Is Nintendo on its way out?
Nintendo is in dire straits. They messed up this generation pretty badly. What went wrong? They were doing so well last generation.
Nintendo dominated the 8-bit era, largely due to fantastic first party games and partly due to shady business practices. They were about 50-50 during the 16-bit era, but toward the end, they lost their monopoly on all the great third party companies: Capcom, Konami, Square, etc. Even Enix ended up making a Dragon Quest on the Playstation. After two weak systems, they came back to the forefront with the Wii. And now they are sputtering out again. (No need to bring up handhelds: Nintendo's always dominated those without question.)
I always appreciated Nintendo's dedication to making fun games, and their nigh-invulnerable gaming hardware. They have innovated so many things -- control pads, handhelds, analog sticks, vibrating controllers, motion controls, etc. -- but they seem to have gone from innovation to gimmicks. The Wii and DS had gimmicks that ended up being pretty good. The motion controls of the Wii looked pretty goofy at first, but the generic Wii fitness and sports type titles ended up being some of the most fun I've had since the early 90's. I likewise met the DS with great suspicion, but it also ended up being a lot of fun. The touch pad and the dual screens seemed like a waste of time, but ended up being pretty good, when used well.
Nintendo almost created a perfect gaming machine with the Wii. If they had just made the WiiU like the Wii, but with better hardware, better internet, and better everything, I wouldn't be making this post. The Wii was kind of weak and a Wii with Playstation 3 graphics and excellent internet would be the last game machine many people would ever need. Play new games. Play old games. Play games with motion controls. Play games with traditional controls. Why keep chasing Microsoft and Sony in their useless quest for the strongest, most expensive hardware? Just make the perfect machine and call it a day. Instead, they went with the goofy pad controller and kind of ditched the Wii -- like Microsoft with their newest Windows that nobody likes. No, pads are a fad, not the future.
The 3DS has a similar problem: nobody cares about the 3D. It's a waste of everyone's time. It's not innovative or appealing or well-implemented. (Just watch, though: within a year or two Sony or Microsoft will demonstrate a machine that uses 3D.)
The other problem is games. All the old juggernauts are dead. Capcom sucks. When was the last time I played a Capcom game I liked? I don't even remember. Konami sucks. The Iga "Metroidvanias" were a main draw to Nintendo's handhelds for me, and they are no more. Square-Enix sucks. Nobody cares about Final Fantasy anymore. I'd buy the Dragon Quest VII remake on the 3DS -- if they'd release it. Nintendo sucks. Aside from games like Wii Bowling, I don't think I've really enjoyed a Nintendo game since Smash Bros. Melee, Paper Mario -- The Thousand Year Door, and Advance Wars 2.
We need games that are better than Angry Birds. If you don't like games like Modern Warfare or phoney movies, your game choices on the other machines drops to about half, for that matter. If Nintendo went third party, I'd drop gaming in a flash. I only got a 3DS to play my DS games, and maybe Smash Bros. in a year or whatever. Was that worth the extra $70.00?
That brings me to another problem: games trying desperately to get approval by simulating other things. I'm talking about fake-movie video games and "esports." Video gamers and designers are desperate for video games to be taken seriously, but they do it by copying the worst aspects of other things. When I watch a Starcraft II game, I don't want to see a Red Bull advertisement on the map, and I am not impressed by the caster being almost giddy with joy over an ad in a Starcraft game. For that matter, the casters are crap. Sports has commentators, because sports are boring as hell 90% of the time and sometimes it's unclear what's happened. In video gaming -- good video games, anyway -- there is no empty time and the action is easy to follow. Hiring idiots with annoying voices who spout the same catch phrases over and over and try (badly) to be funny does not enhance the experience. And if you want to make a video game as good as a movie, you're going to need to hire some writers. What's out there is just embarrasing. You can't knock Uwe Boll's movies if you're making video games that are even worse.
And the artsy-fartsy independent games aren't helping either. "Video games are art!" I keep hearing over and over. Sure, but they are commercial art. A board game with a fantastic story in the instruction booklet and excellent art but which plays badly isn't worth much. This is what we're looking at with "art" video games. For many years, the gameplay in games has been less and less important in favor of length, graphics, and "achievements" and even games that are supposedly old school aren't doing much better. Many of the independent games are just a bunch of stuff from old games taped together. If video games can be art, we're lacking any competent artists.
My point is this: Nintendo sucks right now, but nobody else is doing any better. Something needs to change. Nintendo almost got it right, but decided to ditch what worked in favor of new gimmicks, which have not worked out. Thank god for gog.
