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Nintendo Belongs in the Toy Aisle

BooJoh said:
Is this one of those "you rage you lose" threads? >.>

There is so much I could say about the article's specifics but it's really not worth it.

Other than discussion about the categorization of the Wii (and other consoles) as toys, and whether that is a negative/positive thing, it just seems like more of the same type of article looking to rehash old console war crap for the express purpose of drawing a reaction.

Maybe the topic creator could clarify what he thought was specifically worthwhile of discussion? Since the original post just seems to be a text dump and no personal insight into their opinion on it other than the fact that it should be discussed.
 
Meisadragon said:
Lol Examiner.com? That was a terrible article.

Anyone can go out and buy a Nintendo Wii, but that does not make them a real gamer

Wow.
You need to pass a difficult exam about gaming culture to buy a PS3 or a 360.
You need to prove your master race pedigree to buy a gaming PC.
 
Meisadragon said:
Lol Examiner.com? That was a terrible article.



Wow.

Yeah.
...Wait.
If Wii is a toy
and Mad World is bloody as hell
And Mad World is on Wii.

...Wait,wait...MY BRAIN.THE NOSENSE.
IT'S TOO STRONG
 
Nintendo's push to expand the market and produce more casual games is not the problem. I think it's good for the industry and should be embraced. The problem is their failure to balance that with satisfying other segments of the market, including their dedicated long-time fans. Sony managed this in the last half of the PS2's market dominance. Nintendo failed with Wii.
 
fossil coast said:
Not defending that guy, who is obviously a misogynistic dick, but 'dumb fucking bitch' is legit. 'Bitch' is basically the feminine of 'Asshole'. It doesn't really make sense and bitch can of course be used in a misogynistic way (refering to all females as bitches as opposed to when a particular female is being a bitch). Calling a woman an asshole or a bastard never feels right even though technically they're gender-neutral terms. Take away bitch and there's nothing strong enough to call offensively idiotic women. Be fair.

I really didn't think people would take THAT much offense to it. I've seen much worse things to say about women.
 
orioto said:
They can't go for all demographics and all type of content with one hardware.. They will realize that at some point ultimately..

I think the DS and Wii have shown that Nintendo knows what they are doing...and they can target everyone and get all types of content. When I visited Japan a few years ago this museum was using DS's for their official guided tours...it blew my mind that Nintendo had managed to get a gaming device into the common persons hand and everyone seemed to know how to use it with no fuss.

As for the Wii U...was their presentation a clusterfuck? Ofcourse...and post-E3 they even acknowledged they did not do a good job. They have alot of time to fix up and prove why we should buy a Wii U...hell even I am on the fence and I like to think I'm an accepting Nintendo fan.
 
AniHawk said:
how dare she lump in bayonetta with normal games.
Haha, I was totally thinking the same thing. That's the only thing in the list that has a decent entry level.

Edit: no need to be sexists, some of you.



 
Rocket Punch said:
Uhhh... All games are toys...
toy (toi)

1. An object for children to play with.
2. Something of little importance; a trifle.
3. An amusement; a pastime: thought of the business as a toy.
4. A small ornament; a bauble.
5. A diminutive thing or person.
6. A dog of a very small breed or of a variety smaller than the standard variety of its breed.
7. Scots A loose covering for the head, formerly worn by women.
8. Chiefly Southern U.S. A shooter marble.
.
 
Hahaha oh my, that has to be one of the more vitriolic trolling attempts I've seen. People who own Nintendo shouldn't walk in the same place as people who buy "real games?" Holy shit LOL.
 
markot said:
Wait. So the only quote from Will Wright is in the first paragraph?

The funny part is that of all of the bolds, not one are of his single quote.

Another funny part is that she thinks the Wii U isn't a real gaming console, but the Kinect is.
 
I think The Examiner pays their writers by article views or something similar... so basically by having her article posted here on GAF, she's probably making way more money off of it than she would have. If that was her intention when she chose to be "controversial" then she succeeded quite well.

I'm curious how the OP came across the article, since the author probably "seeded" it somewhere to try to go viral. I'm not accusing the OP of being in with her, just saying we're likely all making her very happy right now.
 
