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GameCube (Games)

Nintendo Running Itself into the Ground? 237

Posted by Zonk from the overclocking-the-franchises dept.
ZephyrXero writes "That is the question asked by N-Sider.com in their article "Playing it safe". The article talks of how Nintendo's reliance on tried and true franchises may contribute to their lack of innovation and low sales numbers. Although most have already seen this problem brewing within Nintendo for quite some time, it is also becoming a problem for many other game developers throughout the industry." A nice counter-point to Sticking up for Nintendo from earlier this month.
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Nintendo Running Itself into the Ground? More

Nintendo Running Itself into the Ground?

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  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) * <philsand@3.14ufl.edu minus pi> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:20AM (#11209658) Homepage
    In other news, DC Comics has realized that it should stop publishing Superman and Batman titles in favor of new characters that nobody has any investment in.

    Microsoft has realized that it should discontinue the Office brand in favor of new software that will be more "innovative" than simple word processing.

    And McDonalds has decided to discontinue all of its hamburgers, fearing that they haven't created any innovative cuisine in the last 20 years, instead becoming a steakhouse.
    • And McDonalds has decided to discontinue all of its hamburgers, fearing that they haven't created any innovative cuisine in the last 20 years, instead becoming a steakhouse.

      Well, discontinue, no, but they seem to be shying away from them. It seems all I see now are ads for McDonald's toasted deli sandwiches, garden salads, yogurt parfaits, premium white breast chicken strips, ....

    • Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @06:05PM (#11213967)
      In other news, DC Comics has realized that it should stop publishing Superman and Batman titles in favor of new characters that nobody has any investment in.

      I'd have modded this more "insightful" than "funny".

      What's funny is how much Nintendo gets bashed around the net, considering they're, you know, the only profitable game hardware company out there. People act like they don't know what they're doing and that somehow Sony and MS have got their number. In reality, I think it's a lot more likely that Kaz at Sony and Bill over at MS sit there looking at their market share numbers vs. their profit/loss columns and think "huh? Shouldn't we be the ones making money here?"

      Nintendo's doing something right; something that MS and Sony aren't. They realized a long time ago that dominating the industry is not necessary to be profitable. If you really look objectively at what they do vs. what Sony and MS do, you can make the following observations:

      a) They've got a corner in every part of the market. They have strong first-party game development (unlike Sony and MS, which rely more on second- and third-party development), and they get all of those profits for themselves. They have two handhelds and one current home console, and in various territories they still sell "classic" consoles as well.

      b) They allocate a certain percentage of development to proven franchises and a certain percentage to new titles, and they carefully manage that (it's not haphazard). This article seems to argue that the percentage allocation to proven franchises is too high, but where most game developers have failed is in doing the opposite. That's just the reality of today's market, which is "brand" based, for better or worse.

      c) They have a strong "house style". Whether or not you personally like their house style is not really an issue - the fact is you buy a Nintendo product and you basically know what you're getting. Nintendo is not nearly as reliant on third parties to define their products, nor are they as reliant on "killer apps". You buy a Nintendo console for the overall Nintendo "experience". It's similar to what Disney does - it almost doesn't even matter whether a particular Disney movie is any good, people will go see it anyway because they know basically what it's all going to be about.

      All this adds up to a well-managed company that tightly controls everything they do, which results in nearly continuous profit (I believe they've had one non-profitable quarter in something like the last ten years). They also just flat-out sell a lot more stuff than most people think they do - last year I think they were the #2 software publisher overall in terms of sales, for example, and I remember over Thanksgiving week this year they sold more total hardware in one week in the United States than their competitors sold for the entire month combined - and that's in their weakest territory. (That's including all of their systems; GBA SP, DS, GameCube.) The GameCube itself is #2 in sales worldwide, Nintendo handhelds have 95% of that market, I mean this company does sell a lot of products.

      Whether or not you understand their business plan is pretty immaterial. A lot of people don't personally like what Nintendo's doing and they therefore don't personally think their strategies are sound. But Nintendo has continuously proven those people wrong throughout pretty much their entire history. And yet the naysayers still won't go away.
      • I'm pretty sure that sony is making money on sales of the new PS2, or at the very least not making anything. However, the amount of money made or lost on the console is not what is most important - the overall profit is.
  • Nintendo is a profitable company with billions in the bank (I remember a year or two ago a report that Nintendo has around 8 billion USD in the bank).

