24 hours ex post inferno
So, yesterday I went on a far longer than anticipated rant which boiled down to "I bought a PSP instead of a 3DS." And, having re-read it a few times now, I feel like I unintentionally obfuscated a few things.
I don't hate the 3DS or Nintendo. The Big N has been generally very good to me which, considering I'm just a source of income to them and not a person, I don't know if that's saying anything at all. In essence, I've been able to derive a great deal of enjoyment from all of their systems up until now. And, as regards the 3DS, well, I don't even own the thing. But my meltdown was more about Nintendo's *management* of the 3DS and, to all outward appearances, how the 3DS seems to have been released with a sense of entitlement, that it deserves to be successful when, in reality, there's been little down to engender that.
If anyone should know about being the scrappy underdog, trying to get back on top in a plot ripped straight out of 'Rocky III', it's Nintendo. When Sony came along in the mid '90s and usurped the throne that Nintendo had been comfortably sitting in for nearly a decade, it was hard to believe that they'd ever get back on top. The Playstation One (PSOne or PSX) had spoken to the kids who grew up with Nintendo but were looking for something more than fireball-chucking plumbers or elven lads in green miniskirts questing after golden triangles. They offered us Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and a whole new way of looking at Final Fantasy games. While there's an argument to be had about whether full motion video cut-scenes mitigated our interaction with games (e.g. watching Frog, in sprite form, slice a mountain open versus watching it as a beautifully animated cut scene from Toriyama's Bird Studio), the point remains that Playstation made video games cool all over again. Games were no longer just for the nerds - everyone could look cool playing a Playstation.
And when PS2 came along, they did it all over again with bigger games, longer cut-scenes and even a built-in DVD player. And what did Nintendo respond with?
You can't entirely fault them for sticking with the cartridge format one generation too many. In the age of immediate gratification, load time is the devil. And after the success of Donkey Kong Country, a cartridge game which showed the world precisely what you could do with just 16 bits and not a CD-ROM add-on or a 32-bit enhancer, why shouldn't they keep the cartridges and see how much blood from a stone they could squeeze.
The N64 certainly offered up some quality titles. Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros. - yes, admittedly all first-party titles - but also Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Episode I Racer, Goldeneye 007, Resident Evil 2 (Originally a PSOne title but hey, that's two discs of content crammed into one cartridge), WCW / nWo Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, Mortal Kombat 4 (Arguably an arcade perfect port) - all excellent titles from third-party developers.
So when it came time for the Gamecube, Nintendo's first disc-based console, you'd think they'd borrow a page or two from Sony in an effort to reclaim the throne. Maybe release the system with one or two Triple A quality games and bury the competition.
Nah - we got Luigi's Mansion.
Alright, we also got the phenomenal Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader but still - this is a business where you strive to be on top and the best first-party title you can launch the system with is Luigi with a backpack vacuum? And doesn't this scenario sound familiar?
It should - it's what they just did with the release of the 3DS.
I don't know what the prevailing logic was when the Cube was released. Nintendo wasn't poised to assume that the Cube would set the gaming world on fire - they had to go up against the PS2 and the XBox. With the 3DS, its easy to assume that they thought their portable pedigree which, even up to now with the PSP, was largely unchallenged; that they felt that the words "Portable Gaming" were synonymous with "Nintendo". Nevermind how smartphones have been changing the game - Nintendo honestly believes that $250 (roughly the cost of a smartphone) and $40 are reasonable prices.
They'd seem reasonable to me if Nintendo had released, on day one, a game that showed me why those prices were reasonable.
When you invest a significant amount of money into something, you want to see where every penny went. I wrote yesterday about purchasing a PSP 3000 and I can easily see where all $130 of my money went - it's a great system with great functionality and an incredible library of ready to download games. If there's one or two games that aren't available from the Playstation Store, it's not a huge deal to scoop up the UMDs - they go for beyond reasonable rates on Amazon.com. Anywhere from $3.99 to maybe $29.99 for a newly released title. That's reasonable and the games are console quality - I'm literally playing Playstation One titles on a portable system. A great deal of the games are PS2 quality. As I said yesterday, that's incredible.
