"'Growing out' of Nintendo is an entirely understandable sentiment. Blaming them for it, however, is not."
So writes commenter juxtapixel on last week's post, and I've got to agree. I've long been a little bit baffled at the never-ending knell for a traitor that audiences have rung for Nintendo pretty much ever since the beginning of the Wii generation (see also 'What Can Nintendo Say That Will Impress You', 'The Curse Of The Gifted Child', and Wii Music, Coda).
But, okay -- I, too, will cop to an initial, reflexive sense of betrayal at Nintendo's new market strategy (I sheepishly dredge up 'Nintendo Rolls On Us', from 2007).
I got over that, though. Mostly. A lot of the persistent dissatisfaction heavy gamers express toward -- well, everything -- has a lot to do with rose-colored lenses, in my opinion. Not realizing we're simply growing up, we cling to this vague idea that games were better at some nebulous point in history. News flash! The entire world was way cooler when we were children (which is why I've done so much writing on nostalgia and childhood imagination lately).
We have rigid quality expectations today where one design flaw is a total dealbreaker, when as kids we played and adored far more broken things (which is why I was frustrated with what I perceived to be an arbitrary critical/audience response to games like Mirror's Edge and Silent Hill Homecoming).
So have we been blaming Nintendo for ditching us when it's in fact we who've changed?
I think the answer to that one is 'only somewhat.' After all, we all liked Mario Galaxy (pretty much). Smash Bros Brawl sold so well last year that it's making us look bad this year (that I kinda dislike that game has nothing to do with Nintendo). We all want a new Zelda. No, like, a real one.
And while you could argue that the business initiatives on Nintendo's part that seem unfamiliar to us now are just the modern era's incarnation of the innovation it's always pioneered, that's a flawed argument.
After all, if Nintendo's always been successfully reaching the mainstream and changing the definition of "video game" like it does with Wii Fit and Wii Sports Resort, "we" wouldn't have stayed a niche for so long.
But Wii sales are on the decline. Is it because everyone who wants one already has one? Is it because of the economy? Is it because Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Wii-mote waggle really were a "fad," as many suggested would turn out to be the case?
As we discuss our sentiments toward Wii (did you vote in the sidebar yet? Please?) and Nintendo's evolving market position -- and as our industry hardware sales languish in an alarming Summer slump -- it's worth asking.
Satoru Iwata has a perfectly logical explanation today, though. Nintendo's biggest head-scratchers from last year, Animal Crossing: City Folk and the misstep that is Wii Music, just were not the mega-sensations the company thought they'd be. Had those titles, which released in the second part of 2008, sold as well as that year's first-half hits, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit, Nintendo reasons that Wii sales would still be going strong. Iwata says it'll get it right this year, expecting Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros each to sell 10 million units globally in the fiscal year.
The company relies on what it often calls "evergreen" titles to keep selling and sustain hardware growth for month, even years, and City Folk and Wii Music shed their needles unexpectedly soon. Why do you think that was?
By the way, Iwata also admits that the E3 presentation was a little bit off (the Vitality Sensor was referred, with scornful bemusement, as "Wii Tampon" all over the show floor that week). This shows that Nintendo's at least aware it has a communication disconnect sometimes, in terms of helping audiences "get" what it is it's trying to do at any given time.
***promise i'm not starting a trend of abusing parentheticals, forgive this temporary anomoly, love ya
17 comments:
Nintendo are the only company who really publish evergreen titles - and it's always been one of the most impressive aspects of their business model to me, because their titles avoid the bargain bin indefinitely. I love my Wii, still buy titles for it (Little King, Order Up, HOTD Overkill and Boom Blox 1 & 2 were all keeping me entertained since xmas)and personally think that the only people who stop loving their Wii are people who stopped playing it. There's more must-haves on that platform than, say, PS3. I think the problem is that tentpole multiplatform titles fare worse on Wii - but that's ok if you own a 2nd console too. Each to it's strengths and all that.