    Nintendo's problem isn't that they can't make good games. They have completely messed up their entire image. Don't make purple consoles, while I think nothing of it there are a lot of stupid people who didn't buy the console cause it looked 'gay'. Everyone buys the black ones, so when you go to a store and see nothing but purple gamecube's, there's someone w

    • Re:Nintendo isn't dying, their console is dying. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:23PM (#11211032) Homepage
      I disagree. I LIKE the little gamecube. I think it's cute and the games are fantastic. Their attitude doesn't bug me at all. Everyone complained about the lack of online on the 'cube, but online isn't that big on consoles yet. Yes there are a few good games (Halo 2!), but by and large it's not that big. They'll put it in their next system, when it's ready.

      I was thinking about Nintendo the other day. I trust Sony alot, but Nintendo is the only company I would buy from sight-un-seen. Pretend there is no DS, and Nintendo announces a new system to replace the GBA (the Game Boy Ultra or whatever). No picutres of it anywhere. It's a total myster the specs, the form, the games, everything. You just show up at a store on launch day with your $100 or $150 and buy a system and any games they have. Would you buy that system? I would. I trust Nintendo. They've earned it. I would do the same thing with the successor to the GameCube. I'll almost certanly buy a PS3, and will look hard at a Xbox 2, but I won't hesitate on the Nintendo system.

      It may have fewer games, but when the games come out, they are often awesome. Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, Super Smash Brothers, Mario Golf/Tennis, Viewtiful Joe, Donkey Konga, Metroid Prime, and on and on and on. I own more 'cube games than PS2 or X-Box games by far. I just find more games that I really like and are worth more than a 2 day rent on the 'cube.

      Analysts can pick at Nintendo all they want. They are no Sega (in that their hardware will stay around). They make great systems, and great games.

      Three cheers for Nintendo. Great games and systems since 1984 (that was when the Famicom was released, right)? That's TWO DECADES. Get back to me when Sony and MS have been around making great stuff for TWO DECADES and continue to do it.

      PS: I LIKED the virtual boy, I think it died due to mismarketing (shouldn't have been called "virtual boy", that implied portability. It had some fantastic games (Mario Tennis, Mario Crash, the Wario game). You may call it a failure, but I really liked it. They only things they don't deliver on (64DD, SNES-CD, etc.) never got released (at least here in the states) so I can't count them as failures as they were never on the market (again, in the states).

    • They have completely messed up their entire image

      Among who? Teenagers and young adults that think anything without massive blood, gore, and other "mature" elements is too cutsey and embarassing for them to play? I'd almost venture that while Nintendo might be losing some money by somewhat excluding that segment, their games and design philosophy are better for it.

      Don't make purple consoles, while I think nothing of it there are a lot of stupid people who didn't buy the console cause it looked 'gay'

      Thi

  • Wait (Score:4, Insightful)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:36AM (#11209843) Homepage Journal
    How exactly is releasing a portable game system unlike anything else out there "playing it safe". Especially when compared to the PSP, which is pretty much as "safe" as it gets....
    • That's what I was thinking when I read the article. Nintendo's made a good deal of mistakes the last ten years, but most of them were around the launch of the Playstation and their drama with big name developers like Square. They've realized that mistake and done everything they could to fix it. They've seen that they were wrong with online gaming, and they're doing an about-face on that. Five years ago, I would have said they were running themselves into the ground. Now, I'd say they're doing a pretty good
    • The reason for Nintendo's weakening position in the console market over the past decade is paradoxical (using Definition #1 for the word "paradox [reference.com]" of course): Nintendo doesn't do enough from a game perspective (relying on old franchises instead of new ideas, not to mention the lack of third parties) yet does too much from a system perspective (stuff like the insistence of cartridge media for the N64 and the overprioritizing of form factor for the Gamecube may look nice on paper, but may not do so well in p

      • Add to that the kiddy image that Nintendo does little to combat and it's no surprise that the GC is third of three in America.

        Disclaimer: I am a PC guy. I do not even own a current console game. I have not even looked very hard at the titles out there.

        With that being said, let me throw in my $0.02.

        Why is the kiddy image that bad? I really don't get it! If a game does not have blood, guts, and boobs, then it is automatically a bad game? If I wanted that stuff, I would just rent the appropriate typ

    • Because (as the article clearly pointed out) Nintendo isn't releasing innovative games to go along with it. They may be taking a slight risk on the hardware (though I am not sure "cheap portable hardware with good battery life" qualifies as risky or unusual for Nintendo), but they are playing it completely safe when it comes to the games. That is the problem.