Over on the 3DS, though, the only game I'm really seeing an incredible amount of quality on would be Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition - in terms of appearance and sound, it mimics the console version very well. Ocarina looks great but then it's a 12 going on 13 year old game (released in America in November 1998). I would *hope* that a current gen console could handle a graphically enhanced port of a 12 going on 13 year old game with grace.
Again - if I'm Nintendo and I'm trying to make you forget that the PSP even exists, I'm gonna go for the killing stroke. I'm gonna release my new console with a title so good that you remember why Nintendo is synonymous with video games. I'm gonna consider taking certain cues from the competition - Sony went UMD-less with their PSPGo, I'm gonna do the same thing but maybe bigger. They give you 16 GB flash memory, maybe I give you 32 GB. They give you PSOne titles and PSP games, I'll give you 3DS, DS, GBA, GBC, GB, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Super NES, Sega Genesis, N64, NES, Master System.... They let you link your PSP to your PS3, I'll let you link your 3DS to the Nintendo Wii and, hey, whatever Virtual Console titles you've got on Wii, I'll offer to put them on your 3DS. So forth, so on.
Having said all that, what did they *actually* do?
Released a console, assuming people would buy it on brand-name recognition, without any really must-have titles, with an online service not fully set up, and then made a half-assed customer loyalty deal where, if you log into eShop prior to the price cut, you're eligible for 20 free games, 10 of which are only available via this limited time offer. If you don't presently own a 3DS and the idea of getting those 10 limited time offer games appeals to you, you'll have to put down $250 for a 3DS - once the price cut takes effect, the deal is gone.
Nintendo, this isn't how you do business. This is how you extort. You are extorting.
It would be different if you hadn't made that snide remark of "We have no plans to release Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer." Or did you say, "We have no plans to release *these* Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer"? It doesn't matter, really - either you really *are* going to release GBA titles and you just don't have a press release written yet or you're honestly saying you have no interest in making more money by offering those GBA titles on eShop for some arbitrary reason and I have no patience for either course of action.
I guess that's it for now. More redundancy later.
I don't hate the 3DS or Nintendo. The Big N has been generally very good to me which, considering I'm just a source of income to them and not a person, I don't know if that's saying anything at all. In essence, I've been able to derive a great deal of enjoyment from all of their systems up until now. And, as regards the 3DS, well, I don't even own the thing. But my meltdown was more about Nintendo's *management* of the 3DS and, to all outward appearances, how the 3DS seems to have been released with a sense of entitlement, that it deserves to be successful when, in reality, there's been little down to engender that.
If anyone should know about being the scrappy underdog, trying to get back on top in a plot ripped straight out of 'Rocky III', it's Nintendo. When Sony came along in the mid '90s and usurped the throne that Nintendo had been comfortably sitting in for nearly a decade, it was hard to believe that they'd ever get back on top. The Playstation One (PSOne or PSX) had spoken to the kids who grew up with Nintendo but were looking for something more than fireball-chucking plumbers or elven lads in green miniskirts questing after golden triangles. They offered us Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and a whole new way of looking at Final Fantasy games. While there's an argument to be had about whether full motion video cut-scenes mitigated our interaction with games (e.g. watching Frog, in sprite form, slice a mountain open versus watching it as a beautifully animated cut scene from Toriyama's Bird Studio), the point remains that Playstation made video games cool all over again. Games were no longer just for the nerds - everyone could look cool playing a Playstation.
And when PS2 came along, they did it all over again with bigger games, longer cut-scenes and even a built-in DVD player. And what did Nintendo respond with?
You can't entirely fault them for sticking with the cartridge format one generation too many. In the age of immediate gratification, load time is the devil. And after the success of Donkey Kong Country, a cartridge game which showed the world precisely what you could do with just 16 bits and not a CD-ROM add-on or a 32-bit enhancer, why shouldn't they keep the cartridges and see how much blood from a stone they could squeeze.
