• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

what happened to "play it loud" nintendo?

thirty said:
Powerful hardware, stellar 1st party games, stuff like perfect dark, killer instinct, golden eye, major 3rd party partnership. Did the n64 really change the direction of the entire company? Has segas death as a hardware manufacturer stricken them with fear? What happened?
Click to expand...

Well, their powerful hardware was only powerful within a cost-envelope of $200. If Sony was making systems that cost $900 (a price that the PS3 was initially rumoured to have, but even if that is untrue then it would still be at least thrice the cost of Nintendo's console) back in the fourth generation, then the SNES would have a reputation of being severely underpowered.

The third party domination Nintendo had was a runoff from the third generation, when the NES was pretty much the only system third parties could publish on with any expectation of profit, and there were certain elements of severe legal dickishness happening on Nintendo's part. I'd go so far as to say that post-N64 Nintendo has been much nicer (or, at least, much less terrible) to third party developers and publishers than pre-N64 Nintendo.

Your points about Rare's games are pretty valid, though. Nintendo has Retro now, but it would be really nice if they used that particular second party developer to make some games that aren't already in Nintendo's warchest. That said, Nintendo has been aggressively publishing at least a few third party developed games of late (Fatal Frame Zero, Ninja Gaiden 3, Bayonetta 2, Lego City Undercover, The Wonderful 101, Monster Hunter 3G in some areas, et al), so it is not for lack of trying that they don't have any mega blockbuster published games developed by other companies. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't try harder, though. ;)
 
shadyspace said:
Uh, it almost killed them?
Click to expand...


Really? I remember the "Play it Loud" campaign as being pretty successful for them. It was their answer to Sega's "SEGA SCREAM!!!" marketing of the 90's.


Nut yeah, "Play it Loud" was just a product of its time, and that time period is over now. Nintendo moved on.


BigJiantRobut said:
Actually, here, I brought the 3DS back into the 90s.

DpIm9.jpg


No need to thank me, Reggie!
Click to expand...

But this image doesn't make any sense now. The guy with the yellow hair needs to have the special yellow Pokemon edition 3DS. The bald girl needs a transparent white see-though 3DS. The Guy with the green hair needs an Atomic Green 3DS. :P
 
animlboogy said:
It's subjective, of course. I just think the tech held back games far too much during the N64 days, and a lot of bizarre choices were made to deal with those limitations. At the time, I was often frustrated by the lack of fidelity compared to the 16-bit games I was still enjoying. There are a lot of ugly games with horrible controls and bad UIs. I'd much rather play Nintendo's games from the GameCube on than go back to their N64 stuff. And I just think SMG is a better Mario game than 64 ever was.

Maybe the N64 thing works better for people who didn't start gaming in the 2D era, I dunno. There were too many compromises. I'd rather play even the GB Zelda games than wrestle with the 64 versions, as much as I do appreciate Majora's Mask.
Click to expand...

if you are talking about mario galaxy 2,well,it's true.
mario 64 is important because it was the first real platform 3d..but even staying on the n64 era,banjo et kazooie was a superior game.

anyway,i started with the NES
 
animlboogy said:
No. That is the new Nintendo. Those are two of their biggest games. You're constructing a nostalgia narrative around the whole topic. You basically said, "Zelda's not as good, therefore N64 Nintendo is better." And then you list SMG2 and DKCR, games that are far better than the N64 entries in the same franchises.
Click to expand...
two exceptions don't cancel a trend
 
HigherLevel said:
Nintendo + Rare

now it is just Nintendo
Click to expand...
Nintendo EAD alone made N64's best games. Many of them were within a short timespan of each other, but modern production limits what they can do now. Theys still have their other divisions, so they can't be underestimated even under the singular Nintendo banner.

----

SNES was released a lot later after Genesis and N64 failed at expanding their game concepts with N64DD; let's not pretend everything about that time was glorious. :P
 
Let me answer your question with a question and ask... where have you been the last seven years? This has been their strategy since the DS, and it's worked pretty well for them. There have been way too many "Gamecube 2 would have been fantastic" comments of late here on GAF.