In terms of whether Wii Fit and Brain Training are fads - ANY self improvement device or software is only going to last as long as people's resolve to keep going with it. Wii Fit lasted me longer than any rowing machine or treadmill has and was a lot more fun.
Finally - waggle. There aren't many Nintendo titles that use it if you think about it, I tend to think it's a 3rd party obsession. The Nintendo games that do vary from timeless and sublime (Sports, Galaxy, Kart) to feeling slightly bolted on (Zelda), but don't seem to exhibit anywhere near the obsession that 3rd party games do for using it for *everything*, whether it's the best choice or not. Super Smash showed Nintendo know when not to include it. But using the wiimote as a pointer? Still the best interface for navigating menus and selecting things IMO.
Microsoft and Sony never scaled the heights in terms of innovation like the Wii has, so it would seem natural that they won't appear to have fallen so far retrospectively, surely? Both parties are only now starting to develop tech to match and beat the Wii technology. If you're tired of waggle now, you're going to be really bleeding sick of it this time next year, on all platforms.
Evergreen titles are evergreen not because a company chooses them to be. Relying on certain franchises outputting quality games to sustain each hardware generation? Sounds like a decent business practice to me.
Here's the thing, though. As soon as one game in a franchise tanks, it can mean a huge drop in sales for future releases. Sonic could have been an evergreen franchise for Sega, but it's started to suck. Monstrously. If Mario games (we'll stick to straight up Mario platformers for the sake of this comment) start sucking monstrously, then we'll probably see a big drop in sales for the Mario franchise too.
Wii Music is, maybe not in name, a part of the "Wii Waggle" game brand which includes Wii Sports and Wii Fit, but I could not line it up with Mario and Zelda in terms of it being a trusted stand-by for Nintendo.
I can't explain why Wii Music, or City Folk tanked so bad, I didn't play either of them. Couldn't justify dropping 50 bucks on a child-proofed Rock Band or a game I already own on DS (Wide World).
Or is that the explanation?
In any case, Wii Sports Resort has been fun for me just trying it out on its own - if it's half as fun as a party game, which I'm guessing it will be, it'll likely do just fine, sales-wise. And as far as I know, it has been.
Well, that was unexpected - but welcomed :)
It is now my turn to agree with your observation - Nintendo, for all their splendour, are no strangers to tripping on themselves. Whether one enjoys Wii Fit or not, it's hard to argue that it achieves everything it set out to do. We can say the same about Wii Sports Resort, as well.
But not about titles like Wii Music.
It was not only a failure of communication between Nintendo and gamers, but also a failure of concept. The last time I saw Nintendo in a similar quandary was with the N64. You can excuse the odd choice of developing something like the Virtual Boy, sure, but in spite of magic like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time (although I must confess to having enjoyed Majora's Mask quite a bit more), it was the first time I was afraid for Nintendo. They felt out of touch.
Wii Music does not place Nintendo in such a dire state of affairs - it is, after all, a drop in the ocean considering all their other Wii titles - but it is indicative that, in some ways, they are still confused about certain aspects of their vision, and how to carry it out.
As an education tool, it stood at odds with the ability to rate ourselves and its limited exploration of teaching. As a videogame, it failed to grasp the very Nintendo foundation I mentioned - music games like Rock Band "get" the idea behind placing us in wonderful imaginary roles. Although I have to say, I've long been dreaming of a music game dedicated to videogame tunes - I'd very much enjoy playing those rocking beats from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night :)
And not only did it fail to communicate as a game, or even as a tool, but even Nintendo seemed to be at odds describing their goal.
I recently read about how Monster Hunter for the Wii giving a new sales boost, though. It's disappointing that people are still going for third-party games rather than welcoming more Nintendo titles, but with Wii Music you certainly can't blame them.
