch cutscene for 20 minutes, play game for 5, watch another cut scene for 10 minutes. Booooooring.

 

Online gaming is overrated. It certainly didn't knock Sony out of 1st place. Sure it's good for those who like it. But yer mostly talking hardcore gamers. I will make one exception. Worlds of warcraft game is the only time online gaming really took off for the masses. Not everyone has broadband there are still lots of people using regular 'ol phone lines.

 

Time apparently does not need to elapse here to consistently bring out the self congratulating Nintendo apologists every single time.

nor the anti nintendo-apologists comments. Yawn....

Edited April 12, 2007 by Shannon