Why I hate Nintendo: A gaming company review.

[Fightgarr]

The only problem I really have with this review is that while you critique Nintendo you fail to recognize that the other two monolithic gaming companies are doing the same thing: no new concepts, milking their fans for every penny. That's what the gaming industry is. Nintendo just happens have been their longer, so what their doing (i.e. milking out their old franchises) seems worse than say, Microsoft trying to market on Halo's success by having hundreds of space-marine shooters.

 

[LumiHawke]

The only problem I really have with this review is that while you critique Nintendo you fail to recognize that the other two monolithic gaming companies are doing the same thing: no new concepts, milking their fans for every penny. That's what the gaming industry is. Nintendo just happens have been their longer, so what their doing (i.e. milking out their old franchises) seems worse than say, Microsoft trying to market on Halo's success by having hundreds of space-marine shooters.

Sony is oddly not doing much milking at all. If you look at it, for a while it was the biggest bang for the dollar on the market. Unlike Nintendo and Microsoft you do not have to buy company brand name addons, like headsets, keyboards, harddrives. PS3 can use any PC based USB Headset and Keyboard, you can buy a SATA Laptop Harddrive for it for far cheaper than anything microsoft sells for their 360 as well and slap it into the PS3 and boom, 180-500gb harddrive anyone? Free online support? As well as some of the most unique games on the market like LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles and Drake's Fortune.

Edit: Related note I think PC gaming is now turning into the biggest milking market. I just made a new PC last year, now at the end of this year it's already badly outdated. To get a new video card suited for what I wish I need a new motherboard, which requires a new processor as well, whcih also needs now DDR3 Ram sticks. My motherboard now has PCI E support for video cards the newest ones now have PCI E 2.0, and the motherboards for them now have DDR3 Ram Sticks, my only 1 year old motherboard which was one of the better ones when I bought it only as PCI E, and DDR2 slots. Next I'd laugh if they change the type of Harddrive next. It's only been just over 1 bloody year since they changed to PCI Express as the standard for most cards now they have 2.0.

 

[milskidasith]

The only problem I really have with this review is that while you critique Nintendo you fail to recognize that the other two monolithic gaming companies are doing the same thing: no new concepts, milking their fans for every penny. That's what the gaming industry is. Nintendo just happens have been their longer, so what their doing (i.e. milking out their old franchises) seems worse than say, Microsoft trying to market on Halo's success by having hundreds of space-marine shooters.

Sony is oddly not doing much milking at all. If you look at it, for a while it was the biggest bang for the dollar on the market. Unlike Nintendo and Microsoft you do not have to buy company brand name addons, like headsets, keyboards, harddrives. PS3 can use any PC based USB Headset and Keyboard, you can buy a SATA Laptop Harddrive for it for far cheaper than anything microsoft sells for their 360 as well and slap it into the PS3 and boom, 180-500gb harddrive anyone? Free online support? As well as some of the most unique games on the market like LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles and Drake's Fortune.

Edit: Related note I think PC gaming is now turning into the biggest milking market. I just made a new PC last year, now at the end of this year it's already badly outdated. To get a new video card suited for what I wish I need a new motherboard, which requires a new processor as well, whcih also needs now DDR3 Ram sticks. My motherboard now has PCI E support for video cards the newest ones now have PCI E 2.0, and the motherboards for them now have DDR3 Ram Sticks, my only 1 year old motherboard which was one of the better ones when I bought it only as PCI E, and DDR2 slots. Next I'd laugh if they change the type of Harddrive next. It's only been just over 1 bloody year since they changed to PCI Express as the standard for most cards now they have 2.0.

Little Big Planet is a glorified level editor, Valk. Chronicles was nice but hardly innovative, and Drake's Fortune was a good, but not great, action adventure game that had a thing for quick time events. Free online support doesn't mean much when you consider that the Xbox costs you less money per month than buying some milk at the store (and has a better connection) and as of yet you don't need to buy any accessories for the Wii (and the Xbox comes with a mic, though they aren't very durable. I'm also pretty sure I can use the mic for my computer on it, by only plugging in the mic (and not the headset) jack.)

Also, the PC isn't a sellout because technology moves on. It's just that... technology moves on. Stop whining about it. With a one year old stock computer you can play all the major games released this season with little to no problems (unless it's something like Crysis). Your complaints are neither justifiable nor an example of selling out.

