Nintendo's Next Seems on Track, Despite Reports

KaiEl writes "The Video Game Ombudsman has a breakdown of the myriad reports stemming from a Nihon Keizai Shimbun story (picked up by GameCube Europe) that says Nintendo 'has decided not to release a new video game console to follow its current GameCube for the time being,' and 'will instead diversify games and sell newly developed peripherals mainly for the GameCube.' Despite the existence of some breathless initial stories from IGN and 1UP, this story may already be dead in the water thanks to firm denials by both Nintendo of America and its Japanese parent, Nintendo Co. Ltd. Still, just the intimation that Nintendo may be planning to sit out the next round of the console race will surely have the Internet rumor mill buzzing."

Comments

Where else is there to go?

[dTaylorSingletary]

The Gamecube is the most solid system Nintendo has yet released. Metroid Prime shows off its full capabilities, and I really don't know where they could go from there. What more do people want out of a home console system, besides more games? Why battle a war that is really about shiny things? Think back to the days of NES, the wide-range of game selection available both good and bad (as well as horribly mediocre and superb beyond all belief) -- why not concentrate on the system it has now? I have been nothing but impressed with the capabilities of the Gamecube. I can't imagine a system being more able to provide an entertaining gaming experience, within the current framework of the concept.

Until a true revolution in gaming has arrived, ripe and ready for consumption, what need is there for yet another console? It seems to me that Sony and Microsoft at this point want to release new systems because their current ones are incapable of handling the demands of the games they want to create, or want created for them. I do not see Nintendo yet having this problem with the Gamecube.

It's as if the gaming industry thinks that to remain relevant they have to release a new console every three years. Let the damn things breath. The public needs to be able to take a breath before it can be taken away by a "new gaming experience."

Re:Where else is there to go?

[Dark Nexus]

You're right in that there seems to be an unnecessary rush to get new consoles out to market. They aren't giving existing consoles time to mature properly like they used to.

NES debuted in North America in what, 1984? Followed by the SNES in 1993 I think? 9 years or so between the two.

Some of the later NES games outdid some (early) SNES or Genesis games for how good they looked.

On the flip side though, there is someplace to go. Yes, Metroid Prime looks beautiful (though I disagree about that being the GCN's full capabilities), but try something that looks that good in 4 window split view.

I agree that single player games aren't going to get much better looking. It's getting that kind of performance in multiplayer that's the goal, I'd say.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[b0r0din]

While I'm not a big fan of the gamecube in many ways, such as its fairly ugly control scheme (maybe i'm just a playstation snob) I love the sort of family/party gaming attitude it brings to the table. My girlfriend can play the same games, unlike a lot of the stuff out for XBox and Playstation (although Sony is pretty diverse, they also make games like Manhunt) Old school Mario will not be soon forgotten.

Still, I think it's sad that the Playstation has really changed the face of games, to the point where now 3D is required in every game. Let's face it, there is more control, but it's harder to get into a game now when there is no standard between three or four games, R1 moves you left in one game, analog stick in another, R2 in yet another...it makes it hard to get into a game and be able to come back to it after even a few days if you've forgotten the controls.

Maybe it's the old school in me, but what happened to more 2D games? I highly doubt that everything has been exhausted in this department. And why has there not been a successful VR platform or a big change in accessories? DDR basically uses the old nintendo pad. I was really hoping by now there'd be a huge improvement in peripherals. Eye Toy is an example of some innovation, so is feedback. I think the short-lived product cycles are stifling innovation in these categories.

For now, I think graphics are respectable. So why not go from here and begin to innovate the whole genre? Make some more interesting games. Take a page from Dreamcast and make quality games, not a host of crappy sequels.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[Ondo]

NES debuted in North America in what, 1984? Followed by the SNES in 1993 I think? 9 years or so between the two.

On the contrary, it was 6 years. 1985 for the NES, 1991 for the SNES.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[samdu]

As mentioned above, NES to SNES was six years. Playstation 2 to Playstation 3 will be at least that long (released in 2000, replaced in late 2005-2006). X-Box and Gamecube are having to release sooner (relative to the Playstation) because they were late to the game in this generation and have to appear to keep up with Sony. Nintendo has stated that they want to be first out of the gate with the next generation of system, which they probably will be, giving them both early adoption and longer shelf life.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[samdu]

Take a page from Dreamcast and make quality games, not a host of crappy sequels.

