radioheadrule83
Banned
Warning!
You have entered a Nintendo thread. If you're too bitter to cope with yet another one, head back to the rest of the forum. If you're snapty00 hit reply and get it over with. There will be lots of talk about PS2 and Xbox, and I will glaze over how this generation and the last has gone from my point of view, but if the N word really hurts your eyes, you're going to see it a lot. So run while you still can!
=============================================
DOOM AND GLOOM. RIGHT OR WRONG?
I've just been over at the IGN boards, after spending a lot of time here, and the Nintendo board is mostly concerned with Sony's excellent third party support, the PS2's runaway success, how great Xbox Live is, worries about Nintendo in coming generations and the threat of EA software dominance spreading it's wicked reach across the globe, enslaving women & children, and commiting genocide upon the helpless damsels we call originality, innovation, industry creativity. This is all probably very healthy thinking for Nintendo fans, and they're not alone in this thinking. Xbox, PS2 and multiplatform advocates are all singing the same tune. But is it too doom and gloom?
There are posters, as well as more qualified industry analysts, hell, even fanboy journalists (whom shan't be named) who don't like where Nintendo is going. For them, the comfort of Nintendo profitability is not enough. Their unwillingness to commit to a more convergant hardware model, support online this generation, nor secure heavy western support is immensely frustrating. Gamers are increasingly woo'd by said factors, which has seen Nintendo have a diminishing presence in retail chains with the Gamecube console. Gamecube simply hasn't been appealing to westerners like the other machines have. With two successive generations, Nintendo's marketshare in the home has shrunk. It's made gufaws that rate modestly on the SEGA scale. But is it mortally wounded? Going anywhere soon? I'm not so sure.
Did you know? Cycle is another word for revolution!
This industry is unique. The formats on which we play videogames are reinvented cyclically, rebranded and marketed - at which point we can either embrace them, reject them, or meet them with a lukewarm indifference. I personally feel that it is this nature which has allowed cash wealthy underdogs to establish themselves strongly in the gaming world, and become the kind of phenomenons they have become. It happened first with Nintendo, again with Sony, and now with Microsoft. With all of this negative press, Nintendo is fast becoming underdog again. Is it still strong enough to be dangerous? Are people underestimating them? The videogame industry may be well over 20 years old, but we have only had four generations in the market as it exists today. Do we have enough to mark out definitive generational consumer trends with any degree of accuracy? Nintendo as a company has gone up, up, up, up thanks to it's handhelds, but their place in the home has gone up, up, down, down. What's next? Left, right, A, B, start? I say it depends on what Nintendo and it's competitors have in mind for the future... and what we do as well. We are fickle enough to embrace new brands in the console marketplace, but are we fickle enough to forget a company's perception?
And while we think about answering that.. has Nintendo's diminished performance this generation and last, really been anything to do with perception or brand power anyway?
Nintendo 64 Vs PlayStation
Take the Nintendo 64. It was plagued by arrogant manufacturing decisions from the start. Yes, it had the Nintendo name, it had Mario and friends... and sure these weren't as 'mature' as many games on rival Sony PlayStation - which was home to the pioneering of more movie-like games. But was this why, in latter life, Nintendo 64 was slain by PSone sales? Surely, the introvert "dream team" philosophy, difficult architecture, resulting lack of third party support and the cartridge format are all very big factors in their own right. If making kiddy games is so bad, then why did Nintendo 64 still sell in excess of 30 million units, with Mario 64 selling 10 million + itself? Why the strong presence of such games on non-Nintendo consoles today?
Gamecube Vs Nintendo 64
The reason I'm pitting these against each other is to qualify analytical complaints about Nintendo in the N64 generation, and to contrast them with the company's response & performance therein today. Nintendo suffered in the PlayStation generation. What did they do about it?