 

[TerraMGP]

So, because nintendo decided to branch out both in target market and trying to do something diffrent? would that be like, say, what Microsoft did with the X box? Remember Halo? The flood of the idiot frat boy gamers, start of connotative gaming becoming serious. The industry has shifted before and will shift again.

You are chanting the tired old mantra of 'gimmick' but its eems you don't want any real changes. You want the same old thing repackaged to feel new like the other systems have been giving. Yes Little big planet is innovative, but so was mario Galaxy with its subjective gravity, so are the well done shooters on the wii, and the DS honestly has more fun games than the PSP by far and a better design so I don't know why its entering this discussion other than some revulsion that it has a touch screen and thus must be a gimmicky game system.

Nintendo has not sold out any more than any other game company, its just that they have decided to make sure they have a real fan base in five or ten years and have decided to try new things. not all of them work perfectly, but they are trying it. Its not just another shooter with a few new features or another action game with a new pool of mechanics.

Stop listening to the reviewers and think for yourselves people. Nintendo didn't sell anyone out. If you have a hard time having fun with a game because it has not gotten that slight marginal increase in graphics from the last gen or because its not giving you more of the same old games then thats not their fault. The other systems are not doing much better since the PS3 is only now getting out some really good games and the 360 is utterly worthless if you have a good gaming PC.

 

[asinann]

The only problem I really have with this review is that while you critique Nintendo you fail to recognize that the other two monolithic gaming companies are doing the same thing: no new concepts, milking their fans for every penny. That's what the gaming industry is. Nintendo just happens have been their longer, so what their doing (i.e. milking out their old franchises) seems worse than say, Microsoft trying to market on Halo's success by having hundreds of space-marine shooters.

Sony is oddly not doing much milking at all. If you look at it, for a while it was the biggest bang for the dollar on the market. Unlike Nintendo and Microsoft you do not have to buy company brand name addons, like headsets, keyboards, harddrives. PS3 can use any PC based USB Headset and Keyboard, you can buy a SATA Laptop Harddrive for it for far cheaper than anything microsoft sells for their 360 as well and slap it into the PS3 and boom, 180-500gb harddrive anyone? Free online support? As well as some of the most unique games on the market like LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles and Drake's Fortune.

Edit: Related note I think PC gaming is now turning into the biggest milking market. I just made a new PC last year, now at the end of this year it's already badly outdated. To get a new video card suited for what I wish I need a new motherboard, which requires a new processor as well, whcih also needs now DDR3 Ram sticks. My motherboard now has PCI E support for video cards the newest ones now have PCI E 2.0, and the motherboards for them now have DDR3 Ram Sticks, my only 1 year old motherboard which was one of the better ones when I bought it only as PCI E, and DDR2 slots. Next I'd laugh if they change the type of Harddrive next. It's only been just over 1 bloody year since they changed to PCI Express as the standard for most cards now they have 2.0.

Maybe if you had bought that stuff when it was new and not 2 years old you wouldn't be needing to replace it all already.

 

[joystickjunki3]

I really don't see any reason to hate on Nintendo so much. While it is true that they didn't create the "innovative" technology for the DS and Wii, they were the first to release and implement them successfully. And sure it's true that they mostly cater to the casual gamer now, but is that really such a bad thing? I don't think so. If anything, it's a good thing. I'd rather Nintendo survived after the relative failure that was the Gamecube than to see them fall flat on their faces like Sega did. If that means gaining business where no one else really attempted to venture, then so be it.

The rest of the gaming population that owns whatever system they choose, be it Xbox 360, PS3, PC, PSP or even arcade cabinets, should go on gaming as they always have. I know I'm prefectly happy w/ my 360, DS, and laptop. Maybe one day Nintendo will come to their senses and return to what we all remember from our childhoods. And I also hope the Dreamcast 2 comes out... seriously, I mean that.

~tommy

 

[Joos]

Bah, nintendo have never been in the lead when it comes to hardware specs. The NES was slower than the Master System. The SNES was slower than the Sega Genesis etc etc. Nothing new there, its just a continuation of an old strategy; chose well rooted and proven hardware at value prices rather than pushing envelopes and huge R&D costs for said hardware.