The N64 certainly offered up some quality titles. Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros. - yes, admittedly all first-party titles - but also Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Episode I Racer, Goldeneye 007, Resident Evil 2 (Originally a PSOne title but hey, that's two discs of content crammed into one cartridge), WCW / nWo Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, Mortal Kombat 4 (Arguably an arcade perfect port) - all excellent titles from third-party developers.
So when it came time for the Gamecube, Nintendo's first disc-based console, you'd think they'd borrow a page or two from Sony in an effort to reclaim the throne. Maybe release the system with one or two Triple A quality games and bury the competition.
Nah - we got Luigi's Mansion.
Alright, we also got the phenomenal Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader but still - this is a business where you strive to be on top and the best first-party title you can launch the system with is Luigi with a backpack vacuum? And doesn't this scenario sound familiar?
It should - it's what they just did with the release of the 3DS.
I don't know what the prevailing logic was when the Cube was released. Nintendo wasn't poised to assume that the Cube would set the gaming world on fire - they had to go up against the PS2 and the XBox. With the 3DS, its easy to assume that they thought their portable pedigree which, even up to now with the PSP, was largely unchallenged; that they felt that the words "Portable Gaming" were synonymous with "Nintendo". Nevermind how smartphones have been changing the game - Nintendo honestly believes that $250 (roughly the cost of a smartphone) and $40 are reasonable prices.
They'd seem reasonable to me if Nintendo had released, on day one, a game that showed me why those prices were reasonable.
When you invest a significant amount of money into something, you want to see where every penny went. I wrote yesterday about purchasing a PSP 3000 and I can easily see where all $130 of my money went - it's a great system with great functionality and an incredible library of ready to download games. If there's one or two games that aren't available from the Playstation Store, it's not a huge deal to scoop up the UMDs - they go for beyond reasonable rates on Amazon.com. Anywhere from $3.99 to maybe $29.99 for a newly released title. That's reasonable and the games are console quality - I'm literally playing Playstation One titles on a portable system. A great deal of the games are PS2 quality. As I said yesterday, that's incredible.
Over on the 3DS, though, the only game I'm really seeing an incredible amount of quality on would be Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition - in terms of appearance and sound, it mimics the console version very well. Ocarina looks great but then it's a 12 going on 13 year old game (released in America in November 1998). I would *hope* that a current gen console could handle a graphically enhanced port of a 12 going on 13 year old game with grace.
Again - if I'm Nintendo and I'm trying to make you forget that the PSP even exists, I'm gonna go for the killing stroke. I'm gonna release my new console with a title so good that you remember why Nintendo is synonymous with video games. I'm gonna consider taking certain cues from the competition - Sony went UMD-less with their PSPGo, I'm gonna do the same thing but maybe bigger. They give you 16 GB flash memory, maybe I give you 32 GB. They give you PSOne titles and PSP games, I'll give you 3DS, DS, GBA, GBC, GB, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Super NES, Sega Genesis, N64, NES, Master System.... They let you link your PSP to your PS3, I'll let you link your 3DS to the Nintendo Wii and, hey, whatever Virtual Console titles you've got on Wii, I'll offer to put them on your 3DS. So forth, so on.
Having said all that, what did they *actually* do?
Released a console, assuming people would buy it on brand-name recognition, without any really must-have titles, with an online service not fully set up, and then made a half-assed customer loyalty deal where, if you log into eShop prior to the price cut, you're eligible for 20 free games, 10 of which are only available via this limited time offer. If you don't presently own a 3DS and the idea of getting those 10 limited time offer games appeals to you, you'll have to put down $250 for a 3DS - once the price cut takes effect, the deal is gone.
Nintendo, this isn't how you do business. This is how you extort. You are extorting.
It would be different if you hadn't made that snide remark of "We have no plans to release Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer." Or did you say, "We have no plans to release *these* Game Boy Advance titles outside of this offer"? It doesn't matter, really - either you really *are* going to release GBA titles and you just don't have a press release written yet or you're honestly saying you have no interest in making more money by offering those GBA titles on eShop for some arbitrary reason and I have no patience for either course of action.
I guess that's it for now. More redundancy later.