They ramped up production of Project Dolphin, the Nintendo Gamecube. People had complained about their stubborn reliance on cartridges... so Nintendo had Matsushita-Electric, the world's largest consumer-electronics maker, create a proprietary disk format that would nix load times significantly, as well as prevent piracy. They went with MoSys for fast latency memory. They had ArtX, soon to be owned by ATI, create a chip called Flipper... which predating Xbox's NV2A, performed somewhere between the already-at-market PS2 and aforementioned Microsoft console. While optimised PS2 games could look fantastic, it initially meant getting to know the PS2 hardware. Something detractors complained about in N64. So Nintendo made sure they had a developer friendly machine on their hands. They were tweaking with the machine, right up to the point it was unveiled at E3 at which point specs were made final - they made sure bottlenecks were few, and the machine was as efficient and cheap to manufacture as possible. They even dropped the innovative/unique three prong approach of the Nintendo 64 pad, and made a more conventional Playstation-esque controller.
In terms of promotional, and pro-active licensor activity: they have courted Japanese licensees like SEGA, Konami, Namco, and even Square-Enix (in which Sony holds a stake and has a strong relationship). To attend to complaints about a lack of mature titles - Nintendo acquired exclusivity to the Resident Evil series. They had a second party developer, Silicon Knights, create a Nintendo published horror game. They had the same developer work with Konami to recreate the classic PSone Metal Gear Solid game. They put their own most teen-friendly mascot in Namco's Soul Calibur II fighting game to spur on impressive sales. For the casual pick up and play gamer, interested in fun novel gimmicks.. they made the bongo peripheral, and with the help of Namco, partnered on making games for it. They tried to use the handheld market as leverage with selling Gamecube systems. This was a push on a "connectivity" concept that saw the Final Fantasy brand return to a Nintendo console for the first time since the mid-90s. A part of that collaboration came about as a result of the Q fund, a monetary fund set up at Nintendo for approving and funding small game projects in partnership with small developers. There are further fruits of such labors, like Geist from N-Space, Starfox Armada from Namco, and Advance Wars Under Fire from britsoft developer, Kuju. More recently they have given Europe games before the US market, and in what could well be response to public demand - created a Zelda title with a style more akin to the Ocarina of Time than the Wind Waker.
Fast foreward to today: Gamecube has performed below industry-analytical estimates and Nintendo's own estimates. Hardware is down. Third party support is up on N64, but not as high as it was at the beginning of this generation. Mario and Zelda haven't sold as much as they did last generation. Software sales of first party software is down, sales of other software up. Profitability is at an all time high, although this is in large part because of Gameboy. Nintendo posted its first quarterly loss in a very long time, this generation. Otherwise it is very healthy. It has an est. 5/6 billion warchest (possibly higher), has one of the best R&D depts in the industry, has fantastic IP, and is still one of the world's top software publishers. But the point remains, Nintendo was receptive enough to make improvements, and predicted 50 million consoles sold at one point, and have acheived only a small fraction of that.
What on earth went wrong?
Gamecube Vs PlayStation 2 Vs Xbox - enter Microsoft
By the time Xbox and Gamecube launched in the US (Nov 2001), Sony had already sold 20 million PS2s worldwide. By just over a year later (Jan 2003), it had sold 50 million! With backwards compatability making it that much easier for tens of millions of PlayStation owners to upgrade, AND known and loved franchises like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Tekken, ISS/Winning Eleven, (and despite Nintendo's coup) Resident Evil.. not to mention DVD playback and a hype whipped up suggesting that movie quality CG would be possible on the console - it had everything needed to entice buyers before it even hit the shops. Some people in Japan and other parts of the world reportedly became initial early adopters because of the DVD playback alone.. which lest we forget was new and exciting at the time for many of us. And all of this before Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Winning Eleven 6/7/8, and this gens hottest property: Grand Theft Auto 3 (and later Vice City/San Andreas).
It's not a console without quality. While arguably being the home to the most content, thus the most shovelware, the machine is still home to many many critically acclaimed games, or games you can't get anywhere else. Despite it's age, it is still almost universally supported in newer multiplatform releases -- often before it's competitors. Sony, by November 2001, as their famous investors slide once said, had "already won the war". The battle in the console war now? ..Was for second place. And that's not been an easily fought battle for either party waging it.
