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Nintendo Revolution May Alienate Third Party Developers
IGN has an article discussing an interview in which Nintendo President Satoru Iwata talked about the possibility that the Nintendo Revolution's fundamental difference from other offerings may alienate third party developers. From the article: "If the next generation platforms are going to create even more gorgeous looking games using further enhanced functionality, and if that next-gen market can still expand the games industry, then I'm afraid that third-parties may not support Nintendo" Refreshing to hear such an honest assessment from company president.
It also says that this new console will be so "revolutionary" that it may pull in more third party support.
I read this as: our new system will be fundamentally different than other systems coming to the market. You won't be able to make a game for the other systems and easily port it to Revolution.
I feel a bit confused. Is he saying that the other consoles like PS3 and the second XBox may be better, and those better ones could destroy his chances of getting other developers to develop for the Revolution? (thus hurting its sales?)* Frankly I think it's already done so then; I remember some years ago when the show Extra were offering free PS2s and GameCubes but said they could not offer XBoxes (XBoxen?) due to extreme demand for them. I remember long lines shown in the news for the PS2 also (people shouting PS2! PS2!), but never heard of such massive demand for the 'Cube-only lots of ads and good games like a Zelda or two.
*To those who think I should know these things because of my username (I remember such a post a while back): I'm game kid, not game expert. Give me a break, please.
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And yet for all you may diss their games, Nintendo are the only company that ever remotely innovates with hardware. MS and Sony, and Atari and Sega in their day, all just churn out identikit consoles and handhelds. Nintendo invents. They try dual screens, they try tilt controllers, they try VR headsets, they try linking portables to consoles, they try bongos. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a disaster, but it's always innovative.
Seriously, the only games I've ever seen on non-Nintendo consoles that were remotely innovative were Katamari Damacy and Ico. That's a grand total of 2. You say Nintendo is all about Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon? I point out that every Mario and Zelda introduces new ideas (unlike every new Halo, which introduces more guns and less plot), and raise you Animal Crossing and Pikmin.
It's Nintendo. The exact amount of amazing required for them to have a successful console is:
1. Mario Revolution
2. Zelda Revolution
3. Pokemon Revolution
And all Sony need for success is Final Fantasy MCMLXVIII. And all Microsoft need for success is Halo 5: "The Second Half of the Ending Credits".
The fundamental difference is that every new Mario or Zelda takes the familiar characters and builds a completely new gameplay experience around them. In contrast, every new Final Fantasy takes exactly the same gameplay and plot outline and slots in new names for the villains, and every new FPS is just like all the ones before it but with slightly more realistic physics and slightly different shaped guns.
Hell, I've never even bought a Nintendo console, and they can still get me raving like a fanboy. That's what I call impressive.
What it will end up discouraging, if it is that different from other platforms, is porting.
If a publisher was intrested in putting a game on Revolution, it would get there. But if the publisher was on the fence, and wanted to whore the game out on every platform, the Revolution would likely be skipped.
It is possible that the Revolution will be similar enough to make porting to it a viable option, but gameplay dependent on Revolutions unique features would not be as portable.
END COMMUNICATION
Halo seems to be building on the Marathon series in many (maybe not so small) ways. That might put the total as high as 5.
If we look at the Gamecube, and even further back, it's easy to see Nintendo's stegnth, especially lately, has been in releasing incredible in-house titles. I'm talking Metroid Prime (1 and 2), SSBM, Paper Mario, Pikmin, and Animal Crossing (with exceptions like Viewtiful Joe). I don't expect Nintendo's platform to have the breadth of games PS3 will have; what I do expect is that, like in the present, it'll still be my favorite console because of depth (I have a PC for my RTS/FPS/GTA needs).
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You are not to mention our beloved Marathon in the same sentence as Halo!
