I already made a blog stating my thoughts in the matter in more brief terms years ago, but it was getting to a point where I need to write a bigger blog on this. I admit, Nintendo wasn't doing so hot with the 3DS (though in Japan at least, it did pick up massively) and right now, they aren't doing any better (like they said they would) with the Wii U, but I still have my hopes that Nintendo will pick things up for that console. Will Wii U be as successful as the Wii? Probably not, but it is possible to still be popular and not sell as well as it's predecessor (see: Game Boy Advance compared to Game Boy).
That being said, even if Nintendo picks things up like they do, it still doesn't stop the continual demands (even from industry insiders both former and current, more recently coming from Eidos life president, Ian Livingstone) for them to be like their former competitors, SEGA (more noted) and Atari (less noted), and be a third party developer/publisher either because their consoles like N64, GameCube and Wii U aren't selling like they should or the hardware just doesn't appeal to them and only play it because of exclusives.
Sure you could defend that you would be spending less money on more hardware, but that seems to be the only real benefit... if they don't fade away in many other aspects much like SEGA and Atari.
Let's look at what happened to other two...
SEGA had wide success with the Genesis/Megadrive, but reception with their hardware was starting to fade with the CD/32X add-ons and degraded even further with horrible Saturn sales (though to be fair, N64 was struggling too, but that ended up being more popular) and with it, the company was struggling financially. As short lived as the Dreamcast was, it still proved that SEGA had positive reception among gamers, but all that went downhill when they had no choice but to drop the Dreamcast due to a mix of more financial struggles, major hardware flukes like really easy piracy, and the hype for the PS2.
I remember reading an issue of Nintendo Power in Elementary School that Sonic was making a Nintendo appearance on the Game Boy Advance and I remember being very excited myself, but me being a kid back then, little did I know of the dark times that would come for that poor blue hedgehog.
Sonic the Hedgeog 2006 not only confusingly uses the name of the SEGA Genesis/MegaDrive cIassic (which seems to be a trend with these reboots, see the later released Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider), but uses it insultingly due to a horrible storyline (with a major note being Sonic and a human female named Elise's relationship) and overall being more broken than the previously panned Shadow the Hedgehog (On Shadow's game, yours truly likes this one but more of a guilty pleasure these days, but that doesn't mean I can't note the mass hate around it).
Even a port of the cIassic game damaged them even further...
Much like the GBA port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (titled Mortal Kombat Advance), Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis broke what made the original great by having massive slowdown and game breaking bugs, most of which randomly kill you when they shouldn't.
Even many of their other IP's faced some sort of struggle, we haven't seen a new Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon or Shenmue since the XBOX, the last Nights game on the Wii was a bomb and the only return we ever saw of the characters from those games were in a crossover kart racing series with Sonic which so far, only spans two games (Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing and Transformed). Add one more franchise before I move on, despite it being more recent... Bayonetta. Just this announcement alone sparked controversy (which put it not only on SEGA's shoulders, but Platinum Games and Nintendo share it as well) and is more then likely a sign of what's to come for that game (and Nintendo's already facing an uphill battle into the M rated market after bad sales of Eternal Darkness and Geist, both for the GameCube).
On to Atari, who had it even worse with their consoles especially after the video game crash of the 1980's. Their then newer systems (7200 and Jaguar) failed and the last time we ever saw the likes of Pong or Breakout were on the PlayStation. By then, they became mostly known (in North America at least) for localizing many games from a popular anime/manga franchise created by Akira Toriyama (being a fan of this franchise myself, I do own a few games, although they aren't mentioned). But it all ended for them when Namco Bandai (though I believe the Bandai half has been licensed off of franchises for games and toys for years) took over NA distribution rights.
Atari did publish other games like Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, but how many people even remember NYPD Det. Carla's case in the diner murder compared to having many interactive versions of Goku fighting his rival Vegeta or the epic moment when he transforms into a Super Saiyan and takes his revenge on Frieza?
While there are gems to be had in there (not only to DBZ fans love it, but many people in the fighting game community did too)...
...there was still too much shovelware
To conclude, how would Nintendo's own stuff even fare up to systems with audiences with very different appeals? Would Pokemon be holding it's own against Final Fantasy, Tales, and many other JRPG's? Would Smash Bros still be noted on the same consoles that have more Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken and Guilty Gear games? Would Mario be that memorable of a platforming series compared to Little Big? I have my doubts.
Well, there's my thoughts on the matter and probably my longest post to date. Comment below and tell me your thoughts?
