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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The Revolution's game-downloading capabilities
My Phantom can do that, and so much more. Infact my phantom is so much better: only those truely 31007, such as myself, can see its golden case...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
I for one, am taking a wait and see approach.
I've been a nintendo fan from the start with NES. Yes they lost a lot of the market when sony entered the game and gave them real competition, but they've consistantly showed inovation in the gaming industry
From what I've seen from the Sony footage, it looks absolutely amazing, and I'm sure the XBox360 will be great, too.... but I have a Tivo, I have my computer for browsing the internet... I want a game system (don't even get me started on XBox360's connectivity to the MediaCenterPC.... does anyone even own one?). I want new games. I don't want more FPS games. I want new genres... something different. I have faith that Nintendo will provide that something different. The DS (though akward and lacking) shows that they're not really afraid to try something new.
So, while Nintendo's press conference may have been underwhelming, I'm still excited for the Revolution.
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Nintendo always puts out the big information at Tokyo Game Show or some other usually Nintendo biased video game show in Japan. The fact they didn't supply anything at E3 is not a surprise. Why would you try to compete for press time when you can say something later and have the spotlight for yourself?
I am sick and tired of people linking "good games" to the "mature market." I can't not express inwords how irritating that is to me. When the gaming industry gives out their awards for games Nintendo is always heavily represented. Nintendo is a lot like Disney. 9 times out of 10 they put out the highest quality stuff around, and though they are more geard towards a younger audience if you could just get the F*** over yourself for a second you could have fun too. I dare anyone out there to play Donkey Konga or Jungle Beat and NOT have fun, I literally dare you!
Sega and Atari failed to make their consoles profitable, which is why they stopped making them. Last I heard, Nintendo's consoles themselves continue to be profitable which alleviates any need to be #1 in order to make up costs on software sales.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Having been stunned and dismayed by the quality of commentary that I've read in last 24hrs concerning Nintendo's E3 conference, I was excited that this article might perhaps shine some light on the messages from doom that are being put forth. Sadly, it's not exception, and once again shows complete ignorance on well publicized facts, both on Nintendo as a company, and on their upcoming console.
The buzz on most gaming sites is, expectedly, represented by two extremes. On one side, Nintendo fans and some "undecideds", praise the looks of the Revolution, and it's legacy game download feature.
On the other side, statements that have a stinky ting of "BSD is Dead" come in the following shapes and flavors (paraphrasing):
- "What a weak showing, Nintendo is going to hell, gonna get trounced, dead meat"
- "Legacy gaming?! Some revolution!"
- "PS3 and Xbox are going to smoke the Revolution."
- "Nintendo has made a huge mistake, and it's going to pay for it."
Let's clarify some facts:
- Nintendo made profit on the N64 and the Gamecube, both on consoles sales (they didn't sell at a loss), and games sales. So Nintendo did not lose this generation's "war". It made a profit, and that's always more important than being "first". (Yes Sony also made an overall profit with PS2, if we count games).
Nintendo will almost definitely make profit on the Revolution, so even if it's third, Nintendo won't "die".
- Nintendo did NOT intend to show anything important about the Revolution at this E3. They said it before the conference. So what is everyone whining about?
We also know (if we read the news from these months) that the console isn't finished, and that includes the controller. Why is that so difficult to understand? Even the Iwata should, is not the final version. It will be ready in a few months, and he invited user participation to make suggestions on things like color, etc...
Furthermore, they consider they have very revolutionary ideas, and hence don't want those copied early in the game.
So what was Nintendo supposed to show? Some freaky , wacky, OMFG graphics. NO, once again, you're not listening. "It's not about the graphics anymore (Nintendo)".
In conclusion, Nintendo is right on track, and when it's ready it will show it's console. When that happens, you can all open the floodgates of opinion and commentary, but until then read up on Nintendo before making uninformed comments.
This time around, they look to be a long way behind the curve performance wise.
No, they won't be. They're a long way behind on the "make up random numbers for E3 based on peak FLOPs numbers that could never be achieved" performance curve, but they won't be far behind on the actual performance curve. C'mon. Give me a break. Sony and Microsoft are literally making numbers up here.
