Nintendo's Journey

[Zenpai]

After the recent announcement of the Switch, I felt compelled to write something about Nintendo and its history. While Sony and Microsoft have very interesting stories in the console market, none are as interesting as Nintendo's, in my opinion. So let's look back for a while.

 

Nintendo is by far the oldest of the major console manufacturers - it was founded in 1889. Though obviously, it didn't make video games then, just regular, physical games. It was only in the 1970s that it began to tinker with electronic games, namely with Gunpei Yokoi's Game & Watch series of handheld devices.

 

However, Nintendo didn't truly make it until 1983, with the Famicom. You guys might know it by its Western name, the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES for short). It ushered in the 3rd generation of gaming and was so revolutionary that many people consider that it started gaming as we know it today. With strict quality control - unlike what the industry had so far - and a stellar line-up of games, the NES was an astronomical success. In fact, it is unanimously considered as the reason why the United States were able to recover from the Great Video Game Crash of 1983.

 

 

Soon afterward, in 1989, Gunpei Yokoi decided to build on the success of both the NES and the Game & Watch to build a handheld that, just like the NES, could freely swap cartridges. The result was the Game Boy, another machine so revolutionary that only further cemented Nintendo's position as king of the market. In fact, the Game Boy was so successful that it surpassed the NES in sales and it is still, to this very day, the third best-selling console of all time.

 

A short time afterward, in 1990, came the successor to the Famicom, the Super Famicom, or as it's known in the West, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES for short). It was also a huge success and granted the world tons of priceless gaming jewels, some of which are still considered one of the best video games of all time.

 

After the release of the SNES, however, was when Nintendo started to display a different attitude. Actually, let me rephrase that. They kept the exact same attitude... at a time when it was obvious to everyone but Nintendo that it was necessary to change that attitude.

 

 

With both of Nintendo's competitors switching over to a disc-based format for increased storage, Nintendo kept using cartridges for the SNES's successor, the Nintendo 64, to prevent piracy. While cartridges to this day do have some advantages (like much faster loading times), the mid-90s were not the time to keep them around. They had a lot less storage and were a lot more expensive to produce. Hence, while the N64 was more powerful than all of its competition, had absolutely brilliant games and even helped shape many of the basics of the 3D gaming experience we have today, sadly, the console was held back by Nintendo's own desire to stay king of the market at all costs (not unlike what happened to the PS3 in the 7th generation). All of this made the N64 lose a lot of support from third-party studios that closely collaborated with Nintendo on the NES and SNES days, namely Square Enix's, and with it, the presence of a Final Fantasy game on Nintendo's next generation console.

 

While the N64's sucessor, the Gamecube, was also a very competent console, with power above the PS2's but below the Xbox's, and finally embraced a disc-based medium... Nintendo still pulled... well, a Nintendo. Once again, to prevent piracy, Nintendo opted to go with a proprietary disc format, the Nintendo GameCube Game Disc, which had 1/3 of the storage capabilities of a DVD, which both the PS2 and the Xbox were using. As a result, not only were many games unable to live up to their potential due to a lack of storage, the console itself lacked a feature that was a must-have at the time: DVD playback capabilities. All of this combined with very poor marketing and the overwhelming dominance of the PS2 sadly doomed the GameCube to being one of Nintendo's poorest performing consoles.

 

With the 7th generation, however, came a more radical shift in direction. Instead of trying to directly compete with its rivals, Nintendo took a different approach: it focused not on power, but on innovation - and this was what gave birth to the Wii.

 

 

The Wii was an extremely underwhelming console. In terms of raw power, it can actually be considered nothing more than an overclocked GameCube. Its online services were very poor and it didn't even have HDMI output. As in, at all. And yet, it is one of Nintendo's best-selling consoles. In fact, it's one of the best-selling consoles of all time. How was this achieved, then? How did the Japanese video game giant beat such overwhelming odds and ship so many units?

 

Because it came at exactly the right time. The casual crowd had been seriously neglected for a long time and Nintendo came in to fill that void with motion-control gaming. At a time before smartphones and tablets became as commonplace as shoes, the Wii scratched that casual itch many people had been having for a long time. This, combined with a brilliant marketing campaign, ensured that the new console became a smash hit.

 

...and yet, the Wii is a bit of a special case in gaming history. While it did cater to a lot of people that wouldn't normally be considered "gamers", most people just bought the one game - i.e., the game that came bundled with most units, Wii Sports - and then never picked another one again. The fact that most of the console's lineup wasn't all that great and that its hardware couldn't hold a candle to its competition by a large margin contributed to make the Wii the most successful failed console of all time.

 

 

Then, we come to the Wii's successor, the Wii U. Filled with confidence at the success its new approach brought them, Nintendo tried doing something different again, while at the same time also not trying to exclude the "hardcore gamers", which had been complaining for some time that they'd been forsaken by the Japanese gaming giant. So Nintendo finally made its first HD console while at the same time innovating with the Wii U gamepad.