  • Listening to fanboys.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by theREALMcCoy ( 817988 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:39AM (#11209874)
    Whine about the resaons why Nintendo isn't the dominant player in the industry gets old. Listen, just because the big N isn't number one in console sales, doesn't mean that they are not a successful company, or that they are on the brink of failure. BMW isn't the number one auto company, but hey seem to be doing all right. Apple might not even hold a candle to the other PC manufacturers, but they service a niche. I love Nintendo, and it doesn't matter if they dominate the market. They meet a particular market need, and they get by just fine. They will proabably never again rule the console roost, but they will continue to be a profitable, successful game company.
    • "Listening to fanboys whine about the resaons why Nintendo isn't the dominant player in the industry gets old."

      I couldn't agree more. I frankly wonder why these people care so much about Nintendo. It's not like Nintendo actually puts food on the table for these people, unless they happen to be Nintendo employees. As long as they're making enough money to be profitable, who gives a crap what they're doing with the company. Who cares whether your friends like what console games you play. If they don't w
    • " Listen, just because the big N isn't number one in console sales, doesn't mean that they are not a successful company, or that they are on the brink of failure."

      I had somebody tell me once that the N64 was a failure despite selling 30 million units. I kid you not, he actually added the 'despite selling 30 million units' bit. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
      • Well, the N64 was a failure (or at least a middling quasi-success like the pre-SNES Genesis) despite selling 30 million units. A lot of the people who bought those units didn't buy very many games for them, and as we all know, games are the lifeblood of any console. I personally bought exactly two games for my N64, and one of them was at launch.

        Rob
        • I should point out that Nintendo made a heck of a lot more on cartridge based games than Sony ever did or does on CD based. (Hence one of the reasons Nintendo didn't move to the optical disc format.)

          In any event, I'm still baffled how one can label a 30 million unit sale a failure in any stretch of the imagination. I can understand "didn't reach its potential" or "not as good as other consoles", but failure? Honestly. To be clear, Im nitpicking the choice of words, not the feelings behind them.

  • Nintendo just makes good games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by obsid1an ( 665888 ) <obsidian@@@mchsi...com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:41AM (#11209905)
    Nintendo is one of the few companies out there to consistently pump out quality games across all their platforms. Sure, there is Mario Tennis, Mario Party, Mario Golf, Super Mario DS, etc, but every single one of those games is solid. The same goes with the Metroid and Zelda series. Nintendo doesn't use its franchises as a way to sell bad games. They are instead constantly reinforcing how good the games are that come from their franchises.

  • Missed the Point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr.Dippy ( 613292 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:42AM (#11209920)
    This guy brings up some interesting ideas but it's not about innovation and gameplay style that is killing them. I got a DS for Christmas and I challenge anybody to say that thing is not innovative. The problem with Nintendo is for every Eternal Darkness game they make they have 10 Pokemon/Harvest Moon/Talking animal games. Teenagers and adults have the money and the market share for videogames. They are the ones that will save up and plop down 50 bucks for Halo 2, GTA, etc.. Buying a cutesy nintendo game means that 5 year old needs to pester his or her parent for the game. Better said then done. Most parents I talk to are apprehensive to shell out money for their child's game habit. Innovation is not the problem. Disney style games are. /my two cents.
    • Except the Harvest Moon series is widely regarded as being very good, even among older gamers. Same goes for a certian extent, to the Pokemon video game franchise.
      • Except the Harvest Moon series is widely regarded as being very good, even among older gamers.

        "Alright.. so how are we going to try and market this movie? On the internet maybe?"
        "Well, given the straightforward plot of the movie... we can't use the IMEWOMF."
        "What's the IMEWOMF??"
        "The Internet Movie Elitist Word of Mouth Factor. You see, you get people on the internet, claiming what 'genius' or 'understated brilliance' a specific movie is... and sure enough, as word spreads, people will generally be too in
    • The DS is not innovative, it is evolutionary. Everything in the unit is something we've already seen involved with gaming, including dual screens (both arcade and the old-ass nintendo lcd handhelds) and the touchscreen (what, you never played a game on a palm?) Many DS games, however, make innovative use of the hardware, ehich is cool. Actually, the DS does have one innovative feature: the little plastic bead on the carry strap that you can use as a stylus. That's badass.
    • The "Tweenies" (pre-teen) group is regarded as the most profitable segment to market to, by far.