Yeah, that worked out well for Sega, everyone do that. :) Actually, I love my Dreamcast and it does have a much better stable of diverse games than any other console, but you HAVE to make the sequels and you HAVE to have EA Sports in order to support the console for the other interesting stuff. Besides, some sequels are keen, like SOCOM II and the Rogue Squadron games on the 'Cube (they just keep getting better - I think they may be tapped out, though).

As for 2Ders, you DID buy Viewtiful Joe, didn't you? If you didn't, you forfeit all rights to complain about the lack of 2D games.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[caitsith01]

"maybe i'm just a playstation snob"

Are you serious? The PS2 controller has got to be one of the worst ever... only eclipsed my MS's monolith.

I just wish Nintendo had stuck closer to the N64 design - now *that* was a controller.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[Rallion]

Irony: Microsoft's Sidewinder series of PC joysticks and gamepads (also includes wheels and headsets) are some of those most comfortable controllers ever. They fit your hand every bit as well as the GameCube controller, except nobody would be able to complain that they're too small.

And instead of following in that tradition, they decided to take inspiration from forest wildlife when it became really important to have a single, great controller design.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[PainKilleR-CE]

On the contrary, it was 6 years. 1985 for the NES, 1991 for the SNES.

And the SNES was late to market, as the Genesis and the TG-16 were both available long before it.

Re:Where else is there to go?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

I remember back when the original Playstation was new on the market there was a lot of talk about it not having the horsepower to handle "true" 3D a la the Nintendo 64. The first batch of PSX games, correspondingly, were either fully 2D, or a sort of limited 3D/2D hybrid (the Crash Bandicoot games, for example). I seem to recall the fuss over the now basically forgotten Croc, which was the first major Playstation game to pull off the "total 3D" style of Mario 64 reasonably well.

Still, how soon people forget, I suppose.

Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[caitsith01]

I mean, seriously, for $100 you get:

- a reasonably powerful games console
- the satisfaction of not supporting M$ or $ony
- the pleasure of an object of unusual grace and beauty
- a console 1/100th the size of an X-Box controller
- Pikmin, Metroid Prime, F-Zero, Monkey Ball
- a large dose of Japano-chic

And for all you Apple fanboys/girls out there, come on, Nintendo couldn't be any more like Apple:

- poses as heroic independent company adrift in a sea of evil corporate competitors
- main executives have funny names and wear silly clothes
- console is underpowered but 'easier to use'
- designers actually thought about what the final product would look like
- relatively fewer titles available, but the ones you can get are 'better'
- a variety of brightly coloured designs to choose from
- you can connect an even smaller, more expensive object to the main system for an enhanced experience

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[samdu]

the PS2 is a heaving load of junk and it pisses me off that so many pathetic 16 year olds are so overcome by the kewl-factor that the PS2 routinely outsells two much better consoles.

The PS2 - I wouldn't call it junk. There are some truly stellar games that look absolutely georgous on it (ICO comes to mind). But it does lag behind the other two consoles in raw power and graphics prowess. That's because it was released a year ahead of the other two machines, and frankly, the graphical difference is not mind-boggling. This weakness is also its strength. Because it had a year on the other two consoles, it was able to build a great library of games (and that it plays PS1 games doesn't hurt). What it comes down to is games and the PS2 has them in spades.

I would say the biggest weakness the GC had is that it can't play DVDs

I'd agree whole-heartedly, but less for the reason you mention (it is a good reason, though). Probably the biggest complaint publishers had about the N64 was that Nintendo hard-headedly stuck to the proprietary cartridge format that held less data and was far more expensive than the CD-ROM format that everyone else had moved to. Well, with the GameCube, they are still operating with a proprietary format. It still cost more to publish games on those mini-discs than if they had chosen a standard DVD drive. The next machine from the big N had better have some sort of standard storage medium, or third parties are going to remain reluctant to develop for it.

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[Squideye]

Well, there's one more point to make about GameCube's similarity to Apple, and it's the presence of a PowerPC CPU (not to mention the cube form factor).

Still... the lack of DVD functionality can be a minor drawback if one is cramped for space, power outlets, or wiring acumen. It can be quite handy to have a single system do everything. On the other hand, it's better in the long run to have a few systems, each doing something well.