1 Like Yes, Pokemon would stand up to the likes of Final Fantasy and Tales. Yes, Smash Bros. would hold up against the likes of Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Starrt Fighter. And yes, Mario would hold up against LittleBigPlanet. Why wouldn't they? Are you referring to 'holding up' as in terms of sales, or in quality? Because at the end of the day, in terms of quality, Nintendo's games are arguably the best you can buy, and swapping consoles won't change that.
This is not a troll post... but IMO pokemon can hold up against the Final fantasy's and the tales.. similarly both the Smash bros and Mario can hold their ground too.
Way i see it.. ppl dont play pokemon for a character driven emotional jrpg like ff8, ff9 etc.. it offers an extermely balanced and tight gameplay which in spite of all its simplicity is exceptionally suited to competitive play...
similarly smash bros.. most ppl i know who got it (including me) got it for one reason.. and that is local 4 player.. the single player experience is good.. and online is good too.. but we are a group of old school ppl who grew up playing goldeneye64 locally.. for us local play is the way to go.. thats the only reason i would buy the next installment of mario kart too...
imho you cant compare a game like mario with little big planet.. one is serious platformer and the other is more of a social experience if you will.. a more accurate comparison would be rayman origins... now if dkc, mario and rayman have alrdy co-existed with each other on the wii without any issues.. so no issues with ninty go third party too.. now coming to 3d platformers like mario galaxy.. there is no competition.. ninty are the only ones making this genre nowadays.. most other companies have moved to sandbox games.. the last non-ninty good 3d platformer i played was kya dark lineage for the ps2 and psychonauts..
i dont want ninty to third party.. i would gladly buy a ninty console to play ninty exclusives.. but in the event they do go thrid party.. they will be fine. their systems sell coz nintendo focus's on tight controls and solid gameplay.. this is give more importance than cinematic cutscenes, story driven experiences..
my point is.. there is a reason sony copies nintendo so much.. lbp is a weak copy of nsmb.. lbp kart is a rip-off of mario kart.. and all stars battle royale is a smash bros clone.. and that is becasuse nintendo games offer experiences that other consoles cannot match..
People demanding Nintendo go 3rd party don't really know what they're saying.
*Do you WANT to compete with Nintendo's games?
*Competition is good. Nintendo bowing out of the race is only a bad thing; to think otherwise is selfish. Considering MS's goals with the XBO, and the uncertainty surrounding PS4, I wouldn't be so quick to want Nintendo to abandon their consoles. They are the only ones who are interested in making a game console first.
Note that the only people who are wishing for Nintendo to go 3rd party are the ones who have no vested interest in Nintendo.
Bayo 2 I'm hoping it will fail hard, hard enough for Nintendo to be forced to release it for other consoles. Not buying garbage console to play one single game, which just feels cheap from Platinum Games, and I bought Bayo 1. I don't think that's the way to treat your fans.
Oh, and that DBZ Budokai 3. Such a great game. I made the mistake of buying Ultimate Tenkaichi hoping I would get a Budokai 3 with better graphics... Boy did that turn out not to be true whatsoever...
@DiamondDM13 It wasn't Platinum Games fault. Hell it wasn't Nintendo's fault either. Sega were the ones who canned Bayonetta 2 initially. After this Platinum Games went around, looking for publishers, and the ONLY one who was interested in publishing it was Nintendo. If Nintendo didn't publish it, it would never have seen the light of day. I can't even understand why fans are annoyed. Fair enough, you may not want a Wii U, but at least there is an option for you to actually play the game if you wanted. Would you rather have not had Bayonetta 2 at all?
@widdowson91 @DiamondDM13 Can you please provide me the proof that Sony wasn't interested in Bayonetta 2?
@DiamondDM13 You realize that it likely won't leave the Wii U for multiple consoles right? There was a reason SEGA (who still owns the IP) canned it, as around the time it was said to be cancelled, they were restructuring the company. Unless SEGA can get another publisher that can have them go multiplatform or make something like Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden: Sigma (which is an update to the XBOX Ninja Gaiden), I wouldn't hold my breath.
@nintendoboy16 @DiamondDM13 I'm not holding my breath, but I sure as hell am holding my money from that game. It's a shame, and I know I'm not alone in this. This is not a game that was Nintendo exclusive and should go Multiplatform in my opinion. It's a game that was Multiplatform and is now exclusive on a console that didn't even have the first game. What sense does that make? To alienate your whole fanbase...
Only case of this I can remember is REmake and RE0. And they sold badly, not reaching the 2 million copies, then RE4, which was exclusive, but would have failed aswell, had it not come to PS2 later. I mean, what were they expecting, they had sold about 5 million copies of each RE game on the PS systems previously, all their fans were mostly there, and you alienate them by going to a different system...Makes little sense to me...