What nintendo is good at, is integrating existing hardware new ways to create new experiences. That the Wii has become such a hit is a boon for everyone, it attracts gamerism into parts of society where gaming didn't exist before. So, the Wii do have a purpose, even though it doesn't appeal to people who always require the latest and greatest, it helps spread gamerism. So it is not a competitor to the PS3 or the XB360, it is a different animal all together. Even though it is casual gaming, it is still gaming.

So, I disagree with your review and hope that Nintendo continues to spread the love for gaming to young and old.

 

[LumiHawke]

The Video card and motherboard were brand new when I bought them.... heck it was a new 8 Geforce series they just came out that year the CPU was highly exceptable, a high end Dual core which was also highly exceptable, I can play Ghost Recond Advance WarFighers 2 nearly maxed out except resolution, and Company of Heroes at 1200+ resolutions at average 80fps maxed out well except for directx10 since I still use XP. I was shocked to find a few games resently not even 1 year later that my PC can not run at a good settings, I'd except any resolution at 1000+ and high textures etc. But I was shocked when I ran into a game I couldn't even get it on medium, or past 800 by 600 and still it ran awful, so I did a quick fix and bought a new video card which is now a year old but it's all I could get to work on this motherboard since even the newer versions of the Geforce 8800GT and GTS Nivdia cards seem to be sadly PCI E 2.0 refurbished. Geforce 9 series the only none 2.0 I could find was god awful price wise because it came in a bundled and sadly the bundle came with DDR3 ram sticks which would of been useless... I'm cursed when it comes to PC gaming, happened to me last time I tried to catch up with the PC game generations.

Little Big Planet is a glorified level editor, Valk. Chronicles was nice but hardly innovative, and Drake's Fortune was a good, but not great, action adventure game that had a thing for quick time events. Free online support doesn't mean much when you consider that the Xbox costs you less money per month than buying some milk at the store (and has a better connection) and as of yet you don't need to buy any accessories for the Wii (and the Xbox comes with a mic, though they aren't very durable. I'm also pretty sure I can use the mic for my computer on it, by only plugging in the mic (and not the headset) jack.)

Also, the PC isn't a sellout because technology moves on. It's just that... technology moves on. Stop whining about it. With a one year old stock computer you can play all the major games released this season with little to no problems (unless it's something like Crysis). Your complaints are neither justifiable nor an example of selling out.

Valkyria Chronicles is very innovative, name any game on the market that is like it? It's a 3rd person, Tactical RPG, with amazing story telling, and a brand new never seen before CellShade engine, its an out of the usual Tactical RPG box, by a mile in fact. There is literally nonthing on the market that can compare with it design wise.

 

[FightThePower]

I don't hate Nintendo, but I don't like their new direction. As back as recent as the Gamecube days I loved them - they continued to make great quality games. Now they seem to specialise in making games that aren't even games, and re-releasing Gamecube games on Wii is not on.

 

[ZantetsukenQ]

Nintendo have lost that flair that they used to have. During my younger days the word "Nintendo" brought about thoughts of hope, and escapism, and shutting myself away from the world. Nowadays, it's just a shadow of its former self. Maybe the competition is just too much to keep up with.

I think that they are developing a new Power Glove. It's going to take the market by storm and then will be stolen by M$ or Sony. X-glove or the Play-glove. Just you wait.

 

[klc0100]

Money > All

Thats how the gaming business works Nintendo saw this and made millions and no amount of internet rants is going to change that.

 

[Thurmer]

you say nintendo abandoned their roots? thats wrong, gamers abandoned nintendo. after the apparent failure of the gamecube from a selling point nintendo did what any company would do facing a crisis, they had to take a drastic change in order to turn a profit and increase market value and they did it very well.

The reason of this is that even though the nintendo 64 was brilliance people forgot how well nintendo had served them and bought xboxs and ps2s and while the gamecube had brilliant games (mainly nintendo made ones) they lost the 3rd party support.

Rant all you want, consumers have complete power over how a business conducts itself and nintendos just moved where the profit is.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Did this really need to be resurrected? I mean, yeah, I think the argument is bullcrap, myself, but still.

 

[dagens24]

From a historical standpoint, Nintendo have been a critical force in shaping what gaming has become today. From the Famicon era onwards, Nintendo utilized all of the latest technological advances at their disposal to create top-tier hardware. And using this hardware, create the most innovative games of the 20th century. They were the first to create a discrete hand-held gaming device capable of running story-length, full colour games, and gave a home to unknown series such as Final Fantasy, Super Mario World, Metroid, and many others. It is probably fair to say that Microsoft and Sony owe an awful lot to the early technological and creative advancements of Nintendo.