If the Revolution is really so different as to discourage third-party developers from bringing out games, it would be a really brave move on Nintendo's part. However, look at their history. It is full of brave moves. The video game market had already crashed and burned when Nintendo wanted to bring out the NES. People thought that it would fail, but Nintendo pushed it anyway and changed everything. Then Sega came out with the Genesis, a superior system to the NES (at least hardware-wise) and Nintendo waited to bring out the Super NES until it had the right technology and the right gameplay ideas. They brought out Virtual Boy, which was completely different from anything on the market. Granted, that was a failed experiment, but it was an experiment nonetheless - not just an advance. With the Gamecube, they decided to shun the online players that Sony and Microsoft were going after, and have instead focused on the community aspect of multiplayer. Now there's the DS, an innovative, if imperfect, competitor for Sony's straight technological advance, the PSP. I have a feeling Nintendo knows what they're doing with these risks. They aren't going after the largest market share, they're trying to make good, innovative games that consistently change how we think of video gaming.
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The only problem is that you're not right that they always build completely new gameplay. The Metriod games are starting to become spookily similar to Halo.
I agree with most of your post, but that one sentence makes almost no sense. Beyond the fact that both games are Sci-fi FPS's involving people in powersuits, there are few similarities between the two. Comparing Metroid to Halo is like comparing Mario to Castlevania.
I for one think the state of gaming right now is pretty damn good. I don't want VR goggles or gyroscopes built into my controllers. I don't want to flail my arms in the air so I can move my onscreen character from point A to point B. What I do want is to sit on my couch, with a comfortable controller in hand, and play my games.
Think about it like this... Let's say current consoles are like decks of cards. You can play lots of games with a standard deck of cards (poker, rummy, etc.) and there are different types of cards with their own games (Rook, Uno, etc.). Let's then say that Nintendo's "Revolution" is like a board game. It's very hard to play Risk, Chess, or Axis and Allies with a deck of cards, just like it would be hard to play Poker or Uno as a board game.
Then again maybe they're just using all this vagueness to hype the system before it's out.
It's Nintendo. The exact amount of amazing required for them to have a successful console is:
1. Mario Revolution
2. Zelda Revolution
3. Pokemon Revolution
Actually, I'd attribute their more recent disappointments in the console business to a failure to produce on your third point. What Pokemon games were released for the N64? Pokemon Snap (A game where you take pictures of Pokemon), Hey You Pikachu (A game where you talk to Pikachu), Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2 (Which let you battle Pokemon in 3D, primarily meant to enhance the Gameboy games), and Pokemon Puzzle League (A decent puzzle game with a Pokemon theme). Why did they not release an elaborate 3D RPG similar to the Gameboy games, except with killer graphics? A game like that could have easily made millions for Nintendo, and possibly saved the N64 from it's destiny!
Now, what Pokemon games have they released for the Gamecube? Pokemon Channel (A game where you arrange programming for a Pokemon-themed TV station), Pokemon Box (An accessory that basically only exists to transfer Pokemon between the GBA games and a GC memory card), and Pokemon Colloseum (Basically an updated version of Pokemon Stadium). Again, where's the 3D Pokemon RPG that kids would obviously be interested in?
I'm not even a fan of Pokemon myself, but I am a fan of Nintendo and it seems like such a glaring omission in Nintendo's plans that it kind of grates on my nerves. Why waste their time on dreck like Pokemon Channel when they could be working on the game that might actually SAVE the Gamecube (or at least pull it out of the sewer for a short while)? Then again, the Pokemon fad has died down a lot since the N64 was around, so it might be a moot point by now....
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
I, on the other hand, am very happy to see a company pushing to make games that are better than just "pretty damn good." You may be content with the way games are right now, but others, like myself, yearn for something more.
I think the games we play now don't even scratch the surface of what is possible with interactive entertainment. So, I'm encouraged when a game company says that it's going to do something so different, so out there, that they believe it may alienate them from potential partners within the industry. It means that I'm not the only one out there who is a little disappointed with "the state of gaming right now."
The only thing Halo and Marathon had in common was the horridly narrow field of view you had to put up with while playing it.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
You forgot Metroid Revolution
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