      Example:
      My girlfriend's little sister has no less than 8 Pokemon games. Has every Mario title released since SNES. And is OBSESSED with Harvest Moon/Animal Crossing.

      Why are kids more profitable? Because they have time, their parents have money, and they actually obsess about franchises.

      Sure I love Halo and Halo 2.... but us oldies dont die if we dont get to play Pokemon every day. And we certainly dont get as

  • before everybody else says it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by muel ( 132794 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:45AM (#11209964)
    ...wasn't this year's Christmas season made up almost entirely of top-notch, blockbuster, super-selling sequels? Judging by what the general video-gaming masses throw their money at, doesn't adherence to the tried-and-true actually make financial sense?

    The guy goes on and on about how these franchises aren't attracting new gamers. That's bullocks. The problem is that the GameCube as a whole wound up becoming the Dreamcast of this generation. Not enough AAA-rate games to keep gamers happy: No Burnout 3, no GTA, limited sports support. Simple as that. Metroid Prime got attention, but for many reasons (lack of deathmatch being one), it wasn't the Halo that pulled Microsoft's similarly-shitty XBox release schedule out of the crapper. If Nintendo had gotten their crap together by snagging more third parties earlier, or perhaps by getting Mario Kart DD online, the console wars would've been completely different. As it stands, Nintendo blew the console wars again.

    Then again, on the bright side, their profits are pretty damn good. What they lose in licensing, they've made up for by never selling their console for less than a profit and by making more profit for their first-party games. MS and Sony couldn't say that for years and lost more money in their deep pocketbooks than they'd ever care to admit, and paying for exclusivity deals with third parties takes its toll, too. Nintendo, as shortsighted as they are in getting American gamers' attention, have always been pretty good with the pocketbook. That might not mean much to gamers in search of a good system, but it does mean that Nintendo is going absolutely nowhere in the console wars. They won't fall like Sega anytime soon, but they do need to shape up with the new Revolution system, because they won't survive a third N64-style last-place finish, and two bad systems in a row is not a good reputation to go into the next generation with. Can we say Atari?

    • Re:before everybody else says it... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson&psg,com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:57AM (#11210085)
      Well I think that if the leap from GameBoy SP to Nintendo DS is any indication, the Gamecube -> Revolution leap will be amazing.

      There seems to be a few fresh thinkers inside Nintendo. That's why the DS is such a leap over previous portable game systems. If that same thinking goes into the Revolution then I'm sure we'll see some good innovations.

    • Re:before everybody else says it... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by funny-jack ( 741994 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:58AM (#11210098) Homepage
      The problem is that the GameCube as a whole wound up becoming the Dreamcast of this generation.

      Um, maybe it's just me, but wasn't the Dreamcast the "Dreamcast of this generation"?
      • "Um, maybe it's just me, but wasn't the Dreamcast the "Dreamcast of this generation"?"

        Depends on how you measure it. The DC wasn't even really around when the GameCube came out.
    • The Dreamcast had lots of great games. In terms of AAA titles, given the time schedule we saw for other systems, I'd say it was only after mid 2003 that the Xbox had a better number of titles equal to the number of great titles on the Dreamcast (which, if launched at the same time as the Xbox, would've been announced as dead in Feb/March 2003).

      As for Nintendo being last, I haven't seen too many Nokia, Microsoft, or Sony handhelds going around lately... Even with the GBA lineup being largely shitty licenc
    • I have an Xbox and a Gamecube, and used to have a PS2. The PS2 got sold to make rent quite a ways back and the Xbox hasn't played an Xbox game in months, serving instead as a media player and console emulator. The 'cube is the only system my girlfriend and I actually play, and it will stay that way until a networked version of gran turismo comes out for PS2 and I can play with my friends back home in Santa Cruz.

  • This was a good point, a year or two ago. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mirkon ( 618432 ) <mirkon@noSPam.gmail.com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:54AM (#11210056) Homepage
    The anti-innovation point would have been good, had it been made before the wildly innovative Nintendo DS, and before the announcement that the next Nintendo console will have a completely new control scheme. Even if they use the same characters in upcoming games, they're going to have to be used in entirely new ways.