Momo said:
toy (toi)

1. An object for children to play with.
2. Something of little importance; a trifle.
3. An amusement; a pastime: thought of the business as a toy.
4. A small ornament; a bauble.
5. A diminutive thing or person.
6. A dog of a very small breed or of a variety smaller than the standard variety of its breed.
7. Scots A loose covering for the head, formerly worn by women.
8. Chiefly Southern U.S. A shooter marble.

.

I think this description fits for 90% of people. It is something we do to amuse ourselves when we are not busy.
 
SlipperySlope said:
The funny part is that of all of the bolds, not one are of his single quote.

The ultra irony is that the quote was only important for like one paragraph. It only made the article and the writer look worse. She probably just searched for a quote by some industry vet that she could say this article sprung off of.
 
I find it absolutely hilarious that she includes Kinect and Move in the list of hardcore systems for 'real gamers' when there have been hugely more so-called 'real gamer' titles on Wii than there have been (or ever will be) designed for those peripherals.
Momo said:
3. An amusement; a pastime
Sounds like video-games to me.

EDIT: Damn, beaten twice.
BooJoh said:
I think The Examiner pays their writers by article views or something similar... so basically by having her article posted here on GAF, she's probably making way more money off of it than she would have. If that was her intention when she chose to be "controversial" then she succeeded quite well.

I'm curious how the OP came across the article, since the author probably "seeded" it somewhere to try to go viral. I'm not accusing the OP of being in with her, just saying we're likely all making her very happy right now.
OP clicked on the article so I didn't have to.
I hope people in this thread aren't following the link and commenting.
 
I've seen a couple of toy stores here in sweden only buy in a bunch of Nintendo games and sell. Sometimes a couple Playstation 2 games lying in a bin next to them, other then that, Nintendo exclusive.
 
Ok I knew I thought the WiiU was like a stepback into 2005 for Nintendo but that doesn't mean we should bring the articles from 2004 with it!
false edit : wait this is not a necrobump?
 
So many things wrong with this article I don't know where to start. I really don't.

I mean I could start with the complete and utter disregard for context and meaning that the author ignores when quoting Will Wright. As if it gives her position some sort of innate superiority because it's associated with Will Wright, even though if Will Wright read this article his response would be whatever the intelligent equivalent of 'lol wat?' is.

Or, you could go with the always pathetic attempt to differentiate between 'real gamers' and the mythical 'fake gamer'. This is, of course, made all the more pathetic but the listing of such intellectual and complex giants of the medium like God of War, Gears of War and Fable*, all the while ignoring the deliciouis irony that there's probably some hardcore Hearts of Iron player out there bemoaning the fact that the 'real gamer' is being ignored for all those plebs that play God of War, Gears of War and Fable.

On the other hand, you could mention the incredibly disingenuous listing of of Wii titles that she uses to characterise the system. Does the Wii lean more to the mainstream than the other consoles? Of course. But if Family Feud, Monster Jam, Tron and Hello Kitty sold combined more than 1/10th of Super Mario Galaxy, I'd be surprised.

There's more, but I'll stop there.


The author is a moron. That's honestly all there is to it. This is the type of article I'd expect to read from a 15 year old fanboy who has been told by his teacher he has a debate assignment and he can write his article on ANYTHING.




*Sorry, I have to keep using italics for this because it's too funny that someone writing an article whinging about Nintendo casualising gaming using Fable as an example of 'true gaming'.
 
orioto said:
Basically, the problem with Nintendo, if you try to be constructive and precise, is that they don't think their software is a selling point anymore, or at least not enough to fight against Sony and Microsoft in a market that became adult with them. So they are going for the family and living room ergonomic route, and try to sell their system with hardware ideas more than games (even if they still need games of course).
This is absolutely not true. Wii was so successful largely because it was bundled with Wii Sports in the western markets. Nintendo sees hardware as an opportunity to create software that can sell it.

