Did anybody else notice that the Rise of the Videogame show on Discovery Channel is biased against Nintendo? Episode 2 had about 5 minutes on the NES and less than 2 minutes on the Super NES and ZERO minutes on the N64, but they spent 10 to 15 minutes on the Sega Genisis and about 20 minute on the Playstation 1, and nobody from Nintendo has spoken on the show, but they had Peter Moore (ex-head of Microsoft and Sega), and at the end of Episode 2 they said that 3D (Playstation 1 & 2) is in and the era of the portly plumber (Mario) is out. It is a good show but just a little against Nintendo. Let me know what you think.snowman1771
I had begun to prepare this post when the whole Jeff Gertsmann thing hit the fan. I got caught up in that and have only just now completed it. Some of the things that refer to "last night" or "yesterday" may not have been reworded to reflect my delay in posting.
After reading your post I have taken the time to view the entire show and the first one after editing out the commercials. I wanted to have a look for myself to see if maybe I just did not notice this bias. Well, I didn't notice it because its just not there. Your perceived bias against Nintendo is completely wrong. The second show that aired on Discover, Level 2, ran 43.5 min. excluding commercials and well over 15 min of that 43 min was devoted to Nintendo exclusively.
No specific game system was mentioned until 5:30min. and the first system mentioned was in fact Nintendo. Atari is mentioned briefly. After talking about the importance of story the next part of the show was almost entirely about Nintendo, Miyamoto and how Mario revived, and changed the industry in the 80's. "The video game had it's first superstar, a portly plumber named Mario" . That quote can be heard right after the first commercial at aprox. 9:40 of the show. It's not until right before the second commercial @ about 18:00 that the show shifts to discussing the PC and text based adventure games. Eventually they come back to Nintendo and the original Zelda.
To discuss every system in depth individually during series running 215 min. total (without commercials) would be impossible. If the Super Nintendo was mentioned I did not catch it, the N64 system isnot mentioned, neither is the Commodore. I guess that makes them C64 haters too. Not one word about the neo geo either. Discussion of the Sega does not start until about 23:00 keeping in mind that the times I'm listing are without commercials and it was actually about 35 min into the show with them. 5 minuets later, talk of the Sega ends and, after talking about Leisure Suit Larry they move on to talk about the Nintendo / Sony's CD collaboration and breakup leading to Sony's creation of the Playstation 1. From there the show tries to get back to where it started, the importance of story. It does that by discussing GTA and for that reason it mentioned both the PS1 and PS2 at that time because GTA3 was a PS2 title. "The GTA series, by Rockstar games, started a trend of movie worthy characters, real Hollywood stars, and legitimate story lines," It moves right on to current gen systems, "high fidelity" graphics and motion capture.
IMO the show jumps around a bit too much. Also, when a documentary like this says things like "In the early 1980's the personal computer was introduced to the market" instead of stating fact (with something like, IBM released the first Home Computer the IBM 5150 Personal Computer or PC to the market on August 21, 1981) it only serves to undermine the shows credibility. The use of vague dates and general timelines draws the research done for the show into question .
While it is true that no one from Nintendo was interviewed it is important to note that no currently employed representative of Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft was interviewed. Only Journalists and previously employed industry professionals were interviewed. Peter Moore, head of EA Sports, seems to be the only exception. I think the problem is that you noticed that a former Microsoft employee you have heard of was interviewed rather then the fact that some former Nintendo employee you have never heard of was not. Quick! Who was executive vice president of marketing for Nintendo America before Reggie Fils-Aime? You probably don't know because when he left Nintendo it was not to jump ship and move to EA like Peter Moore did. Nintendo's Peter Main just retired and that's not headline news. The exclusion of MS, Nintendo and Sony reps may have been intentional to maintain an appearance of impartiality, or, it could it could be an indicator of some hidden agenda on the part of the makers. I find that second conclusion highly unlikely but still, one would think that the big 3 would have been falling all over themselves to participate in a five part series that would apparently promote their businesses. Most likely the lawyers could not agree on who would get to talk first, last and for how long so they said to hell with it, we wont talk to any of them.
The show had a great deal of footage of Nintendo's early days including some clips from old interviews with Myamoto, and television adds from both Japan and the US. Industry journalists like Peer Schneider- VP of IGN, Geoff Keighley of Game Head TV and consulting producer for this series and others were all featured as well as industry professionals like Roberta and KenWilliams- co- founders of Sierra online, Trip Hawkins co-founder of EA and others were all included in addition to Peter Moore. The writers of the show obviously felt the original Nintendo system (Famicom, NES) was more significant to their topic of the rise of the video game then the SNES or N64 systems that followed.
at the end of Episode 2 they said that 3D (Playstation 1 & 2) is in and the era of the portly plumber (Mario) is out. It is a good show but just a little against Nintendo. Let me know what you think.snowman1771
You kind of mixed two quotes up and, well, I'm trying to rationalize what you said but the show never said that. I understand you had already formed an opinion and I'm sure you were quoting it from memory while I'm actually looking at the show so its not really fair. It sounds like you have combined a positive quote about Nintendo early in the show, "The video game had it's first superstar, a portly plumber named Mario" with this one at the end, "At the dawn of 21st century the days of little man with the big mustache were over , new consoles like Sony Playstation had revolutionized the industry." Somehow out of that you got "they said that 3D (Playstation 1 & 2) is in and the era of the portly plumber (Mario) is out" and made it sound like a slam to Nintendo. The current popularity of the Wii and the revitalization of that genre with games like Super Mario Galaxy and Paper Mario was not part of that equation. What they were saying is that back then, when Playstation 1 came out, the Mario era was over. I would argue that statement is correct. In 1995 when the Playstation came out the Mario era would soon be over. Ten years later Mario is back, bigger and better and the new era for him started in 2006.
From early in the show speaking about the early 80's:
"There was a sense in the US that home video games were dead, that the fad of the video game console was over, the companies all believed that the future of the industry was in was in home computers" - " Nintendo believed the home console could be resurrected."
If anything, that quote gives credit to Nintendo for keeping console gaming alive after Atari gave up.
I don't think the show is biased against Nintendo. I don't agree with everything in the show but to say it is bias against Nintendo is just not true. Even if you only count those 13 minutes, 13 minutes out of a 43 minute show is almost a third of the show. At the very least Nintendo was given equal time.
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