  • Old Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StocDred ( 691816 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @11:54AM (#11210061) Homepage Journal
    This article was posted to IGN Cube back in October [ign.com], as shared content between IGN and N-Sider. Same graphics as well. Old article, even older complaints. Nice job, story submitter.

    For every decent point, the author trots out the same Mario-bashing that has following Nintendo since the SNES. The author shows a complete misunderstanding of how businesses maintain corporate identity and branding when he launches into such brilliant ideas as suggesting Donkey Konga would have been better served with brand new characters instead of recycling Donkey Kong. Because we all know how the PS2's Taiko Drum Master is burning up the charts (another drum peripheral game, nearly identical to Konga, also developed by Namco) because people are just begging for new drum games featuring all new IP. Come on. Half of those dreaded Mario spin-off games are concepts that nobody knew would become huge, and Nintendo figured that attaching Mario to them was the surest way to help their success. Risk = lousy games would diminish the brand, Reward = good games that strengthen the brand. Was there a huge appetite for cart racers before Mario Kart? For party games before Mario Party? For silly golf games before Mario Golf? Nintendo ventured out (Donkey Konga is a risk... new bulky hardware for a genre that mostly runs off one game, DDR), made some sharp games, people lapped them up... so Nintendo realized they hit gold and made more. And then everybody started doing them, and whaddaya know, they mostly paled in comparison.

    You can write the same article about PlayStation, switching in Metal Gear, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. The major differences are A) that Nintendo has been around longer - and thus has been doing the branding game longer. And B) that Nintendo's core franchises are family-friendly and thus open to constant ridicule by those who don't like them.

    • Re:Old Article (Score:5, Insightful)

      by scot4875 ( 542869 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:27PM (#11210394) Homepage
      Damn, wish my last mod point hadn't expired.

      Your last paragraph is spot on. The m47ur3 gamer crowd likes to bash Nintendo's characters because they're insecure about playing as Mario, Yoshi, and Daisy. For some reason it's better and more 'adult' to be playing as 'generic pissed-off dude,' 'generic gangster dude,' or 'generic marine dude.'

      --Jeremy

    • Re:Old Article (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alphaseven ( 540122 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @01:35PM (#11211179)
      The author shows a complete misunderstanding of how businesses maintain corporate identity and branding when he launches into such brilliant ideas as suggesting Donkey Konga would have been better served with brand new characters instead of recycling Donkey Kong. Because we all know how the PS2's Taiko Drum Master is burning up the charts (another drum peripheral game, nearly identical to Konga, also developed by Namco) because people are just begging for new drum games featuring all new IP. Come on.

      I think the article might have a point about Nintendo overdoing some of it's brands, this post from Game Matters [typepad.com] puts it more succinctly than the article.

      About brand extension, the dilution is generally a long-term effect and not a short-term one. Releasing, say, a party game as "Mario Party" boosts its sales because of its link to the popular brand, but it dilutes the whole brand in the long term.

      Mario, as a brand, has definitely lost strength lately. Each new Mario game used to be a huge release by Nintendo, but now it's much weaker. Super Mario Sunshine is a good example of this since it sold much less than expected. Mario used to be Nintendo's big brand, but now it's Zelda because they diluted it beyond recognition. I used to know what a "Mario game" was, but today it could be anything and that reduces my interest. That's not to say that Mario, as a brand, is worthless -- but it's certainly not what it used to be.

      For that matter, Nintendo is doing the same thing with Zelda by putting Link everywhere (Soul Calibur 2, etc.) -- it's another brand that's going to lost strength. I guess they'll continue this trend by creating a Metroid Party or something...

      • Re:Old Article (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @11:07AM (#11219255) Journal
        I like to think of it less as diluting and more as expanding. I guess I just see it as a positive thing. Each Mario game isn't as big a deal now as in the past because there's just more of them. How is that a bad thing?

        Are we really worse off now that nintendo is no longer releasing just a mario platformer every few years? Do you miss all the hype they put into it? Sure, no one's going to make a movie like The Wizard to give us all a sneak preview of Mario Baseball, but I think I'm ok with that.

        Ok, so Mario Sunshine isn't your thing. Go try Mario Kart, or Mario Golf, or Mario Tennis. They're all good, solid games in their own right, and they also build upon this imaginary world that Nintendo has been cultivating for decades.