But I wanted to point out something related to Dr. Doombender's assessment of the "value-priced" field, and that's the "Player's Choice" line for GameCube (which already includes Pikmin, Animal Crossing, and Metroid Prime, probably among others). GameCube has the advantage that most of its first-party or platform-exclusive games are long-lived, rock-solid paragons of game design. You're correct that it suffers, on the other hand, from a lack of catalogue depth. If you're the type who grinds through games quickly and needs a new fix ASAP, the GameCube really doesn't have shelves and shelves of old, discounted, used, or legacy games to work with.

I mean, you could get the GameBoy Player, but that's a whole other story.

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[scot4875]

The PS2 - I wouldn't call it junk. There are some truly stellar games that look absolutely georgous on it (ICO comes to mind).

I think he's referring to something else when calling the PS2 'junk.' The XBox, while not exactly elegant, is basically a decent PC and has a decent overall design. The 'Cube, with its beautifully integrated design and customized PowerPC processor is a really tight little piece of engineering.

The PS2, however, is a mess. How many processors do you have to program in parallel to get decent performance out of it? How tiny is its VRAM? Well, yeah, it's got a 128-bit processor -- that's great. Now how does that help games again? It's like Sony designed the thing with only one goal in mind: big numbers to put on a feature list.

It's not that there aren't any good games out for it (there are many), it's that they're definitely held back by the limitations of the hardware they're running on.

I'd go almost as far as to say that Sony is the only company that *needs* to release new hardware. The XBox and 'Cube look great. They're both to the point that artistic direction have far more impact on a game's presentation than the hardware. I don't think that Sony can claim that of the PS2.

--Jeremy

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[Rallion]

My GameCube and DVD player could fit twice in even a PS2, let alone an XBox. DVD player was also less than $50 and has some nice features you won't find in a non-dedicated device.

So I think that in this case it's better in the short run too, really.

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[PainKilleR-CE]

I'd also like to know what hardware features are holding back PS2 games so much, compared to the other consoles.

The PS2 has less power than any other home console of the current generation (including the DreamCast). On top of that, many graphics features that were well-supported and documented in the hardware of the other systems (again including the DreamCast) were either unsupported or poorly documented in the PS2. The most obvious of these (especially in the early titles) is FSAA, which Sony eventually documented (or developed middleware for, or someone else developed middleware for it), after the internet was filled with jokes about the jagged edges in PS2 games. The major thing that effects the appearance of PS2 games today, though, is the lack of memory for graphics resources. You can easily double the amount of RAM used for textures and such on the other consoles, which can be used to make the game look significantly better.

And while the GC looks somewhat cool, I've yet to see a cool Xbox. Seriously, have you actually seen one ? Compared to a PS2 they look like shit.

If I was worried about how my consoles look, I wouldn't keep any of them in plain view. None of them look like they belong anywhere near my TV or stereo. They look like they belong in a kid's room. At the very least, though, the only one that isn't the same colour as the rest (at least in my cabinet) is the DreamCast.

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[13Echo]

Not only that, but the PS2 lacks any real support for texture compression. So in addition to its slim resources, it has to use fancy tricks for coloring textures, and the results aren't pretty. Such is the reason why many games are hindered with terrible green or brown hinting in textures. The system relies on 8 bit color tables, like those in 256 color gif files. Games like Metal Gear Solid come to mind, where everything is green. Some could say that it fits in from an artistic standpoint and blend's in with the game's mood... But when nearly ALL games are victim to this? What a silly design. I've yet to see the system do what the Dreamcast could do in its first year or two. Not that looks really matter or anything, but even Soul Calibur 2, 4 years after the DC game was released, is infrerior on the PS2 than the Dreamcast. That's just sad, considering that the PS2 game was BUILT for the system, and the DC game was a highly suped up port of a Playstation arcade game.

Re:Come on you shills, buy a gamecube!

[c_jonescc]

"PS2 is a heaving load of junk"

Exactly. I know it plays great games, and Ico looks great, but the fact is the failure rate on the PS2 is incredibly high. It's quite rare that a PS2 can read CD games, DVD games, audio CDs, and movie DVDs after a couple years. I payed over $200 for my PS2, and it pisses me off that I can no longer play any game with a blue-backed disc.

The warrenty is 30 days. I can pay Sony, and shipping both ways to fix something that shouldn't wear out in less than 2 years. Right now I am only buying the multiplatform games for the cube, simply because it still works.

In Other News...

[illuminatedwax]

This story from Yahoo! should shed some light on the situation.

--Stephen

Re:In Other News...