I thought the real Atari closed and Infogrames adopted the name?
Don't take a former CEO's point too seriously, because he has never been in Nintendo's business of selling both First party games and consoles as he only managed to make games for other consoles.
Selling first party games, is pretty much a reason to buy a console when third parties can make multi-plats. But when two of the different consoles share the same games, it gets tough for the other consoles to sell. I moved on to PC gaming because of that.
@FireEmblem_Man I've always thought Infogrames saved them and more or less merged ended up using Atari's name (hence why I still think they're Atari, with or without Infogrames). Either way, sounds like that in particular makes things worse.
@nintendoboy16 Well Atari is now long gone, until another publisher picks up the name. I still believe 3rd parties want to eliminate Nintendo out of the industry.
@nintendoboy16 @FireEmblem_Man I know you don't like Sean Malstrom, but he also spoke about that as well, especially the early EA years on nintendo. But I do believe that Nintendo can live without EA, because no one needs EA to survive.
It's always the same stupid argument fanbois make when the Dreamcast was around. Sega failed because of poor managment of money, and failed devices that costed them a lot. Nintendo's R & D are completely different than Sega's. Yet its taking fanbois too long to realize. Sure, N64 and GC had low sales, but they still made big profits to stay alive as well as games for us.
@FireEmblem_Man With how EA (speaking of which, I should've mentioned that one dev from there who made similar comments) acted/acts towards them, I don't blame you.
If Nintendo releases its games on multiple platforms, they'll essentially kill any hope of their own console selling, seeing as how the only thing people buy a Nintendo console for nowadays is for the exclusive IP's like the Zelda or Mario series. If the Wii-U didn't exist, then I'd say it would be a good idea for Nintendo to just give up on the whole console business altogether and just go into the business of making games for existing consoles, however, seeing as how they've already launched their console, it wouldn't make sense to give up on that investment now after spending so much money on its development.
Overall, I do think their games would sell better if released on multiple consoles to a wider audience, but in saying that, I also think it would be kinda sad to see them stop developing consoles as well and I'm not sure what impact that would have on the industry. Having three cornerstones in Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo sounds like a good number and the market needs healthy competition to drive innovation and help keep prices at reasonable levels. If one of those cornerstones suddenly dropped away, the consequences could be quite imposing.
There is some confusion here. Atari the publisher is NOT the same company that worked on their home entertainment hardware during the eighties. Atari are actually Infogrames, a late nineties game distributor, rebranded.
@loopy_101 Repost from above:
I've always thought Infogrames saved them and more or less merged ended up using Atari's name (hence why I still think they're Atari, with or without Inforgrames). Either way, sounds like that in particular makes things worse.
I hear that all the time mostly from folks who just don't want to buy a Nintendo console to play Zelda or Smash and for them it would save them money to not have to buy another console. It does get tiresome.
1 Like Well, nothing at all can make me buy an Xbox One, and Sony's actions at E3 will determine whether I turn the same cold shoulder. Vegamyster is right on the money, though. Nintendo is one of the dreadfully few companies in this bloated, silly industry that can legitimately be called successful. Nintendo made money off both the N64 and the friggin' GameCube when all was said and done, and as soon as the Wii U gets more games, Nintendo will start making money here.This is the same nonsense we heard in the first year of the 3DS, and Nintendo's still here. They've become a strong, viable long-term company by focusing on their strengths instead of trying to compete with the massive conglomerates.
And if anything should be seen as a cautionary tale, it'd be Sega. After the fall of the Dreamcast and their move to 3rd party, they spent a solid 5 years just pumping out shit, and now their only legitimate sellers are Total War and Sonic (Though I imagine Company of Heroes will be a big one for them too).
Now, all that said, I think Nintendo games would do fine wherever they ended up, if the quality kept up. Between their strong nostalgic pull and being the only company that makes consistently quality games for young audiences, they're filling a niche that the rest of gaming has abandoned trying to go after the 18-34 male exclusively with near-constant dude bro games.
The whole "Nintendo is doomed!" thing is way over done, they've made 30 years of straight profit with only 1 loss last year. This gen with the way its looking it seems like it will be Nintendo vs Sony considering the massive distaste the Xbox One is receiving. If they have a good E3 and release big first party games during the Christmas with a tiny price cut to persuade consumers the Wii-U will be fine.
@Vegamyster Here's hoping. Nintendo (and Microsoft too) needs a good E3 after all the hell that's going on.
@nintendoboy16 Being that Microsoft is being so shady with what they're doing i honestly don't care if the system completely flops, i am all for competition and i like Halo but screwing the consumer to make more money is just plain bad. Hopefully they change things up before it's released.
