(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

I know most of my f'list reads Penny Arcade, but this article Tycho linked to pretty much makes the case for why I dislike Nintendo. It's more than that, but it helps illustrate a point.

For starters, I never was into Nintendo as a kid. My babysitter's place--a daycare at her house, sorta--had the SNES with Mario and Duck Hunt and all those classic old games, but I never played. I watched, and that was entertaining because it was different from what I could do at home, but it never really impressed me and as such I have no long-standing Nintendo character love. I think I watched the Super Mario Bros show when it was on TV, but that's about it.

After the console, there's the portables, and, make no mistake, I thought the GameBoy the pinnacle of everything cool. Tetris! Woo! Never had one, myself, mostly because my older brother never got those three straight-A report cards in a row to earn one. By the time I got to a school where I could do that and actually accomplished that goal, the Sega GameGear was an option, and man, no GameBoy at the time could have measured up to that. I do still get nostalgic about Ecco the Dolphin, though...

Anyway, what always impressed on me was that the thing that made Nintendo great were the first-party games, and this article pretty much says the same thing. If I don't love Zelda to death, there's no point in getting excited as the SNES swapped out for the N64 for the GC, for the Wii. I really don't care. The breadth of titles aren't there, a lot of promised titles never make it, the systems require re-buying games (yes, yes, yes, bigscary, I know the Wii will offer them for free or something close to it) because they were rarely interchangeable or backwards compatible, and to really enjoy the best games, you had to buy an equivalent amount to the original investment of money in add-ons (whereas the PS and PS2 did just fine with the two-person games, thanks).

Yeah, read the article. It sounds less pissy than I do.

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

...I get the impression Nintendo isn't trying to sell consoles to you. And hasn't being trying for years. They've got the kids market sewn up, with a siginificantly cheaper system, bright cartoony games, the Pokemon franchise, and a remote-control controller. They know they'll lose the hardcore gamers to Xbox and the rpg fans to PS3, but if you're 12 or under, you're theirs.

I, for my part, haven't purchased a Nintendo console since the SNES, but I own every generation of the Game Boy. Because 1) It's the best portable system and have been for a decade, and 2) I'm SquareEnix's bitch.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this strategy will succeed for them, targeting kids. I know they're trying to get non-gamers interested in their console by making it more silly but user-friendly with the remote control controller. If you buy a Wii as a kid (or your parent does), then you're Nintendo's for life. Which might explain why I am not theirs--they didn't get young and can't win me over on nostalgia (though I admit to buying Pokemon Snap for my roommmate's N64 so's I could play) .

As for the gameboy, I wonder if it and/or the DS will continue to enjoy domination with the PSP finally catching up in terms of games, hardware, etc. It seems to me that the people I know who like gaming as a whole (and own consoles as well) like the DS/GBA, but people on the subway who strike me as non-gamers (we can smell our own) tend to go for the PSP. The PSP is kinda like the one to get if you're "cool" (like a Razr phone) and the DS/GBA the one to get if you actually like spending hours on the thing gaming.