        This world that they have created has such power to create opportunities for gameplay. Mario Kart has pirahna plants that bite you, little walking bombs running all over the courses, and all other sorts of weird ass stuff. Stuff that doesn't really make any sense at all except within the history of the Mario franchise.

        For any game to be sucessful, it's going to have to help the player suspend some disbelief (except maybe for some puzzle games). Placing a game within a fantasy world that we're already familiar with makes that so much easier.

    • Samba De Amigo (Score:2, Interesting)

      by TLSPRWR ( 711680 )
      "new bulky hardware for a genre that mostly runs off one game, DDR"

      Though DDR has overshadowed most games in the Rythmn/dance genre, a most underrated game that hardly saw American shores was Samba De Amigo ( here [planetdreamcast.com] and here [ign.com]). It started off as an arcade game with maraca controllers (something you wouldn't likely see in American arcades), and was then ported to the Dreamcast. They even had maraca controllers [lik-sang.com] for the 'real' experience. I guess it was the failure of the Dreamcast (Despite the many good games r
    • You've never heard of EA's Zany Golf for the PC, have you? 16 color EGA graphics!
    • What party games were there before Mario Party?

      The Atari had the obscure game Party Mix [atariage.com] but I can't think of any games that were just frameworks around minigames before that. As far as I can think right now, Mario Party invented a genre, and I give it huge credit for bringing classic style gaming into a new generation, especially with its emphasis on 4 player fun.

    • Re:Old Article (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DeadScreenSky ( 666442 )
      The author shows a complete misunderstanding of how businesses maintain corporate identity and branding when he launches into such brilliant ideas as suggesting Donkey Konga would have been better served with brand new characters instead of recycling Donkey Kong. Because we all know how the PS2's Taiko Drum Master is burning up the charts (another drum peripheral game, nearly identical to Konga, also developed by Namco) because people are just begging for new drum games featuring all new IP.

      Umm, Taiko Dru

  • Art House (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:17PM (#11210294) Homepage Journal
    It goes like this. Video games are just like every other medium of entertainment. Just like movies, music and TV. There are shows, films, games and songs to cover every genre across the board. What's happened to the video game industry mostly mirrors the film industry. There are shitty blockbuster movies which everyone sees that make a lot of money. But the people who know quality most often stick to art house theatres. There they get quality, but the people who make it get less money due to less marketing.

    Nintendo has made the error of making high quality games. People don't realize that the game itself and the theme of a game are two seperate things. For example, look at Star Trek and any daytime soap opera. Both are soap operas, the substance of the shows are identical, but the themes are different. One has an outer space theme and one has a theme of eviltown USA. But the actual substance of the thing is mostly the same.

    Nintendo makes high quality games. In fact, most of their games are the highest quality you can get. Just about anything that says Metroid, Mario or Zelda on it is top notch. But the theme, other than Metroid, is not one that appeals to punk teenage kids. They are too manly to buy a mario game even though they know it is better and more fun than GTA whatever. Always worried about graphics and self image instead of their actual gaming experience. So games like BMX XXX exist. These types of games are all the same crappy thing. They come in two genres, run around a shoot things and run around and beat things up, sometimes both. But like blockbuster movies with no substance they sell well.

    I'm not saying all Nintendo's games are flawless masterpieces. Nor am I saying that all games for other systems are crap. People on /. love to attack and infer broad sweeping generalisations like that. What I am saying is that overall Nintendo is concentrating on creating an innovative and new gaming experience that can be enjoyed by all people. As long as they profit, they're happy. All the other companies are mostly concerned with making a quick buck. So they release three GTA games that are all really the same with slightly changed themes. And they release a shitty FPS named Halo, twice, which is pretty much a modernized goldeneye plus vehicles and aliens. It makes them loads of cash the same way a blockbuster film does. But you can't honestly say that their games are high quality works of art. But if you play some Zelda or some Metroid its hard not to.
    • I was with you until you said that the mario games were more fun than GTA. I've played a lot of mario games and although I have enjoyed them all at least to some degree (Mario Bros. 2 not so much, 3 very much, virtual boy mario tennis quite a bit, and paper mario: the thousand year door most of all) I enjoyed GTA3 more than any of them. It's not about masculine insecurity; as proof I submit that of red, blue, and purple, I chose purple as the color for the cast that's on my hand right now. It was about the
      • Yeah. I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but GTA is something special, the way it has a great series of missions overlayed on a very real feeling world...a world that doesn't feel like it was handcrafted for the sake of playing the missions, which is something Nintendo never does. (I.e. the city seems to have its own agenda, it doesn't exist just for the player)