Enter the William Gates III. Microsoft, worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing, one of the richest most secure companies in the world, and ran by none other than (Forbes 400) richest man in the world, Bill Gates... yeah, anyway, THOSE guys... well they decided they'd get into video games. As a part of that push, they had their machine include an ethernet adaptor for internet connectivity and a 10GB hard-drive: 8GB of which was to be used by end-users for game saves, music and downloads. In May of 2002 they also unveiled their plan to invest $2 billion over 5 years into the machine and a little something called Xbox Live: an online gaming service. Taking a hit on hardware, they had easily the most powerful console at Xbox launch. In addendum to this, they paid competitor Nintendo, and the founding Stamper Bros, 300 million dollars for the britsoft company Rareware/Rare in September '02. Rare have, to date, released only one game for the console and are famed among the hardcore fans for being slow to release games. However, as the company behind Goldeneye 007 on Nintendo 64, and as a respected house in general, their games are worth the wait, and more are on the way. A company Microsoft bought in 2000, Bungie, also struck gold with it's Halo franchise this generation - it is probably the most valuable western property outside of GTA. Putting the heat on Sony and Nintendo, MS acquired exclusives from dozens of western developers, conversions from PC that may not have otherwise broke the console market like those from iD (doom 3), Sierra, DICE and others, as well as exclusives from Japanese developers, like those under SEGAs wing, Tecmo, Koei, as well as virtually every major third party release, and some ports of popular PS2 games. Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) is now, itself, a viable and attractive first party publisher. They have acheived a lot as a result of all this effort. They have their foot, leg and upper torso firmly in the door of an industry that yields more revenue than movies. With Microsoft and Sony now having potential set-top boxes in so many homes, the prospect of yielding even more than this in future is strong indeed. Their Xbox Live service is highly regarded as the best of its kind currently on offer. It has a userbase amassed in excess of a million (as of July 04). The wind is definately in their sails in the North American and European territories but they have neither pulled away from Nintendo convincingly, nor caught up to Sony this generation.
And Nintendo? Where Nintendo have made improvements and rectified errors of old, they have made new mistakes. Their lack of foresight regarding the appeal of CDs has been mirrored with DVDs and the Nintendo Gamecube. Their controller has a unique face button arrangement, and only a fraction of the analog/click buttons that the other consoles have. As developer friendly as they tried to make it, this difference makes the increasingly popular move of porting code that much more unattractive. Nintendo's initial assertions at the start of this generation, that online gaming isn't yet widely popular enough, nor profitable, was also not reflected on the other consoles... however true that may or may not be. Sony pushed the SOCOM/headset bundle, and acquired many Network Play games - which included all EA games exclusively until recently. Microsoft, as I have already mentioned, made an even stronger investment in online gaming. Nintendo are now making sounds in Nintendo DS interviews that suggest they're about to change their tune on all of this... but it's too late for Gamecube. It's a shame really, because some of the great games for Xbox and PS2 have either not been ported to Gamecube at all or have suffered in quality and/or sales. Nintendo have improved third party relations this generation, but they did not court western developers as well as Microsoft or Sony, or in a way that reflected their own efforts with Japanese third parties. There are notable instances - like Metal Gear Solid for example - where they have had notable games, and potential success on their hands, but not capitalised by advertising. Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo Australia have both been sluggish to react to market conditions, price drops, retailers and competitor activity.. Iwata let it be known earlier in the year that he was ashamed of how things had gone in Australia for example. Parts of Europe, like the UK for example, are no better. With more 'western' genres like first person shooter, sports and racing sims being popular here - the Gamecube either doesn't offer the games at all, or it offers them inexclusively, without online components or other extras. Poor sales have resulted in reduced Nintendo shelf space in some stores, or in traditional multi-purpose high street stores, removal altogether. The machine itself is a minimalist purple cube - compared by some in the press to a toy. Black and Platinum units are less common, and "Spice" is no better perceived.
Yet, Nintendo are still very much with us. In worldwide sales, they are still competitive. And they're gearing up for some new battles...