Family entertainment was always Nintendo's goal, what happened was that they lost it to PlayStation for a while and got it back with Wii. Nintendo doesn't compete with Sony and Microsoft directly (though in reality they still do compete) because it implies releasing high-end hardware and selling it at loss. It contradicts their business model that is based on releasing relatively old and cheap hardware that can be pushed with innovative software. It was Gunpei Yokoi's idea in the 80s (see NES and Game Boy), and it still works for the modern Nintendo. That's why they are still present on the market.

The biggest Nintendo problem as I see it is that they can't grow fast enough, can't afford risks as much as Sony and MS and are too conservative at times and take long time to adapt to new market tendencies.
 
I directly quote from Christ Crawford on Game Design:

BM2Lf.jpg


This is in the first page of the book, and the reason is pretty obvious, he wants the reader to understand the conceptual difference between games and other forms of entertainment.
 
walking fiend said:
I directly quote from Christ Crawford on Game Design:

BM2Lf.jpg


This is in the first page of the book, and the reason is pretty obvious, he wants the reader to understand the conceptual difference between games and other forms of entertainment.

The fact that this starts with a simple sweeping "Art=Beauty" statement makes me want to ignore it wholesale.
 
F#A#Oo said:
I think the DS and Wii have shown that Nintendo knows what they are doing...and they can target everyone and get all types of content. When I visited Japan a few years ago this museum was using DS's for their official guided tours...it blew my mind that Nintendo had managed to get a gaming device into the common persons hand and everyone seemed to know how to use it with no fuss.

As for the Wii U...was their presentation a clusterfuck? Ofcourse...and post-E3 they even acknowledged they did not do a good job. They have alot of time to fix up and prove why we should buy a Wii U...hell even I am on the shelf and I like to think I'm an accepting Nintendo fan.

They didn't reach all the gamers with the wii at all. They even totally isolated the wii from a whole aspect of this generation (you know ps360 games).

NDS is something special cause don't forget before 2005, there was one only portable king in the world. But i still think in japan, if PSP is so successfull nowadays, it's cause let's say.. grown up or core gamers (those who plays digis, tacticals etc..) don't play on ds.

As for the wii u, well... it's meant to be perfect to have fps (like the nds was meant to be, but not really in the end, and the wii was meant to be, but not really in the end..) but also for ten thousands little things that will be so fun to do in the living room with all the family. But it's filled with contradictions...
_Based on a new control method, while still embracing the motion gaming as the best way to play
_Idea that you can play without the tv versus idea that you can have great gaming experience with a second screen.. (yes, think about it.. you can't do both at the same time.. so games that will have a usefull second screen usage won't be able to be played when mom wants to see desperate housewives, OR Nintendo will screw themselves by forcing developers to have a the second screen control not an obligation.. thus not something you really need) That's exacly the type of mentality i'm speaking about actually, two ideas that are totally contradictory...
 
Wii is not a baby toy because it has games like The Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower.

Oh wait..

I'm from Europe.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
The fact that this starts with a simple sweeping "Art=Beauty" statement makes me want to ignore it wholesale.

He's wrong on puzzles too. There are plenty of things you'd call games rather than puzzles that have nothing resembling 'competitors' or 'attacks'.

The 'Money' arrow is a bad joke too.

Chris Crawford is knid of a dope.
 
walking fiend said:
I directly quote from Christ Crawford on Game Design:

BM2Lf.jpg


This is in the first page of the book, and the reason is pretty obvious, he wants the reader to understand the conceptual difference between games and other forms of entertainment.
I have a lot of respect for Chris Crawford, but he's making big, unsupportable leaps here. For starters, there is a lot of crossover between 'art' (in the context he uses it here, meaning 'pure' visual arts) and economics, even if beauty is the primary goal. Entertainment is also the driving purpose beyond a lot of painting. Movies and books can be created primarily for personal expression. There's no real reason that a creator's driving motivation to make games can't be the pursuit of beauty.
 
