Yesterday's Nintendo press conference was probably the most subdued and honest of the three major events this week. While they didn't have anything really earth-shattering to offer up, the Gameboy Micro, the Revolution's game-downloading capabilities, and the new Zelda Trailer were all welcome news from a company that has been very quiet of late. Commentary, photos, and speculation available from:
Nintendo,
Engadget,
USAToday,
GamesIndustry.biz,
1up.com,
Gamespot,
Cube.IGN,
NYT,
BBC,
Gamasutra, and
CNN. Specific coverage on the new Gameboy Micro is available from
Gamasutra,
GamesIndustry.biz, and
CNN. My two cents about Nintendo's conference are available below.
Last night I took in G4's E3 coverage, and their discussion of the Nintendo press conference struck a chord with me. This last console cycle, with the Gamecube, Nintendo really missed the boat. The GC wasn't released until many months after the PS2 was already in homes lighting up screens, and their attempts to carve out a market share were always muddled by confusing choices. The most confusing choice of the current generation, by far, was their almost complete refusal to participate in online gaming. While the Xbox sailed by with the Live service and the PS2 limped into the arena with the broadband adapter, the GC quietly sailed on with only Phantasy Star to break up its lonely voyage. At last year's E3 Nintendo very specifically said that they were not going to miss the boat this time. They were going to release the next console right around the same time as the other two companies and make sure their name was out there.
I have high hopes for the Revolution, but to be honest Nintendo's press conference was very underwhelming. Even given that the PS3 isn't going to be on store shelves for another year, what Sony showed on Monday was literally jaw-dropping. Even if there was some liberal use of pre-rendered footage in the presentation, the press conference put on by Sony was designed to fire the imagination and get people excited about the possibilities of the next generation. Nintendo offered us Nintendogs. And a new Game Boy Advanced. Yes, I think that downloading old games onto your Revolution is a cool idea, but a...uh...friend of mine tells me that I can emulate those games on my PC for free.
Perhaps all this is just worrywortism. Nintendo has never failed to be innovative in the past, and their support of the DS and quirky games like Warioware is proof that not everything has to be same-old same-old in this ever more business-like industry. They have more than a year to get their ducks in a row, but I'm afraid that Sony and Microsoft may have already beaten them to the punch. In the end, it's not just about making fun games. You have to sell them too.
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I know I do, of the next-gen consoles it is at lesat the prettiest and the ability to download over 20+ years of nintendo content! Nintendo is coming back in a big way.
Nintendo did miss the boat. They've parlayed their one-time leadership of the market into a great big bust. They could hope to catch the low-cost segment of the market with the specs that are given for the Revolution, but that would still require them to take advantage of media events like E3.
I think they're going the way of Sega and Atari. If they keep it up they won't be able to keep producing their own console.
more of the same on Twitter.
Not an expert by any means but Nintendo probably wanted the spotlight to itself. Honestly, everyone is talking about Xbox vs. PS3 --- Nintendo can wait a few weeks/months and release info on the Revolution once PS3/Xbox talks get a bit stale.
My question is if Nintendo and Sony are going to have U.S. launch dates at around the same time as Japan, or is the PS3 going to be out months and months before, like the PS2?
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Nintendo didn't miss out on online in the current generation. Xbox Live has
been a mild success, though the majority of Xbox owners don't use it, but PS2
online was a fizzle.
Honestly, I think Nintendo has been trying harder than anyone to innovate. The
DS lineup is really out there: Nintendogs, PacPix, Electroplankton. Weird,
wonderful stuff. But maybe the rest of the hardcore gaming market has gone too
much over the top, expecting desaturated military shooters, which is what
everyone is announcing at E3 this year.
People like to cite Nintendo as the loser of the current generation, but that's
far from true. They dominate the handheld market both in hardware and game
sales. And though the Game Cube is the third place console, the big games for
that console are all coming straight from Nintendo, with each one pulling in
awards and selling like crazy.