Revolution Vs Xenon Vs PS3
Nintendo DS Vs PSP
Nintendo in coming generations is either going to fulfill its d00m3d destiny as decreed by armchair analysts everywhere, or it is going to prove it is a progressive, learning company, made up of talented people, and all under a brand that is vastly under-estimated.
Speculating on how Revolution could really well and truly fail next gen I would have to assume one or all of the following:
* Nintendo's diminishing share is as a result of a weakened brand, and the famed "kiddy" perception it has been unable to shake. It is not solely as a result of it's continued blunders.
* Microsoft will be willing to make the same or other similar, quantifiably large investments next generation - in order to make further progress.
* Sony will have put together an awesome console, that is capable of generating the same hype as PlayStation 2, and PSP/other-3d-handhelds will not cannabalise home console sales in any way.
* Events will occur that will allow Sony or Microsoft (maybe even both) to get the kind of head start in market-share that Sony has experienced this generation.
* That Microsoft has not significantly hurt the PlayStation brand.
* That Nintendo has learned NOTHING from this generation, despite learning from the prior one.
To be d00m3d or not to be d00m3d?
I'd like to end this stream-of-conciousness-tirade spewing forth from my tired fingers, by doing a quick copy_&_paste of my opening thoughts again. This is in the hopes of re-emphasising the nature of cycles, of revolutions, and returning to the beginning. This is my central theme, and I think it's why Nintendo have gone with Revolution as it's project name. Whether you take it as getting back to games, getting back to simplicity/user-friendliness, getting back to Nintendo Entertainment Systems, or just getting back to making people love Nintendo... we can all agree these are things Nintendo want.
This industry is unique. The formats on which we play videogames are reinvented cyclically, rebranded and marketed - at which point we can either embrace them, reject them, or meet them with a lukewarm indifference. I personally feel that it is this nature which has allowed cash wealthy underdogs to establish themselves strongly in the gaming world, and become the kind of phenomenons they have become. It happened first with Nintendo, again with Sony, and now with Microsoft. With all of this negative press, Nintendo is fast becoming underdog again.
Nintendo will be d00m3d or they won't be. They will either be changing enough to bounce back from this underdog climate currently pervading them, or they won't. As food for thought, I'll post some things that have indicated a changing Nintendo this generation following Gamecube's initial release:
* Yamauchi steps down
* Iwata, ex-developer who brought HAL from grave takes his place
* GBA SP unveiled
* Nintendo try to focus on using handheld market as leverage with Gamecube
* "Dream Team" philosophy fully abandoned. Third parties considered valuable.
* Development of TriForce arcade board. Partnerships with Namco & SEGA on software.
(F Zero GX/AC, Soul Calibur II + Link, Donkey Konga, StarFox Armada)
* Resident Evil exclusivity from Capcom. Good for core franchise games 2001 through 2004.
* Capcom 5 limited-exclusivity: RE4, PN03, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, Dead Pheonix (cancelled)
* Fitting exclusives from SEGA: Super Monkey Ball 1/2, PSO I,II & III, Sonic Adventure DX/2-Battle/Collection
* Q Fund used to loophole Square-Enix support
* First party published horror game: Eternal Darkness
* Three way collaboration: Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes
* Intent to extend Gamecube life with peripherals: bongos, microphone, and poss camera/dance mats in future
* Attempt to differentiate from competition:
(Nintendo DS + Stylus = start of push to innovate game interfaces/"styles-of-play" outside of graphical upgrades alone)
* Embracing useful technology in NDS: wireless, user-friendly stylus control, built in mic.
* Warming to non-game functionality: Pictochat, GBA SP SD-card based media player
* Commitment that aspects of DS may be reflected in Revolution
(meaning Rev. could have functionality to ensure games other consoles can not?)
* Intent to include backwards compatability and launch at same time as market leader (Sony) announced: lesson learned?
* Investments include Matrix' 3d memory, Gyration, Bandai corp
* Announcement of moves into movies/animation
* Ongoing partnerships with NEC, IBM, ATI.
Later!