The Mana Legend said:
The only RARE games that Nintendo hasn't beaten in terms of quality are Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Nintendo's games since have all been a ton better than most of RARE's SNES/N64 output.
Click to expand...
And I would argue even that has its roots in good ol' fashioned nostalgia. If Nintendo bought the Timesplitters IP, they'd soon trump Goldeneye and that other game with the redhead.
 
Htown said:
also, Retro>>>Rare, stop lying to yourselves
Click to expand...

I am not a fan of Metroid Prime (although they are amazingly designed games, I'm just not a fan of the Metroid formula), but Donkey Kong Country Returns alone was better than any RARE platformer, other than maybe DKC2. And that was their first damn platformer. I'd hate to see how much they smoke RARE if they make a DKCR 2.
 
animlboogy said:
The Sega-contracted F-Zero GX might not count, but it was a big improvement over the N64 title. Rare's shooters were not nearly on the level of Metroid Prime except for that embarrassing shoehorned multiplayer mode in the sequels. Mario Kart 64 is awkward to play compared to every game in the series since. Wind Waker lacks scope but controls much better than the N64 Zeldas and is a widely adored game in its own right. And then there are games that have no direct N64 equivalent like Kid Icarus and SM3DL, which are fantastic modern Nintendo games.

Oh, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Nintendo but its worth mentioning that TimeSplitters 2 is way more awesome than Goldeneye or Perfect Dark. :D I love that game so pardon me for indulging myself here.

I do think that Zelda is in a particularly bad place, they just aren't games I want to play anymore. But I also felt iffy about Ocarina compared to the SNES and GB entries, so that feeling is nothing new.
Click to expand...

Lets not forget how Nintendo has revived a shit ton of dead franchises that had no entries or bad/mediocre entries on the N64/GCN. Kirby, Donkey Kong, Punchout, etc.

Nintendo not only has improved the quality of their game development, they've also done an incredible job at reviving dead IPs.
 
Its been said a million times over but Nintendo choosing cartridges with N64 was the start of their 3rd party relations declining. I forget what the exact prices were at the time but I think it was something like 10 dollars just to manufacture a 64 megabit cartridge.
 
They stopped competing against Sega and started competing against Sony and changed their marketing strategy accordingly
 
Get N or get out, Play it Loud, Now You're Playing with Power, and Who Are You? Were all very effective campaigns at least for me. Got me excited for the big N. Now there are way too many little kids in the commercials, too much wub wub wub wub wub and not enough charm.
 
tapedeck said:
Its been said a million times over but Nintendo choosing cartridges with N64 was the start of their 3rd party relations declining. I forget what the exact prices were at the time but I think it was something like 10 dollars just to manufacture a 64 megabit cartridge.
Click to expand...

They had strained relations with some third parties already during the NES era due to their draconian policies, but since the NES dominated the market, there was really nowhere else to go for Japanese developers.
 
I think Nintendo's UK Wii U ads are very good and seem to actually have a focused idea, unlike the confusing NA ads. They basically get across the notion of Nintendo stuff fitting into a normal, contemporary living situation. Very much like the Japanese short piece that was shown during the Nintendo direct about online functions.

I don't envy marketing today though. We're in a post internet culture, where multiple avenues of distraction have blossomed outward. There are many more pools of culture today. Many subcultures. There are more trends, often with conflicting stylizations. It has to be more difficult to figure out just who you're selling things too. Who you're trying to reach out to.
 
animlboogy said:
You forgot how the 90's actually were! The market was littered with expensive, powerful consoles. You could play NeoGeo games at home, you could play Star Control 2 and an arcade-perfect port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, you could play Alien vs. Predator and show it off to your drooling friends... But none of that was really considered relevant because the SNES and Genesis were reasonably priced and huge sellers.
Click to expand...

Oh, I agree. The landscape has changed since the '90s. I was just pointing out that Nintendo's perceived emphasis on power back in the day wasn't quite as true as stated. Many consumers are willing to drop much more money on consoles now, so the systems that would have otherwise been seen as massively overpriced are now considered contenders.

