Has Nintendo Lost Its Edge?

Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Spy/CounterSpy' editorial discussing whether Nintendo has lost its way in the increasingly competitive gaming world. On the one hand, an editor argues: "One of the few concrete things [Nintendo have] said is that the successor to GameCube is coming out sooner, rather than later, but what's the point if it's as lacking in software as its two predecessors? Or if the software is as samey as the current stuff?" But on the other, there's counterpoint and optimism: "In fact, it's the companies with lots of resources who are falling behind in the race who typically come up with the biggest and riskiest innovations. Given Nintendo's ability to create good hardware and its strategic position in the handheld space, that could mean some VERY cool things in the future."

Comments

Re:Yes

[Mike Mentalist]

So in your case "Mario" means "any Nintendo property that has had another game come out in the series"? That's an interesting definition.

I suppose my question would be why reinvent the wheel with new characters? Yes, they could have made Mario Golf with characters who weren't Mario characters... but why? Mario is a perfectly good franchise to use for a cartoony golf game.

Because it is incredibly dull seeing the same characters from the same company all the time.


I'd say Eternal Darkness is, on the whole, less inventive than Metroid Prime. Eternal Darkness is a Zelda-esque dungeon hack with some shiny insanity effects. It does a great job on them, and so is still a great game, but Metroid Prime takes the first-person-shooter in a direction it had never been taken before. More to the point, it did things with the first person shooter that people said couldn't be done - platforming sections that didn't suck, exploration based gameplay, etc.

MP isn't inventive at all - all the elements from it have been around in all the previous Metroid games for years. All they did was put it in 3D. I don't see GTA3 is being very invenive, as that is just GTA in 3D.


And, I mean, what were you hoping for from Metroid Prime? Something that wasn't Metroid?

No idea, really. Something better than how it turned out.


Second party development studios that, with heavy input and control from Nintendo. I do not consider the fact that Nintendo has begun to expand and take in some other development studios to mean that those games are not Nintendo games.

It isn't really Nintendo, though. Halo isn't actually from Microsoft either.


Nintendo continues to do what it's always done - perfect styles of games, and invent new styles of games. Even their new styles of games, though, have a certain... Nintendoness to them. They display elegance of control, and are typically very easy to pick up and play, but not nearly so easy to beat, and harder still to "fully" beat (i.e. unlock everything, get 100% completion, etc).

They haven't come up with a new style for years - merely taken something that exists and make it smaller.


Regardless, in every genre and style Nintendo has attempted, they are reliably among the best at it.

That seems an edge to me.

Erm, what genres are these? They have done platforming and... more platforming. Not much else.