Thom
You have entered a Nintendo thread. If you're too bitter to cope with yet another one, head back to the rest of the forum. If you're snapty00 hit reply and get it over with. There will be lots of talk about PS2 and Xbox, and I will glaze over how this generation and the last has gone from my point of view, but if the N word really hurts your eyes, you're going to see it a lot. So run while you still can!
=============================================
DOOM AND GLOOM. RIGHT OR WRONG?
I've just been over at the IGN boards, after spending a lot of time here, and the Nintendo board is mostly concerned with Sony's excellent third party support, the PS2's runaway success, how great Xbox Live is, worries about Nintendo in coming generations and the threat of EA software dominance spreading it's wicked reach across the globe, enslaving women & children, and commiting genocide upon the helpless damsels we call originality, innovation, industry creativity. This is all probably very healthy thinking for Nintendo fans, and they're not alone in this thinking. Xbox, PS2 and multiplatform advocates are all singing the same tune. But is it too doom and gloom?
There are posters, as well as more qualified industry analysts, hell, even fanboy journalists (whom shan't be named) who don't like where Nintendo is going. For them, the comfort of Nintendo profitability is not enough. Their unwillingness to commit to a more convergant hardware model, support online this generation, nor secure heavy western support is immensely frustrating. Gamers are increasingly woo'd by said factors, which has seen Nintendo have a diminishing presence in retail chains with the Gamecube console. Gamecube simply hasn't been appealing to westerners like the other machines have. With two successive generations, Nintendo's marketshare in the home has shrunk. It's made gufaws that rate modestly on the SEGA scale. But is it mortally wounded? Going anywhere soon? I'm not so sure.
Did you know? Cycle is another word for revolution!
This industry is unique. The formats on which we play videogames are reinvented cyclically, rebranded and marketed - at which point we can either embrace them, reject them, or meet them with a lukewarm indifference. I personally feel that it is this nature which has allowed cash wealthy underdogs to establish themselves strongly in the gaming world, and become the kind of phenomenons they have become. It happened first with Nintendo, again with Sony, and now with Microsoft. With all of this negative press, Nintendo is fast becoming underdog again. Is it still strong enough to be dangerous? Are people underestimating them? The videogame industry may be well over 20 years old, but we have only had four generations in the market as it exists today. Do we have enough to mark out definitive generational consumer trends with any degree of accuracy? Nintendo as a company has gone up, up, up, up thanks to it's handhelds, but their place in the home has gone up, up, down, down. What's next? Left, right, A, B, start? I say it depends on what Nintendo and it's competitors have in mind for the future... and what we do as well. We are fickle enough to embrace new brands in the console marketplace, but are we fickle enough to forget a company's perception?
And while we think about answering that.. has Nintendo's diminished performance this generation and last, really been anything to do with perception or brand power anyway?
Nintendo 64 Vs PlayStation
Take the Nintendo 64. It was plagued by arrogant manufacturing decisions from the start. Yes, it had the Nintendo name, it had Mario and friends... and sure these weren't as 'mature' as many games on rival Sony PlayStation - which was home to the pioneering of more movie-like games. But was this why, in latter life, Nintendo 64 was slain by PSone sales? Surely, the introvert "dream team" philosophy, difficult architecture, resulting lack of third party support and the cartridge format are all very big factors in their own right. If making kiddy games is so bad, then why did Nintendo 64 still sell in excess of 30 million units, with Mario 64 selling 10 million + itself? Why the strong presence of such games on non-Nintendo consoles today?
Gamecube Vs Nintendo 64
The reason I'm pitting these against each other is to qualify analytical complaints about Nintendo in the N64 generation, and to contrast them with the company's response & performance therein today. Nintendo suffered in the PlayStation generation. What did they do about it?