        And saying all the games in the series are the same thing w/ just thematic changes...no way. They really are trying to make it a better, more fun universe wit

  • NINTENDO relies on franchises? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:22PM (#11210335) Homepage
    Welcome to bizzaro-world. Nintendo is the one console I've seen where non-franchise games seem to do well. I Ninja, Viewtiful Joe, Pikmin, P.N.03, and Tales of Symphonia are the majority of the games I've played on my GameCube lately, and they're all non-franchise as far as I can see. Compare this to Playstation 2, for example, where the games of choice at the moment are TOCA 2, Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft Auto 3 San Andreas, Star Ocean 3, and Elder Scrolls 3, Final Fantasy 12... Maybe that's just me, but franchises certainly aren't what I was thinking about when I bought a GameCube.

    If anyone needs to invest in non-franchise games, it's the other two consoles. Hell, even the non-sequels that show up on Playstation 2 and X-Box seem to mostly be things like movie franchises. Ugh.

    • Those are games for the GameCube, not Nintendo games (with the exception of Pikmin):

      • I-Ninja - NAMCO
      • Tales of Symphonia - NAMCO
      • PN03 - Capcom
      • Viewtiful Joe - Capcom

      Nintendo has, recently at least, been the Franchise King. Nintendo (as in, "published by Nintendo") GC games I've played recently:

      • Super Smash Brothers: Melee (based on a ton of Nintendo franchises melded into a game that I suck royally at)
      • Metroid Prime
      • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
      • The Legend of Zelda: Wind Wakers

      All of those were based on

  • Innovamatation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BlastM ( 663010 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:23PM (#11210354) Journal
    Sadly, Nintendo is in the business of playing it safe.


    As opposed to... what? Who's pushing the boundaries like Nintendo is at the moment? Sure, the Big N uses familiar franchises pretty often (which is the only gripe I could find the author had). That's to build on established brands, a common marketing strategy.

    Despite familiar characters and storylines, Nintendo's in-house games are some of the most original and interesting available today, whereas Sony and Microsoft will play host to the latest multiplayer futuristic shooter or various racing games. Sony practically produces nothing in-house, yet the worldwide PS2 sales are well above GameCube, a distant second place, and Xbox.

    The author of the article claims that Nintendo doesn't try new things, and then mentions Super Mario Sunshine. Sunshine tried a new concept, and the fact is that it wasn't well-recieved. EAD tried a new approach to the genre, but it's not their fault people didn't like it.

    And that's the thing about innovation. New ideas usually don't start a revolution; they can often backfire, as did the Virtual Boy, or (to a far lesser extent) the graphical style of the new Zelda. For every hit, there are a number of misses. For every DS, there is a Virtual Boy, and an innovator must be prepared for that. Most take the easy, tried-but-true path and use a proven formula to produce a mediocre game, where success of some degree is guaranteed.

    The problem with the article is that the author is trying to directly relate innovation with market domination, but if that were the case, Sony wouldn't be in the position they are today.
  • Because according to Nintendo's own financial statements each console has sold more than it's predecssor by a significant amount, due mostly to the fact that there are more and more people turning to video games as entertainement each year, and because there are always new children born into this world. I really get sick of these articles which are the drivel of an person who was a fan of Nintendo back when "system x" was the king, and don't understand why "system z" has the same games. Well bub, it's becau

  • Running itself into the ground, alright... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:31PM (#11210440)
    Yeah, right into the ground [boj.or.jp]...

    The article's premise is ridiculous and unsupported by evidence. Nintendo's franchise games are:

    a) Consistently among the highest-quality games available for any system, and

    b) Consistently among the top sellers for Nintendo systems.

    Nintendo are ancient master game makers, and if there's anything - anything about their business that they know how to do well, it's make games.

    Nintendo does have problems and a dismal outlook for the future, but its product quality is not the issue. Its real problems are corporate mergermania and technology convergence, which are in tandem killing off or causing to be absorbed any and all companies with narrow focus interests. Nintendo could make the best games in history, but versus monolithic conglomerates with inexhaustible resources, in the long run, they can't win. It's actually a testament to Nintendo's competence that they've survived so long.