Personally, I think Nintendo's biggest difficulty is that they lean much too
hard on old franchises: Metroid, Zelda, Mario, Kirby, and so on. They were once
fresh, but no longer. Hopefully some of Nintendo's experimentation will result
in a brand new hit for them.
I believe that Nintendo is overstretching the life of the Gameboy. I mean, not to be a troll, but changing the configuration of a handheld doesn't extend its life, what does is making it more powerful. Does Nintendo think many people with an original Gameboy Advanced is likely to purchase a GBA sp, or a Gameboy mirco? I just don't see, now with the new consoles on the horizon, that there is a need for the Gameboy in its current state, especially due to the DS. Just my two cents.
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
Well, assuming you can get one that'll actually still play decently and consistently. The last NES I played would periodically replace chunks of graphics with random characters. And while controlling an @ instead of a Mario was novel at first, it gets annoying eventually. Even my SNES(es) are a bit worn - sometimes it takes several tries to get a cartridge to load.
I agree that $20 a game is ridiculous, but if they lowered it to, say, $3-5 or several for $20, I'd snap one up and collect them all.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
if you check out NintendoOn.com it points mysteriously to an IGN article containing a link to a video that it calls a hoax. However, we know that IGN is in cahoots with Nintendo (Gamespy being the online content provider for DS and presumably Revolution). Also, if you check out the video, it's got amazingly high production values for a hoax.
I have to admit, I'm quite a Nintendo fanboy, so you can disregard my comments if you like. There a few advantages that the GC had over its peers that I'd like to point out.
1. Portability: The light weight and small form factor of the GC allows it to be toted around to a friends' house if you want to, or for it to be brought with you for weekend trips.
2. Load Times: The GC has much better load times then both PS2 and XBox. So much less that many games appear to have no load times at all.
3. Lower Price: A new GC can be had for 100 $CDN right now. XBox still costs around 200 $CDN, which is about double the price.
4. Better Controllers: While this is a matter of taste, I believe the controllers are much better on the GC. The buttons are much better laid out, allow easy movement between the buttons, and allowing the buttons to be easily located. One exception is that stupid z button.
I think the GC is one of the most underrated systems of all time. It lost out because people are afraid to buy something that looks kiddie, even though it is anything but. I hope Nintendo grabs more market with the Revolution. I also don't think that the Revolution will scare away 3rd party developers with some weird control scheme. Remeber, it is going to be backwards compatible with GC.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Two people with no prior console ownership buying an overpriced gimmicky handheld with games which have nothing to do with portable gaming? Yeah, Nintendo's really crying over that lost revenue.
Newsflash: They also don't have an NES, Sega Master System, SNES, Genesis, Playstation, PS2, Dreamcast, Xbox, any form of a Game Boy, or a DS. As far as Nintendo's concerned, they're either small children with very deep pockets, or people who probably weren't buying a game system in the first place.
They still have a commanding lead, as the opposition is new to the market, has no previously existing game library to fall back to, and designed a system focused on delivering the complete home console experience to your handheld, slow loading times and all. (Really, look at Wipeout. It's abysmally slow to load tracks, and that's just suicide on a handheld.)
Sure, I have a PSP. I even play games on it. But it feels more like I bought Lumines, and a PSP for it, than when I bought my GBA, and Castlevania, Metroid, and a few other titles for that. The handheld experience I'm used to, including a lightning-fast startup and seconds-to-gameplay, just aren't there, and as a result, it's going to take some truly spectacular titles to make the whole thing worth the wait between levels.
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
What are you basing the "lower power" comment on? The specs i've seen show the Revolution being pretty much on par with the 360. (Four cores at a slightly lower speed vs. three cores at a slightly higher speed.)
Perhaps you're listening to the marketing-speak? Sony and Microsoft both claim their new consoles will be a jazillion times better than the old ones, while Nintendo only claims its will be two or three times better, but so far this exactly mirros the claims made by all three companies for the last generation. How many times can people be taken in by Microsoft and Sony's inflated figures before they get a clue?