 

...it did not go well. The Wii U's marketing was disastrous, with many people thinking it was merely an add-on for the original Wii (also, that name was horrendous and really didn't stick on anyone's mind). The massive third-party support Nintendo promised when the console was announced also quickly disappeared after the realization that the console was severely under-powered compared to the competition (just like the original Wii, it was one entire generation behind in terms of performance) and that it was selling extremely poorly. In fact, it sold so poorly that it is now the worst-performing home console, sales-wise, in Nintendo's history.

 

And yet... it was still a pretty good console. While the gamepad was extremely gimmicky, and people were kind of sick of gimmicks after they'd lived out their novelty factor in the seventh generation, if you played with the Pro Controller... it was actually a pretty decent machine. It had way more good games than the original Wii (which had insane amounts of shovelware) and the performance, while not competitive, was "good enough". Sadly, the Wii U is a perfect example that even a good product can fail when it isn't marketed right.

 

 

(Also, Bayonetta 2 should have come to the PS4/Xbox One, Nintendo stole it from us and life isn't fair.)

 

Nintendo also has a parallel history as a handheld console maker, but that one's a lot easier to summarize, since there weren't any insane changes in the company's approach to that side of their business. I already spoke about the Game Boy, but almost ten years later came the Game Boy Color, a modest upgrade over the original that nevertheless had twice the speed and four times the memory of the original, hence why some games were only playable on the more recent system (which also had, you know, color display).

 

Afterwards, in 2001, came the Game Boy Advance, a more significant upgrade over its two older brothers that also sold very well.

 

Despite its success, the Advance was the last of the Game Boy line. It was succeeded in 2004 by the Nintendo DS. The DS differed from its predecessors by having two screens (hence DS - Dual Screen), one of which was a touchscreen, which opened the door to new gaming possibilities.

 

Touchscreens were something relatively new at the time, which added to its novelty factor, and that, combined with the high amount of quality titles it boasted, made the Nintendo DS incredibly successful. So successful, in fact, that it sold almost as much as the best-selling console of all time, the Playstation 2.

 

 

A few years later, in 2011, came the DS's successor, the Nintendo 3DS. At a time when tablets and smartphones were as common as air, The 3DS was doomed to fail from the start... or so you would think, since it also sold exceptionally well. It is doing so well, in fact, that it is out-performing both the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One by quite a large margin. The console's main innovation, its naked-eye 3D effect, was by and large ignored (and disabled shortly after purchase) by everyone, since it consumed more battery and players frequently complained about the frequent eye strain and headaches it gave, but like the original DS before it, a large collection of great titles ensured the success of the console.

 

 

Nintendo has always been king of the handheld market, even in recent years, when all cards seemed stacked against them. Even when Sony tried encroaching on the market with the PSP and the Vita, Nintendo always stood comfortably ahead, and it seems that it will go back to being the only player in the handheld reign, since it looks like Sony doesn't really want to proceed with its efforts on that front after the disappointing sales of the Playstation Vita.

 

 

On the home console market, however, and as you can see... Nintendo's history has been a little more shaky. While it absolutely dominated the 3rd and 4th generations, ever since the 5th, a paradoxical combination of stubborn clinging to the past and innovation for innovation's own sake have always left it behind the competition - with the Wii being a special case.

 

Nintendo's growing persistence in not competing with its... um... competition has made players stop looking at it as being a "real player" in the market and more as a "kind of its own thing". With much less power compared to the competition (at least since the 7th generation) and much less storage space available on both the game discs and the internal hard drives, with the exception of the original Wii, which had metric tons of shovelware, ever since the N64, Nintendo home consoles have been having less and less titles, with the vast majority of those it did have being first-party. While Nintendo's first-party games are undoubtedly brilliant, a console can never only survive on its own IPs.

 

The fact that Nintendo always relied on proprietary formats to store its physical games has also been detrimental to its business. Not only have those formats always had much lower storage when compared to the competition's more traditional choices (DVD and Blu-Ray), resulting in games with less content and worse visuals, their mere adoption meant that Nintendo's consoles couldn't double as a media player for the conventional formats, which made them have a lot less bang for your buck and hence, all that less appealing.

 

Another aspect in which Nintendo differs from its competition that I did not want to overlook is regional lockout. While ever since the 7th generation every single one of its competitors got rid of regional lockout, Nintendo continues to stubbornly refuse to do so on its home consoles. Its handhelds have always been region-free... until the 3DS, where Nintendo decided to implement regional lockout. That's right, while everyone's getting rid of regional lockout, Nintendo's actually enforcing it. And on a segment of its market that has never had it since its inception 22 years ago.

 

 

 

Now, we come to the present, with the Switch looming in the horizon and everyone wondering if this is when Nintendo can finally turn its fortunes around (at least in the home console front). The reveal trailer was very well received and even eclipsed Red Dead Redemption 2's trailer, which debuted that same day.

Personally, I think that the Switch may indeed turn Nintendo's fortunes around... if they market and handle it right. Nintendo can do it. I am absolutely sure they can do it, since they've done it before (see: Wii), but it's not just about the reveal. It's also about good marketing. About great initial line-up games. It's about actually maintaining good third-party support all throughout the console's lifespan (the Wii U also had many third-party companies on board when it was announced and we all know how that turned out). If they do it right, I'm sure the Switch can be a great success similar to the original Wii.