They ramped up production of Project Dolphin, the Nintendo Gamecube. People had complained about their stubborn reliance on cartridges... so Nintendo had Matsushita-Electric, the world's largest consumer-electronics maker, create a proprietary disk format that would nix load times significantly, as well as prevent piracy. They went with MoSys for fast latency memory. They had ArtX, soon to be owned by ATI, create a chip called Flipper... which predating Xbox's NV2A, performed somewhere between the already-at-market PS2 and aforementioned Microsoft console. While optimised PS2 games could look fantastic, it initially meant getting to know the PS2 hardware. Something detractors complained about in N64. So Nintendo made sure they had a developer friendly machine on their hands. They were tweaking with the machine, right up to the point it was unveiled at E3 at which point specs were made final - they made sure bottlenecks were few, and the machine was as efficient and cheap to manufacture as possible. They even dropped the innovative/unique three prong approach of the Nintendo 64 pad, and made a more conventional Playstation-esque controller.
In terms of promotional, and pro-active licensor activity: they have courted Japanese licensees like SEGA, Konami, Namco, and even Square-Enix (in which Sony holds a stake and has a strong relationship). To attend to complaints about a lack of mature titles - Nintendo acquired exclusivity to the Resident Evil series. They had a second party developer, Silicon Knights, create a Nintendo published horror game. They had the same developer work with Konami to recreate the classic PSone Metal Gear Solid game. They put their own most teen-friendly mascot in Namco's Soul Calibur II fighting game to spur on impressive sales. For the casual pick up and play gamer, interested in fun novel gimmicks.. they made the bongo peripheral, and with the help of Namco, partnered on making games for it. They tried to use the handheld market as leverage with selling Gamecube systems. This was a push on a "connectivity" concept that saw the Final Fantasy brand return to a Nintendo console for the first time since the mid-90s. A part of that collaboration came about as a result of the Q fund, a monetary fund set up at Nintendo for approving and funding small game projects in partnership with small developers. There are further fruits of such labors, like Geist from N-Space, Starfox Armada from Namco, and Advance Wars Under Fire from britsoft developer, Kuju. More recently they have given Europe games before the US market, and in what could well be response to public demand - created a Zelda title with a style more akin to the Ocarina of Time than the Wind Waker.
Fast foreward to today: Gamecube has performed below industry-analytical estimates and Nintendo's own estimates. Hardware is down. Third party support is up on N64, but not as high as it was at the beginning of this generation. Mario and Zelda haven't sold as much as they did last generation. Software sales of first party software is down, sales of other software up. Profitability is at an all time high, although this is in large part because of Gameboy. Nintendo posted its first quarterly loss in a very long time, this generation. Otherwise it is very healthy. It has an est. 5/6 billion warchest (possibly higher), has one of the best R&D depts in the industry, has fantastic IP, and is still one of the world's top software publishers. But the point remains, Nintendo was receptive enough to make improvements, and predicted 50 million consoles sold at one point, and have acheived only a small fraction of that.
What on earth went wrong?
Gamecube Vs PlayStation 2 Vs Xbox - enter Microsoft
By the time Xbox and Gamecube launched in the US (Nov 2001), Sony had already sold 20 million PS2s worldwide. By just over a year later (Jan 2003), it had sold 50 million! With backwards compatability making it that much easier for tens of millions of PlayStation owners to upgrade, AND known and loved franchises like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Tekken, ISS/Winning Eleven, (and despite Nintendo's coup) Resident Evil.. not to mention DVD playback and a hype whipped up suggesting that movie quality CG would be possible on the console - it had everything needed to entice buyers before it even hit the shops. Some people in Japan and other parts of the world reportedly became initial early adopters because of the DVD playback alone.. which lest we forget was new and exciting at the time for many of us. And all of this before Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Winning Eleven 6/7/8, and this gens hottest property: Grand Theft Auto 3 (and later Vice City/San Andreas).
It's not a console without quality. While arguably being the home to the most content, thus the most shovelware, the machine is still home to many many critically acclaimed games, or games you can't get anywhere else. Despite it's age, it is still almost universally supported in newer multiplatform releases -- often before it's competitors. Sony, by November 2001, as their famous investors slide once said, had "already won the war". The battle in the console war now? ..Was for second place. And that's not been an easily fought battle for either party waging it.