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A few things:
The PSP and the DS do not exactly target the same market. The DS has two primary purposes - as a special controller for Revolution and as a handheld console for people who don't normally play games. That's why a lot of the upcoming titles are puzzle games and things like Animal Crossing.
Online capability: strange, even though X-box has Live, that didn't stop Gamecube from completely owning it in terms of worldwide sales... and Microsoft just started to turn a profit on X-Box???
Remember that Gamecube's primary customers are parents looking for family-friendly games. What if pedophiles started hanging out in Pokemon Online? The American media would eat it up and Big N would be dead in the water in a month. Definitely not something to be rushed into.
And as for those saying that Nintendo will stop making hardware: have you ever played with a Gamecube? Ergonomic controllers. Next to no load time. Sharp graphics. All in a small, light, durable box. $99 CDN. Sony and Microsoft wouldn't know how to pull that off, even if they had any interest in doing so.
If I want to play Ultimate Online Gorefest 2005 (complete with five-minute load screens before each level) I'll go play on my computer. However if I have some friends over and want to jump right into a really fun game, nothing beats Nintendo.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
Agreed. While already noted that if you wanted to play past titles that emulation was an option, for some of us it isn't.
Take my computer for an example, an aging Pentium 3@450mhz with 192mb of ram. For me, trying to emulate games like GoldenEye or Ocarina of Time results in a sound studdering, 5 frames per second, 300 pixel wide window of disapointment.
While I already own a Nintendo64, having to unhook my Gamecube, hookup the 64, and be limited to the games I already own kind of sucks. Sure there are lots of second hand game shops where I could get n64 games for a dime a dozen; but depending on their condition and all things considered, I'd rather have my NES+SNES+N64 all on one console.
With the power now available in these nextgen consoles, I'm glad all 3 contenders are offering the backwards compatability I've been wishing for for years. Just the thought of playing some SMB3, then in a matter of seconds be traversing Hyrule in Link to the Past, then jumping into a good ol round of multiplayer on GoldenEye, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Kudos Nintendo for continuing to give me reasons to believe in you.
It depends on how much they charge though... I think 99 cents for an NES game, $5 for an SNES game, and $10 for a N64 game sounds pretty reasonable to me...maybe a teeny bit more, but not much. I am curious though, do they plan on just having Nintendo 1st and 2nd party games, or the entire collection available? If I can't download Chrono Trigger and FF6 I'll be pissed...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
No way. You can get the actual cartridges for most of those systems for close to that price on the used market (and for that Nintendo makes NO IP based profits, and most of the cost is just for the media). I say $0.50 for NES, $2 for SNES and $5 for N64. That would make a lot more sense, and would bring in boatloads more money than they're making now (which is essentially $0). Most of these games are small transfers anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I agree entirely. My brother and I went and bought a couple of bongos, Jungle Beat, and Donkey Konga on a whim a few months back and haven't regretted it one bit. I believe the exact description I heard was "Bongos should be the natural input for a game console". Even more, people I know who "don't like video games" were getting me to come over with the 'cube just to play Donkey Konga for hours on end. High School "I'm too cool for kids games" kids who dismissed it at first couldn't be torn away from it after playing once.
Nintendo makes games with the WTF factor that you can throw down with some friends of varying skill levels and all have a blast. Warioware is another perfect example of this. "This looks lame" quickly makes way for "This game is awesome", despite the lack of plot or "mature" content.
Revolution, just like anything else, is going to be dependent on games before system specs, and if Nintendo keeps on innovating we will all be around to do this again at their next launch.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
So how long after playing are your hands numb from clapping like a fool really hard because the faster you go the harder you clap?
I just got both of those last night. Holy crap what fun. Super monkey ball is a lot of fun too.
I'm outside their target demographic at 33 though I bet.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I have to say, and this as a erstwhile PS fan, Nintendo definitely wins the design prize this time around. The XBox 360 and PS3 both strayed from the simplicity mantra of great design. With the addition of DVD playback and the ability to relive my childhood through those old ROMs, this might actually find a place in my cramped dorm room.
I can totally see my floor girls having Bubble Bobble night in my room.