[M.C. Hampster]

I'm a proud owner of SMB2 and I love the game. You make a good point in terms of a game that is simple, yet challenging. However, the game I play the most often, and have since I purchased it, would be Soul Calibur II. It's a rather complex fighting game with astounding graphics. And it's a favorite of my friends too.

It also doesn't seem to fall into Nintendo's notion of what a great game should be. There general focus seems to drift further and further from what I'm getting interested in as I get older. Now, please don't take that to mean I'm into gory, violent or "adult" games, because I'm not. However, I am interested in things like online play, complex play mechanics, FPS's, etc.

Buy a GameCube?

[Anonymous Coward]

$100 dollars for all you say doesn't sound bad ... except, the games are still $50 a pop, right?

I'm a very casual gamer, and that's what's keeping me from the cube. My first console was the Dreamcast near the end of its cycle, and I picked up tons of game for $25 dollars or less. A month or two ago I finally decided to get something else, and I really thought about the 'cube, but the cost of the games was the main thing against it.

The second thing was that I really wanted to play more RPGs, which there weren't many for the Dreamcast (the one I liked was Skies of Arcadia), so I ended up getting a cheap used PSOne for $29 dollars, and now I'm buying a lot of rereleased and used Final Fantasy games, and I also got a GBA SP which is a lot of fun, and I'm finding a lot of games for that in the $15-$25 dollar range.

I was hoping that GameCube would have cheaper games, but their "player's choice" or whatever it is called is still in the $30 dollar range and there aren't that many of them. I'm going to wait awhile until more games come down in price.

Re:Buy a GameCube?

[13Echo]

I got many of my Gamecube games at value prices:

Pikmin - $19.99
Eternal Darkness - $14.99
Ikaruga - $19.99
Starfox - $19.99
Resident Evil 0 - $19.99

And many more. I think that even Metroid is close to that price range right now, as are many of the other games that I once paid full price for.

Excellent News I say

[metroid composite]

The Super Nintendo was a good jump above the NES. The PSX and the N64 allowed 3D, though at the expense of either low space or long loading times. The PS2 and GCN got rid of the above weaknesses, and have very detailed 3D already. Seriously, WHY buy a new system when I pretty much can't tell the difference between the graphics?

I've been hoping this would happen, and now that it has I'll probably go out and buy a GameCube. Nintendo: don't upgrade systems until there's VR or lots of HDTVs around or something to make it worthwhile. I'd be quite happy hanging on to the same system for 10 years...like my old GameBoy actually....

some thoughts

[chadamir]

Well upon reading through some of the replies to this post, I want to bring some thoughts of mine.

1) the subject of realism in games: Too some, realism in terms of graphics, might be only second to gameplay, but to many it's important. If a game we're somehow able to look like an hdtv football game on television, it would be a vast improvement to a lot of people.
2) the subject of hdtv: Someone said they should wait for hdtvs to be more prevalent, well i hate to break it to you, but they are. At this point there's not really an excuse to own one or be saving up for one except that you're one of those people who has to wait and wait and wait until the best thing is out, but any geek who likes gadgets doesn't operate in such a way. You can get an hdtv for around 400-500 bucks. Thats roughly 8 dollars a week for a year. 10 if you want to be fair. Nintendos new system wont be out for probably 2 years. By that time you could have saved 800-1000 dollars for a sweet widescreen set, and probably by that time 800-1000 will go a lot further than it does now. For about 1000 dollars right now you can get a good 32-36 inch widescreen hdtv set.

Lifespans

[fwitness]

I completely agree that there is currently no need for a new generation of consoles. The key demographic in the last few years has been the 18-25 (male of course) range that Sony has tapped into. Those "kids" are getting older and are not as impulsive as they used to be despite having more disposable income. Frankly, I'm tired of upgrading my console faster than my PC only to have to wait another year after release for quality games.

All three consoles have plenty of horsepower, are for the most part net-enabled, and developers have created the tools to make excellent games on them. Unless someone can give me an irrefutable reason why the current crop of consoles *can't* do something, I'm sticking with these. Prettier faces and industry buzzwords don't count.

Re:If nothing else...

[DavidLeblond]

I thought Gamecube already had a component video cable. Sure, its sold seperately but its available.

My prediction...

[JMZero]

Nintendo will hook up with "the beast" for a co-branded console - the XCube. It will be backwards compatible with the GameCube (it has a closely architecture), it will have easily the best first party support (bringing Nintendo brands and MS dollars), and a flabbergasting amount of power (better, proven architecture from IBM/ATI - more money to make it fly).