 

Personally, I think the Switch looks pretty damn amazing and I'm just waiting for some good games to get announced to get on board. Hell, If they announce a Bayonetta 2 port...

 

 

Let's see how this all turns out. As I said, I am absolutely sure Nintendo can succeed at pretty much anything they do... if they take their heads out of their ass. Honestly, I do want to see Nintendo succeed and be competitive, but if all they do is just stay in their own little bubble and reject all that is commonplace in modern gaming, I'd rather they just do like Sega did and become a third-party company. They have brilliant games, they absolutely do, but if we need to keep spending money on their unnecessarily gimmicky systems to enjoy them... then I'd rather Nintendo just become a third-party developer. Heck, they'd sell many more games that way, with the increased customer base.

 

That said, even if they do some day drop out of the home console business, they'll probably stay in the handheld market for the foreseeable future. Heck, with regards to portable consoles, Nintendo almost seems like a different company, with how consistently successful they've been for almost 30 years. True, the DS family also has a few gimmicks, but those never really detracted from the main gaming experience. The original DS introduced gaming in two screens, which was a fairly well received innovation, and also touchscreens, which are commonplace these days; and while most people couldn't possibly care less about the 3D effect in the Nintendo 3DS, it's something that can be easily turned off and the console can just be enjoyed as a more powerful DS.

 

Let's see how the future pans out for the Japanese developer. In short, I want Nintendo to either greatly succeed or just throw in the towel in focus exclusively on game development, at least on the home console front. I'm pretty sure no one want to be deprived of their brilliant games.


This was the last topic I wanted to get out of my chest for now, so until I feel like talking about something else, have a good one.

Edited November 22, 2016 by jrdemr

[Super-Fly Spider-Guy]

9 minutes ago: I want to read this, but it's midnight, I should sleep.

 

9 minutes later: Well, shit, I should probably go sleep now that I read it anyway.

 

For the record, I love the 3D on the 3DS. It was cool for five minutes on the 3D re-release of Sonic 1 and 2. It also looked cool when the smoke came out of my car in Driver. Then I turned it off because the day I actually care more about the visuals of a game is a day I don't want to see.

 

Anyhoo, the 3D camera was pretty cool though, I have 5 or so short videos on my thing from my last year of high school of people doing like Spider-Man webshots and stuff at the camera, honestly looks pretty nifty, but again, like with the games that use 3D, while it's cool, it's just kind of useless after five minutes.

 

Also, I have a 3D TV. Killzone 3 in 3D looked amazing on it in the day, falling embers and shit looked so good. Then I never used 3D again outside of the odd movie here and there, which was mostly done because I could, not because it made it any better.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Good read. I won't go into the points with which I disagree at length, but I'd rather tell my own (abriged) experience with Nintendo.

 

The NES was my first experience with non-DOS gaming, and the SNES was my first own console. I've been purely a Nintendo player for more than a decade: SNES - N64 - GBA - GC - WII - 3DS. The SNES still ranks number one for me as best console of all time and I still regularly use it. Come the Wii, I was thinking about getting to play other games like GTA or Red Dead Redemption more and more, and I still did not want to think about PC gaming so I got an X360, purely because it was cheaper than the PS3.

 

I started gaming on my X360 more and more, and on my Wii less and less. Eventually, I got sick of the X360 thanks to my huge backlog and what achievements made me do. Luckily, that was around the time I got a PS4 (because I wanted to keep up with the Assassin's Creed series, this marks the first time I got a console within the first year of its life span). I tried to keep my backlog down on the trophy end (which was relatively succesful) and stopped caring about trophies like I did about achievements. As a result, I'm enjoying gaming more again.

 

I never bought the WiiU because that system-seller game for me has never arrived. The games I loved the most on earlier iterations were Zelda, Super Mario and Mario Kart, Star Fox, F-Zero... There was never a Zelda game for the WiiU unless you count remakes, there was never a good Super Mario game (I do not care for Maker and I do not like the "New Super Mario Bros" series, the only one I probably might enjoy is 3D World but I really just want a full 3D game like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy 1/2), there was an underwhelming Star Fox game, still no F-Zero... And just having another Mario Kart was not enough, I can still play that with others on the Wii (and I really only want to look at Nintendo exclusives as I have other consoles for the other stuff). Combining that with a controller that does not appeal to me at all, and I've put WiiU on ignore for most of the time.

 

The Switch excites me a lot. The Switch trailer seems to tease a Super Mario sequel worthy of the series, there is a new Zelda, and no doubt there will be a new Mario Kart and Mario Party... And more importantly, a fairly normal controller, and a way to keep playing while the missus uses the television (the mancave is already full with consoles).

 

All in all, it seems likely that Nintendo will win me back with the Switch thanks to a regular controller and what is shaping up to be a good first-party line-up. As it is now, I probably will get the first combo package being released with either Super Mario or Zelda, and some extra controllers.

Edited November 22, 2016 by BillyHorrible