E3 Also playing… Nintendo
USA Today is by no means the pinnacle of video game reporting, but they did break it first:
Nintendo, whose GameCube sales have lagged, hopes to gain ground, particularly among the fast-growing older-gaming market. Revolution is about the size of a stack of three DVD cases and has no visible knobs, buttons or ports for joysticks. The system will use only wireless controllers, and it sits flat or stands vertically.
There were rumors for a while that the GameCube was going to be Nintendo’s last non-portable console. It is well agreed upon that you buy a Nintendo console for two reasons. Either you’re a kid, or you want to play their exclusive first-party titles like Mario, Zelda, Metroid. The conventional wisdom says if you make good games, but are losing money on the console, get out of the console business and publish your games for other platforms. Sega rightly did it, but Nintendo tenaciously resists. They see a future where they are once again the leading platform. Hey, Nintendo… good luck with that.
Electro Rock Said,
May 17, 2005 @ 5:43 pm
The Gamecube situation makes me very sad. They have great games, great development, fun characters, and so on. The kiddie line is often flouted, but indeed many of their games stand as strong as other systems’ powerhouses (I contend that Metroid Prime is as good a first-person shooter as Halo – if it was LIVE people would flip out). Their racing, tennis, and golf games are fantastic (yes, yes, too bad you have to be Mario to play them). The Wavebird is THE wireless controller, and no other system has one as impressive in quality (that said, the Nintendo controller setup does have problems, but the Wave tech is wonderful). I wish Nintendo could pull out of this sell-funk in the States. There’s an interesting discussion point – what would they need to do to catch up with XBOX and PS2? Live would help…what else?
punctual_shrimp Said,
May 17, 2005 @ 6:15 pm
I think they’ve got the right idea; get online, and develop some kind of subscription/live service like xbox live, but also let people download NES/SNES/N64/GC titles through the service. The back catalogue can’t be beat. Pricing to be determined, cheaper the better.
That said, they’ll likely come out third, but i still love em.
Boxen Said,
May 17, 2005 @ 7:04 pm
The GameCube can’t be saved, and the Revolution is likely to be their swan song in the non-portable market. The legacy games may be an angle. They would have to be free, or damn near it. The PSP already has working NES and SNES emulators. As for the controllers, all of the new consoles have wireless ones as standard equipment so that’s a wash. Maybe a new original first-party series could breathe some new life into the Nintendo franchise.