Enter the William Gates III. Microsoft, worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing, one of the richest most secure companies in the world, and ran by none other than (Forbes 400) richest man in the world, Bill Gates... yeah, anyway, THOSE guys... well they decided they'd get into video games. As a part of that push, they had their machine include an ethernet adaptor for internet connectivity and a 10GB hard-drive: 8GB of which was to be used by end-users for game saves, music and downloads. In May of 2002 they also unveiled their plan to invest $2 billion over 5 years into the machine and a little something called Xbox Live: an online gaming service. Taking a hit on hardware, they had easily the most powerful console at Xbox launch. In addendum to this, they paid competitor Nintendo, and the founding Stamper Bros, 300 million dollars for the britsoft company Rareware/Rare in September '02. Rare have, to date, released only one game for the console and are famed among the hardcore fans for being slow to release games. However, as the company behind Goldeneye 007 on Nintendo 64, and as a respected house in general, their games are worth the wait, and more are on the way. A company Microsoft bought in 2000, Bungie, also struck gold with it's Halo franchise this generation - it is probably the most valuable western property outside of GTA. Putting the heat on Sony and Nintendo, MS acquired exclusives from dozens of western developers, conversions from PC that may not have otherwise broke the console market like those from iD (doom 3), Sierra, DICE and others, as well as exclusives from Japanese developers, like those under SEGAs wing, Tecmo, Koei, as well as virtually every major third party release, and some ports of popular PS2 games. Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) is now, itself, a viable and attractive first party publisher. They have acheived a lot as a result of all this effort. They have their foot, leg and upper torso firmly in the door of an industry that yields more revenue than movies. With Microsoft and Sony now having potential set-top boxes in so many homes, the prospect of yielding even more than this in future is strong indeed. Their Xbox Live service is highly regarded as the best of its kind currently on offer. It has a userbase amassed in excess of a million (as of July 04). The wind is definately in their sails in the North American and European territories but they have neither pulled away from Nintendo convincingly, nor caught up to Sony this generation.
And Nintendo? Where Nintendo have made improvements and rectified errors of old, they have made new mistakes. Their lack of foresight regarding the appeal of CDs has been mirrored with DVDs and the Nintendo Gamecube. Their controller has a unique face button arrangement, and only a fraction of the analog/click buttons that the other consoles have. As developer friendly as they tried to make it, this difference makes the increasingly popular move of porting code that much more unattractive. Nintendo's initial assertions at the start of this generation, that online gaming isn't yet widely popular enough, nor profitable, was also not reflected on the other consoles... however true that may or may not be. Sony pushed the SOCOM/headset bundle, and acquired many Network Play games - which included all EA games exclusively until recently. Microsoft, as I have already mentioned, made an even stronger investment in online gaming. Nintendo are now making sounds in Nintendo DS interviews that suggest they're about to change their tune on all of this... but it's too late for Gamecube. It's a shame really, because some of the great games for Xbox and PS2 have either not been ported to Gamecube at all or have suffered in quality and/or sales. Nintendo have improved third party relations this generation, but they did not court western developers as well as Microsoft or Sony, or in a way that reflected their own efforts with Japanese third parties. There are notable instances - like Metal Gear Solid for example - where they have had notable games, and potential success on their hands, but not capitalised by advertising. Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo Australia have both been sluggish to react to market conditions, price drops, retailers and competitor activity.. Iwata let it be known earlier in the year that he was ashamed of how things had gone in Australia for example. Parts of Europe, like the UK for example, are no better. With more 'western' genres like first person shooter, sports and racing sims being popular here - the Gamecube either doesn't offer the games at all, or it offers them inexclusively, without online components or other extras. Poor sales have resulted in reduced Nintendo shelf space in some stores, or in traditional multi-purpose high street stores, removal altogether. The machine itself is a minimalist purple cube - compared by some in the press to a toy. Black and Platinum units are less common, and "Spice" is no better perceived.
Yet, Nintendo are still very much with us. In worldwide sales, they are still competitive. And they're gearing up for some new battles...