    Nintendo's destiny may be to die out or be absorbed, but to blame the game quality for that is ridiculous and utterly wrongheaded. Their best games are as good as the other guys', at least - it's the other areas where they fail to scale. You may as well say that Starbucks and WalMart killed every local business in America because of "better quality products". In most cases, it was actually because of "same quality products, way more resources". As it is with Nintendo.
    • The article's premise is ridiculous and unsupported by evidence. Nintendo's franchise games are:

      a) Consistently among the highest-quality games available for any system, and

      b) Consistently among the top sellers for Nintendo systems.

      Man, it's too bad the article didn't bring up both of those points... Oh wait, it did. How about you try reading for a change?
  • From the article:

    "Perhaps, the largest success story of this generation would have to be Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox. The game continues to top the charts after nearly three years on the market. Why? Because it features polished gameplay and a completely original world and story; it was fresh, it was new, it was fun, and it was immersive."

    Fresh? New? It's the spiritual successor to Bungie's Marathon series, and another FPS where you are against aliens, hardly fresh or new. It sold so well becau

  • Everyone keeps saying "Nintendo makes the best games!!!", completely forgetting that that's all kinds of their opinion. The only real AAA title that came out of Nintendo this year, to me, was Metroid Prime 2. They did some other decent stuff this year, like Pikmin 2 and Paper Mario 2, but otherwise? I don't like sports games, so the formula of "mascot + wacky + sport" doesn't appeal to me. I never liked Mario Kart (still don't) and could not possibly care less about the Mario Party games. Given my taste in
  • But wasn't Nintendo the second largest publisher of video games last year, right under Electronic Arts? Even if the gamecube is in a solid third place, they sell a ton more first person titles than both Sony and Microsoft.

    Until Nintendo starts losing money (they are still very profitable), there isn't a problem. And when that day comes, they could easily convert over to a software only company. At which point they'd probably have a good chance of overshadowing EA. I hope that day never comes, as I re

  • The thing that bothers me the most... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Grey Ninja ( 739021 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @05:01PM (#11213458) Homepage Journal
    Nintendo is the only remaining console producer who has strong first party development. Sony is beginning to try their hand at it with stuff like Gran Turismo and ICO... but they don't make nearly as many games as Nintendo. Nintendo was able to keep the N64 afloat pretty much single handedly through some skilled 1st and 2nd party development. Sony in comparison relies almost entirely on 3rd parties to sell their systems. Nobody would have bought a PS2 if not for Square, Konami, and Enix. Microsoft relies pretty much entirely on their marketting and Halo. I have to wonder when that's going to blow up in their face, but that's beside the point.

    My point is that Nintendo is the only console manufacturer with strong game development internally. They are consistently among the top publishers, and although they rely on a core set of mascots to sell their games, each game of a franchise is often quite different from its siblings. (take Paper Mario to Mario RPG to Mario and Luigi, or Metroid Prime to Super Metroid for example).

    I just think it's a little absurd to rag on Nintendo for lack of innovation while Sony and Microsoft don't even make their own games for the most part, and when they do, they are often sequels as well. And most of the 3rd party developers prefer to build on their franchises as well. (Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Splinter Cell, Kingdom Hearts, etc. etc.) I just happen to see a lot of new stuff on GameCube, such as Viewtiful Joe, Pikmin, Super Monkey Ball, Ikaruga, etc. And such games are often greatly appreciated.
  • you can waste 2 billions dollars on one console and have it said succesfull because it has one best selling title (which btw isnt innovative at all, being a rather dull fps) and have nintendo being shown as unsuccessfull because they base their profitable business on their conception of what games should be.
    This is a world which never ceases to amaze me.

  • Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gothic_Walrus ( 692125 ) on Thursday December 30, 2004 @09:56AM (#11218607) Journal
    Immediately after running a story on how great the PSP is [slashdot.org], Slashdot runs a story like this one, one that strongly criticizes Nintendo.

    It's also worth noting that the article about the PSP was submitted by its own author and blatantly ignored the complaints about the system, whereas this article was written in October and ran on IGN, where most of the readers of this section of Slashdot had a chance to see it.

    Am I the only one bothered by this?

  • lack of innovation and low sales numbers

    Alright, That's not just biased, it's wrong. They came out with the most innovative handheld console ever concieved, Metroid Deathmatch, and all you can do is notice the lack of GTA? Comparing the DS to PSP may be a toss up, but there can be no question the DS is the more original of the two.

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