Nintendo dominated the 8-bit era, largely due to fantastic first party games and partly due to shady business practices. They were about 50-50 during the 16-bit era, but toward the end, they lost their monopoly on all the great third party companies: Capcom, Konami, Square, etc. Even Enix ended up making a Dragon Quest on the Playstation. After two weak systems, they came back to the forefront with the Wii. And now they are sputtering out again. (No need to bring up handhelds: Nintendo's always dominated those without question.)
I always appreciated Nintendo's dedication to making fun games, and their nigh-invulnerable gaming hardware. They have innovated so many things -- control pads, handhelds, analog sticks, vibrating controllers, motion controls, etc. -- but they seem to have gone from innovation to gimmicks. The Wii and DS had gimmicks that ended up being pretty good. The motion controls of the Wii looked pretty goofy at first, but the generic Wii fitness and sports type titles ended up being some of the most fun I've had since the early 90's. I likewise met the DS with great suspicion, but it also ended up being a lot of fun. The touch pad and the dual screens seemed like a waste of time, but ended up being pretty good, when used well.
Nintendo almost created a perfect gaming machine with the Wii. If they had just made the WiiU like the Wii, but with better hardware, better internet, and better everything, I wouldn't be making this post. The Wii was kind of weak and a Wii with Playstation 3 graphics and excellent internet would be the last game machine many people would ever need. Play new games. Play old games. Play games with motion controls. Play games with traditional controls. Why keep chasing Microsoft and Sony in their useless quest for the strongest, most expensive hardware? Just make the perfect machine and call it a day. Instead, they went with the goofy pad controller and kind of ditched the Wii -- like Microsoft with their newest Windows that nobody likes. No, pads are a fad, not the future.
The 3DS has a similar problem: nobody cares about the 3D. It's a waste of everyone's time. It's not innovative or appealing or well-implemented. (Just watch, though: within a year or two Sony or Microsoft will demonstrate a machine that uses 3D.)
The other problem is games. All the old juggernauts are dead. Capcom sucks. When was the last time I played a Capcom game I liked? I don't even remember. Konami sucks. The Iga "Metroidvanias" were a main draw to Nintendo's handhelds for me, and they are no more. Square-Enix sucks. Nobody cares about Final Fantasy anymore. I'd buy the Dragon Quest VII remake on the 3DS -- if they'd release it. Nintendo sucks. Aside from games like Wii Bowling, I don't think I've really enjoyed a Nintendo game since Smash Bros. Melee, Paper Mario -- The Thousand Year Door, and Advance Wars 2.
We need games that are better than Angry Birds. If you don't like games like Modern Warfare or phoney movies, your game choices on the other machines drops to about half, for that matter. If Nintendo went third party, I'd drop gaming in a flash. I only got a 3DS to play my DS games, and maybe Smash Bros. in a year or whatever. Was that worth the extra $70.00?
That brings me to another problem: games trying desperately to get approval by simulating other things. I'm talking about fake-movie video games and "esports." Video gamers and designers are desperate for video games to be taken seriously, but they do it by copying the worst aspects of other things. When I watch a Starcraft II game, I don't want to see a Red Bull advertisement on the map, and I am not impressed by the caster being almost giddy with joy over an ad in a Starcraft game. For that matter, the casters are crap. Sports has commentators, because sports are boring as hell 90% of the time and sometimes it's unclear what's happened. In video gaming -- good video games, anyway -- there is no empty time and the action is easy to follow. Hiring idiots with annoying voices who spout the same catch phrases over and over and try (badly) to be funny does not enhance the experience. And if you want to make a video game as good as a movie, you're going to need to hire some writers. What's out there is just embarrasing. You can't knock Uwe Boll's movies if you're making video games that are even worse.
And the artsy-fartsy independent games aren't helping either. "Video games are art!" I keep hearing over and over. Sure, but they are commercial art. A board game with a fantastic story in the instruction booklet and excellent art but which plays badly isn't worth much. This is what we're looking at with "art" video games. For many years, the gameplay in games has been less and less important in favor of length, graphics, and "achievements" and even games that are supposedly old school aren't doing much better. Many of the independent games are just a bunch of stuff from old games taped together. If video games can be art, we're lacking any competent artists.
My point is this: Nintendo sucks right now, but nobody else is doing any better. Something needs to change. Nintendo almost got it right, but decided to ditch what worked in favor of new gimmicks, which have not worked out. Thank god for gog.