The decline of Nintendo as far as a genuine innovative force goes, probably came at around the end of the Gamecube's lifespan. For the first time, Nintendo had been fully undone. With the rising popularity of gaming, two monolithic electronic giants had entered the fray. And with them they brought a whole new realm of technological innovation. Whilst retaining its edge on pure game-making innovation, Nintendo was hopelessly behind in terms of hardware specs and data input. So as Sony and Microsoft prepared to launch their state-of-the-art high definition gaming devices, Nintendo was left with few choices. They could stay true to their fans, and the path they had been on for so many years: Releasing consoles to the best of their technological ability whilst focusing on retaining a creative edge over their competitors, leaving Sony and Microsoft competing to see who can rip off Half-Life 2 the best, or they could leave their current market and fanbase behind, and try to create a market elsewhere in gaming. Not content with losing such a large chunk of their main market to Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo opted for the second option.

So now we have the two newest Nintendo consoles: The DS and the Wii. Both behind their competition in hardware specs, but performing surprisingly well as far as sales go. This is not due to innovation, contrary to what every marketing campaign for the two would have you believe. This is down to selling out. This is down to substituting your original audience of gamers for "casual-gamers" or rather, causal-"gamers". The DS and the Wii have been subject to a tidal wave of brain-training games, fitness games, cooking games, and games of other categories utterly unrelated to gaming. The purpose of which is not to please the current fans, but to bring in new ones, who wouldn't care for genuine gaming. The old titles are still there. Super Mario, Zelda etc. But thats all they are: Old titles. Not an ounce of innovation in the games themselves, just a slightly new way to play them.

An innovation is not simply bringing an already existing product (touch-screens, motion sensitive controllers) into the mainstream for the sake of feigning originality. And it isn't about playing old things in new ways. It's about creativity: Sheer ingenuity to create something previously unheard of. And Nintendo obviously aren't in that business anymore. They are in the gimmick business.

Why I love Nintendo: A 'your thread' review

Grats to Nintendo on appealing to the majority (like they always have) instead of just elitest assholes.

 

[edargh]

Nintendo is a company, as a company they try to make money.
They didn't betray anybody or do anything wrong, they found a niche in the market and because of that made arse tons of money. They never had any obligation to use top of the line hardware or anything. Quit complaining

 

[theamazingbean]

Nintendo is a company, as a company they try to make money.
They didn't betray anybody or do anything wrong, they found a niche in the market and because of that made arse tons of money. They never had any obligation to use top of the line hardware or anything. Quit complaining

I would like to add to this. The goal of every corporation is to make money, and if they say anything different they are lying to your face. I don't buy Nintendo products because they don't interest me, but I understand that other people might have different tastes.

However, I can hope for a world in which consumers stop purchasing zelda remakes and pure, competitive pressure forces Nintendo to try innovating something.

 

[Semitendon]

It doesn't really matter all that much.

I don't think Nintendo will exist in about 5-10 years, at least, not in way we think of Nintendo currently.

The problem with making your primary market "casual gamers" is that "casual" part of the equation.

Casual gamers don't buy loads of games on a regular basis. They buy what they want, and play it over and over. They rarely expand into new types of games.

Eventually, the casual gamers will slow, they will stop buying most games, they may not even buy the next console. In addition, as computers become more and more integrated into daily life, developers like Popcap will out distance Nintendo.

If the only people that buy the "Wii 2" are casual gamers, ( people who don't play all that often, people who don't need a steady flow of new games) Then Nintendo will likely see their sales plummet. All that Nintendo will have left is a handful of Mario and Zelda fans, and ( assuming they upgrade their handhelds) the portable gaming market.

Ultimately, Nintendo will fail because it is marketing games and it's console, to people who don't care about games and consoles.

No company can succeed if they don't have a demand for their supply .

 

[Twilight_guy]

I'm going to ignore the strong elitism your post shows because It makes my vision go white with rage if I think about it too long and I can't prove if its good or bad(without writing a short paper).