Microsoft and Sony were both sloppy in the previous generation when it came to console design, and both of them look to be quite sloppy this time. I mean, really: Xbox 360 has 6 front ends and the system has shared graphics memory. So it needs serious amounts of memory bandwidth (good chance one of those threads is going to evict a cache line) and it's sharing it with the graphics card? What?
Nintendo knows how to make consoles without blunt force. The games will look surprisingly similar to this generation in terms of who's better: Revolution will look pretty much the same, but maybe a *little* worse, PS3 will look the best on some, but worse on others (too high a developer learning curve), and the Xbox 360 will probably look about equivalent to the Revolution on most games, with maybe a few being better.
IMed to a friend about 4 hours ago:
... focus on the games, the library, the 3rd party developers. I've shown off Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4, etc to Sony or PC headz, and they couldn't believe this stuff flew under their radars. The games are great quality for Game Cube .. there just arn't nearly enough of them.
.. being first can be as big a gamble as being 3rd depending on the purchasing cycle of the market,) I think Nintendo is stepping away from the other two companies so it doesn't get lumped in with the invitable backlash. Halo 3 .. its .. its Halo 2, but more polygons! Woot!
14:48] KraftBoy: Nintendo has been pushing this 'performance isnt everything' mantra
[14:48] KraftBoy: they say the Revolution will be 2 or 3 times as powerful as the gamecube
[14:49] KraftBoy: Sony says PS3 is 30 times the power of the PS2
[14:49] KraftBoy: MS says the Xbox360 is 15 times as powerful as the first xbox
[14:49] KraftBoy: if people dont dig the offering of Sony and/or MS, then Nintendo looks like a genius for purposefully underhyping the power of the console
[14:50] KraftBoy: I get the feeling that people are gunna be like, "Great, Halo 3, same game, better graphics"
[14:50] KraftBoy: or GTA: Mississagua, same game, better graphics
[14:51] KraftBoy: they come come away looking smart for realizing that the market is getting bored of bying the same game 4 times, each time with cosmetic upgrades
Nintendo is always bashed for recycling the same games. How can this be? They recycle the same *charcters*, but I can't think of too many Sony properties or franchises that have undergone the kind of radical transformations that the gameplay of Mario or Metroid titles have undergone. (GTA 1 wasn't much of a big seller, y'know.)
99% of the Mario platformers were awesome (tho Sunshine underwhelmed me.) Metroid? If you've played Super Metroid and Metroid Prime, nuff said. For those who havn't, the game was legendary in 2D, and the 3D first person (!) leap, if anything, *improved* the gameplay.
I think Nintendo is playing a strategy here. If performance meant anything, nobody would have bought a single PS2 after the day the GameCube was released. MARKETING is the operative strategy here. Just like Nintendo got too big for its britches, I think they realize that if they downplay performance, and Sony and MS can't live up to the "Its 30 times more powerful than the PS2" claim (which, as pointed out about, is a laugh to anybody with an once of BS detection in their bones), people might start realizing that it ain't the performance, its the games.
The games (and their time to market, of course) is what got the PS and the PS2 their place in history. Now that Sony and MS are pushing the performance advantage angle, I think Nintendo realizes it can do exactly what Sony did
Sheesh, its almost a mirror image from the PS/N64 situation - sexier technology != higher sales. Release dates aside (it practically looks like all companies WANT to release at the same time
Now, I realize there are tons of other ways Nintendo works against itself:
1. Not enough advertising. Their name is not household anymore with the 16-21 year old set, so heres to hoping they know this and plan to push the Revolution in TV, etc.
2. No shame in cozying up to the kiddie crowd. I think thats just a reality that disaffected cool teens will have to accept if they want access to the kind of graphical and gameplay orgasms that is Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, etc.
All that said, Xbox outsold Gamecube, and who made a profit? Nintendo had to compete against a company that knew, neh, committed itself to ending up in the red, and they still managed a respectable share of the market place, and still turned a profit.
So really, all things being equal, what company is more impressive? The one that throws money away for the sake of getting their name in front of your eyes for every minute that you play video games, or the company that works on stuff it thinks is cool, and manages to make money off of it to boot?
"Old man yells at systemd"