In the '90s, Nintendo had a lower priced system that wasn't nearly as powerful as much higher priced competing systems. The reputation of this Nintendo is "Playing with power".
In the '00s, Nintendo had a lower priced system that wasn't nearly as powerful as much higher priced competing systems. The reputation of this Nintendo is "Games for people who don't care about power".

Granted, there are valid reasons why the Nintendo of today is seen as not pursuing monster computational capabilities in their systems (not the least of which being that, well, they're not!). I'm just saying that a decade prior, their philosophy wasn't that different compared to what it is now.



Combichristoffersen said:
Yeah, I dunno. I just remember seeing posts on GAF with numbers comparing the attach rates, claiming they weren't all that different.
Click to expand...

I started my research before the following post…

MYE said:
Quick google got me this

Wii = 8.6 games per system.
360 = 9.2 games per system.

If true....yeah, its pretty damn close
Click to expand...

…but we agree on our results, so I feel a bit more confident about my writings below. :)


They're not staggeringly different. Through a giant swath of the generation, the Wii had a higher tie ratio than the PS3. In North America (I think this data is NA-only, at least), just before the two year mark, the Wii had sold 5.5 games per system, compared to 6.6 for the Xbox 360 and 5.3 for the PS3.


Looking further:

Wii's current, worldwide, overall tie ratio is ~8.67. From the same source, Gamecube's tie ratio was 9.59. N64's tie ratio was 6.83. Super Nintendo's tie ratio was 7.72. The Nintendo Entertainment System, which essentially had a monopoly on good software during its entire lifetime, had a tie ratio of 8.08.

The average Wii owner has eight or nine games. This is underperforming compared to the competition, but it is not a gaping chasm of differentness. The Playstation 3, for instance, had a tie ratio of 9.16 as of end of last year (anybody got more recent data?). According to Microsoft, the Life To Date tie ratio of the Xbox 360 is 9.2. They cite NPD, but I think the number is supposed to be worldwide.

If the above is true, then the average Xbox 360 and PS3 owner owns between zero and one more games than the average Wii owner.

The basic summary is: Wii's tie ratio is a little lower than the competition, but it is not low enough to claim that "everybody got the Wii just for Wii Sports and bought nothing else".



…also: Ye gods, it was hard to find genuine information that wasn't somehow sourced from ioi!
 
MrCunningham said:
No doubt he was inspired by Wesley Snipes from Demolition Man :P

500full.jpg


Demolition Man: 1993
Play it Loud campaign: 1994

Bald chick: 90's era Shannon O'Connor/ Ellen Ripley from Alien 3

Green haired guy: Billy Joel from 90's era Green Day?
Click to expand...

She looks more like Pope-ripping Sinead O'Connor.

4wjGD.jpg
 
thirty said:
stuff like perfect dark, killer instinct, golden eye, major 3rd party partnership.
Click to expand...

These are regarding two totally different generations. The N64 had far less 3rd party partnership than either the Wii, DS, 3DS and perhaps what little we know of what is to come with WiiU. The Wii had Monster Hunter 3, Dragon Quest X, Samurai Warriors 3,etc; The DS had, Dragon Quest IX, Prof Layton, Inazuma Eleven, etc; For WiiU we already know about Bayonetta 2, NG3, LEGO City Undercover and Wonderful 101. On the other hand what did the N64 have? Ogre Battle 64 and Snowboard Kids? (and even then I don't think Nintendo partnered for them).
 
such a good time...


nintendo-lit-f-2.jpg


1994, in general, was just an amazing time to own a SNES.



Then there was this looming on the horizon:

03783_nintendo_ultra_64.jpg


So much excitement back then. :}
Unfortunately FFVII being announced for the upstart Sony Playstation killed most of my desire for the Ultra 64/N64.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
What happened to the PlayStation Platinum/Nintendo Selects/Xbox Classics?
34
759
Hudo replied
Switch Insane Bundle! What happened to Nintendo's Seal of Quality?
7
2K
Wolzard replied
So what happened to Hindustan Electronics, the studio behind The Last Guy?
4
182
Hudo replied
Laura Fryer - From Midnight Magic to Grave Dancing: What Happened to Gamers and Devs
Social  2
98
947
DeepEnigma replied
What happened to Lego Games?
43
2K
Just_one replied
Top Bottom