Ahem, Motion controls were first introduced in the Wii, thus it is an innovation or at least something new. It's since been copied and doesn't seem to have destroyed the Wii so it has to at least be a neutral force at worse, otherwise companies would get rid of it. If it were the new virtual boy the Wii would be dead and buried by now. The touch screen mechanics have been used before but do give the gameboy a fresh new thing and combined with the dual screen it makes the DS fairly nice and new over the old gameboys. Admittedly, the wave of simply reinventing the DS has been a cavalcade of and staleness, but the DS is still popular and Nintendo has no reason to explore new territory when they can get a few more years out of the DS. Maybe they should do it just because,but in the end this isn;t really a sing of failure becuse there were a butt-load of gameboy slight upgrade re-releases too, and Nintendo's "downfall" came after those. Maybe innovation has hit a dry point recently but is certainly later then the date you suggest.

I'm not sure how a major gaming company can "sell-out" I though people sold out to them but whatever. "sell-out" has the negative connotation that a company has forgotten or ignored there roots and moved to something else to a bad reason, usually to make bucks. Of course what you fail to realize is that Nintendo didn't sell out, we grew up. Nintendo makes games for kids, they always have. I can go to my local game store and see Wii games that I might not like but kids would. Just because Nintendo choose not to market to the same crowd of now aging gamers does not mean they sold out, on the contrary, in a way continuing to sell to use would make them sell outs as a "kids" game company.

Nintendo is also selling to non-gamers as well, which is a new demographic. I know people have mixed by usually bad feeling here, but I feel that a company can sell to two different markets... ie kids and non-gamers, while not destroying one or the other. You can form your own opinion on if they have forsaken their roots in pursuit of a new audience, but I personally feel that Nintendo can pursue a new new demographic and I'm not going to get mad. I don't feel betrayed because I realize that they are a soul-less company that seeks only to make money. I have my memories and I thank them for that, but I know they will move on to different things and I bear them no harsh feelings.

I suppose Nintendo doesn't purpose any mind-bendingly new concepts anymore but Maybe that's just because things have changed. It used to be that using a 3-d model was mind blowing, now its the norm. Maybe Nintendo had creativity only within a certain period and they just don't have the power to come up with something mind-blowing now-a-days. Perhaps the times have passed them by and they are becoming the old dinosaur on the landscape. Maybe we're just not as easily impressed. I know I haven't been impressed by any game in the last few years. Lots have been fun, but few truly note-worthy, besides those not made by any major company and thus more open to crazy ideas. Perhaps Nintendo is doing its best and its once grand method of creating ideas has become so old that its new ideas are seen as gimmick and not innovation. Perhaps this is how an icon in games dies...
[/poetic non-sense][ -- please insert flames below here -- ]

 

[KitsunetheFox]

I like Nintendo, mainly because they got me early with Pokemon, but other than remarkably similar games (e.g. Digimon World DS and Dragon Quest: Monster Joker) and MarioKart (at a stretch, because I'm not enthralled with it), they don't really have many games that I TRULY cherish.

As far as the Wii is concerned, I could not be bothered with it. I prefer my games to require me to do as little (physically) as possible.

In conclusion, for me, Nintendo has never disappointed me with its handheld consoles (most likely due to my love of Pokemon and my fondness of the Yu-Gi-Oh games available), and as such I stick by Nintendo to provide me with the games that I can do when I'm out and about. Sure, the PSP (which I don't own) may have nice gadgets that are REALLY COOL, but the DS just instills that child-like glee of nostalgia within me that no other handheld console can provide.

Hence, I like Nintendo, and don't really give a flying squirrel what they do while they continue to pump out Pokemon games at a steady rate.

 

[Woe Is You]

I fully agree, Nintendo have completely abandoned their roots, and haven't made a decent set of playing cards in years....

Bleh, their cards always sucked. I just wish they'd go back to the love hotel business, that's where they truly shined.

But seriously guys, instead of painting the death of Nintendo (or the Nintendo at current), realize that the N64 and the Gamecube were badly beaten by Sony's Playstation(s). This is their first home console success in 2 generations. And the DS? Well, there are almost as many people with a DS as there are people that had PS2s; not to mention the range of software for it is staggering. It isn't hard to see why the DS got such a headstart from the PSP: during launch the PSP had few games and a good share of them were clunky ports from the PS2 and the PS1. It took Sony a few years to even realize that they could be making games designed for the handheld instead of uncomfortable home console ports.