Revolution Vs Xenon Vs PS3
Nintendo DS Vs PSP
Nintendo in coming generations is either going to fulfill its d00m3d destiny as decreed by armchair analysts everywhere, or it is going to prove it is a progressive, learning company, made up of talented people, and all under a brand that is vastly under-estimated.
Speculating on how Revolution could really well and truly fail next gen I would have to assume one or all of the following:
* Nintendo's diminishing share is as a result of a weakened brand, and the famed "kiddy" perception it has been unable to shake. It is not solely as a result of it's continued blunders.
* Microsoft will be willing to make the same or other similar, quantifiably large investments next generation - in order to make further progress.
* Sony will have put together an awesome console, that is capable of generating the same hype as PlayStation 2, and PSP/other-3d-handhelds will not cannabalise home console sales in any way.
* Events will occur that will allow Sony or Microsoft (maybe even both) to get the kind of head start in market-share that Sony has experienced this generation.
* That Microsoft has not significantly hurt the PlayStation brand.
* That Nintendo has learned NOTHING from this generation, despite learning from the prior one.
To be d00m3d or not to be d00m3d?
I'd like to end this stream-of-conciousness-tirade spewing forth from my tired fingers, by doing a quick copy_&_paste of my opening thoughts again. This is in the hopes of re-emphasising the nature of cycles, of revolutions, and returning to the beginning. This is my central theme, and I think it's why Nintendo have gone with Revolution as it's project name. Whether you take it as getting back to games, getting back to simplicity/user-friendliness, getting back to Nintendo Entertainment Systems, or just getting back to making people love Nintendo... we can all agree these are things Nintendo want.
This industry is unique. The formats on which we play videogames are reinvented cyclically, rebranded and marketed - at which point we can either embrace them, reject them, or meet them with a lukewarm indifference. I personally feel that it is this nature which has allowed cash wealthy underdogs to establish themselves strongly in the gaming world, and become the kind of phenomenons they have become. It happened first with Nintendo, again with Sony, and now with Microsoft. With all of this negative press, Nintendo is fast becoming underdog again.
Nintendo will be d00m3d or they won't be. They will either be changing enough to bounce back from this underdog climate currently pervading them, or they won't. As food for thought, I'll post some things that have indicated a changing Nintendo this generation following Gamecube's initial release:
* Yamauchi steps down
* Iwata, ex-developer who brought HAL from grave takes his place
* GBA SP unveiled
* Nintendo try to focus on using handheld market as leverage with Gamecube
* "Dream Team" philosophy fully abandoned. Third parties considered valuable.
* Development of TriForce arcade board. Partnerships with Namco & SEGA on software.
(F Zero GX/AC, Soul Calibur II + Link, Donkey Konga, StarFox Armada)
* Resident Evil exclusivity from Capcom. Good for core franchise games 2001 through 2004.
* Capcom 5 limited-exclusivity: RE4, PN03, Viewtiful Joe, Killer 7, Dead Pheonix (cancelled)
* Fitting exclusives from SEGA: Super Monkey Ball 1/2, PSO I,II & III, Sonic Adventure DX/2-Battle/Collection
* Q Fund used to loophole Square-Enix support
* First party published horror game: Eternal Darkness
* Three way collaboration: Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes
* Intent to extend Gamecube life with peripherals: bongos, microphone, and poss camera/dance mats in future
* Attempt to differentiate from competition:
(Nintendo DS + Stylus = start of push to innovate game interfaces/"styles-of-play" outside of graphical upgrades alone)
* Embracing useful technology in NDS: wireless, user-friendly stylus control, built in mic.
* Warming to non-game functionality: Pictochat, GBA SP SD-card based media player
* Commitment that aspects of DS may be reflected in Revolution
(meaning Rev. could have functionality to ensure games other consoles can not?)
* Intent to include backwards compatability and launch at same time as market leader (Sony) announced: lesson learned?
* Investments include Matrix' 3d memory, Gyration, Bandai corp
* Announcement of moves into movies/animation
* Ongoing partnerships with NEC, IBM, ATI.
Later!
Thom