Wow...
Just... wow.
So much blatant wrongness. As a 'true gamer' I feel sort of offended by those opinions on the Wii. I mean, yeah, I guess it could go in the toy aisle (and maybe does in some stores) but I also think the PS3 could go in the Blu-ray/DVD aisle. Doesn't make the PS3 less of a console, I just think it's attract more buyers if it was also there in some stores.
The Wii isn't the most 'hardcore' of the games consoles but it's still as much a console as the PS3 and 360. Hell, I own more games and spent more time on my Wii than PS3.
 
fossil coast said:
He's wrong on puzzles too. There are plenty of things you'd call games rather than puzzles that have nothing resembling 'competitors' or 'attacks'.

The 'Money' arrow is a bad joke too.

Chris Crawford is knid of a dope.

He's responsible for some pretty important old games, but yeah, that diagram is absolute bullshit.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
Seems about right.
The M.O.B said:
I think this description fits for 90% of people. It is something we do to amuse ourselves when we are not busy.
Krev said:
Sounds like video-games to me.

EDIT: Damn, beaten twice.
.

Would you describe books, movies, music as toys? Fits just as well as games in that definition.
 
Momo said:
Would you describe books, movies, music as toys? Fits just as well as games in that definition.

Can you play with a movie or book? You seem to be under the impression that "toy" is a bad thing to be.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
He's responsible for some pretty important old games, but yeah, that diagram is absolute bullshit.
It's very strange coming from a guy with a vision of games becoming as legitimate a medium as any other for exploring the human condition and any subject matter imaginable.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
Can you play with a movie or book?
Yes, you can. Sudoku puzzle books, interactive movies.

BigJiantRobut said:
You seem to be under the impression that "toy" is a bad thing to be.
I am not, there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about defining something as a toy, something you have fun and gain amusement from, just imo video games are as separate from the traditional definition of toys as books, music and movies are.
 
Momo said:
Yes, you can. Sudoku puzzle books, interactive movies.

A puzzle book is not a "book" in the same sense that a novel or textbook is, and an interactive movie (like what? Dragon's Lair?) is also not a "movie" in the same way that a matinee is. Quit dancing around the subject: if it has a level of interactivity that is meant to engage and entertain, it can probably be described as a toy.
 
Momo said:
Would you describe books, movies, music as toys? Fits just as well as games in that definition.

You observe a movie, you read a book, you listen to music. They do not require interacting with or engaging in activity for enjoyment of them obviously talking about more then just pressing a button on your iPod or turning a page). Toys require you to do something with them, to pick them up, to play with them.

Yes you play, you pick up a pencil to finish a sudoku puzzle. Your mind is active with thoughts of interacting with them. That would be a puzzle game to me. Games are toys, electronically or not.
 
Momo said:
Would you describe books, movies, music as toys? Fits just as well as games in that definition.

Toy denotes something that can be "played with". I can't play with movies, I can watch them though. I can't play with music, I can listen to it though. I can't play with books, I can read them though.

Toys are things made with the intent to be played/ or played with. Videogames consoles and videogames are made with the intent to be played with, just like toys.

EDIT: yeah what the dudes above me said.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
A puzzle book is not a "book" in the same sense that a novel or textbook is, and an interactive movie (like what? Dragon's Lair?) is also not a "movie" in the same way that a matinee is. Quit dancing around the subject: if it has a level of interactivity that is meant to engage and entertain, it can probably be described as a toy.

I think they all belong on the same Venn diagram, but I wouldn't call games a subset of toys. That seems like an uneccessary potential confusion. Toys is something I think Crawford got right on that diagram.
 
Nintendo games are babies toys, not to be taken seriously
Games like Halo and The Sims...serious games...not really games...more like ART!!!
 
fossil coast said:
I think they all belong on the same Venn diagram, but I wouldn't call games a subset of toys. That seems like an uneccessary potential confusion. Toys is something I think Crawford got right on that diagram.

I'm just saying the description is totally fair, I'm not sure how I would categorize (or if I'd even bother to) them.
 
If Nintendo being in the toy aisle means I will get Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash Bros, Star Fox, Dragon Quest, etc etc etc, then so be it.

Seriously, what kind of article is this? Just the fact that she chose LittleBigPlanet amongst all of those so-called gamers games is just wrong. Last time I checked, the game "tanked" taking into account all those hype around it.

0/10. Just wasted me 5 minutes reading it.
 
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