I believe their priorities are in the right place but they need to find a sweet spot where they manage to imprint their vision in games that also find a place in the 'core' gamer's heart. Easier said than done but then you have titles like Metroid Prime 3 - redefining firstperson shooters on consoles, a brilliant conclusion to the series and a deft revitalizing of an old fan favorite. The other day I played Wii Sports Resort - it was only a few steps away from being a spiritual successor to Pilotwings. Did Nintendo look at it in the same way? Possibly not; they looked at Wii Sports, decided to further expand the console's technology and the previous title's gameplay. Like Wii Fit, it's excellent at what it does. From a business standpoint, this is par for the course.
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But they need to focus on what it doesn't do as well. The ultimate 'problem' between Nintendo and this generation of gamers isn't one of treason - but one of communication. Gamers need to come to terms with what Nintendo means to them, and Nintendo needs to understand what it can give gamers. As the standard bearers for innovation in this console generation, they must've known it wouldn't be easy keeping it up. My biggest concern is that the Wii remains a peripheral curiosity to outside developers - certainly, the amount of shovelware and "Imagine"-styled games don't do the console any favors. Underdeveloped and neglected like the N64 - which would be a shame. Even before the Wii, both gamers and studios were slowly - and in the case of studios and publishers, painfully - realising that technological prowess only goes so far. Each console's online services, the emergence of webgames on social platforms, and the rise of indie developers are testament to that there is a market willing to forsake techwars and home straight at the fun. Both the DS and the Wii offered many possibilities for this, and while I have confidence in Nintendo - you can tell the N64 was a slice of humble pie when they declared the Wii was not out to compete and was simply playing its own game - they need to focus on what they do best. And do it a bit better.
But audiences could certainly save us from their "nintendo suckz lol" hive mentality. That's not helping anyone - especially not themselves.
You mis-linked "The Curse Of The Gifted Child", it points to "Evolution, Revolution" instead. :\
On-topic, I think a big problem with Wii Music is that it came out 3 years too late. By the time Nintendo released Wii Music, most of the world (gamers and non-gamers alike) had fallen in love with the Guitar Hero franchise, and Rock Band had recently blown everyone's minds with its cooperative gameplay and multiple instruments. That is, people were now used to tactile instrument-shaped controllers - if you asked a bunch of people whether they would prefer holding a plastic guitar and pressing buttons while strumming, or holding two small hunks of plastic in a guitar-like position and shaking one up and down, I would bet that the results would overwhelmingly favor the former. Same goes for beating on plastic drums vs. air drumming. And the novelty of the wackier instruments ("oh dude this is awesome I'm a fucking SINGING DOG holy shit") wears thin pretty quickly. Had Wii Music come out in 2005 (difficult as the Wii wasn't out yet), or even been a launch title in '06 as originally planned, it might have done better, as people had not yet gotten used to the Guitar Hero Way. (I can't speak to why City Folk didn't sell well - I played it, it was fun, although I got bored fairly quickly since it was basically the same as Wild World (which I played to death (abusing parentheticals is fun, you should do it more often)))
Wii Sports (Resort), on the other hand - there aren't very many popular, established sports game franchises with fake plastic controllers shaped like the relevant equipment (put your Wiimote in a plastic football and you can actually throw passes! This won't end badly at all). Plus, anyone who owns a Wii has probably played Wii Sports (I still do from time to time, it is definitely evergreen in that sense), and while I might have initially been skeptical that people would pay full price for another collection of minigames that involve flailing around like an idiot, the massive success of Wii Play (and third-party collections like Carnival Games, too) has eliminated that doubt from my mind. I know I want Wii Sports Resort - tim rogers' review helped convince me, but I was pretty much sold on the concept from the beginning. I would imagine the millions of people worldwide who will inevitably purchase it feel the same way.
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As regards Animal Crossing, it did not sufficiently distinguish itself from its competitor (its competitor being the DS Animal Crossing).
Wii Music had the opposite problem: it distinguished itself quite well against its competitors (Guitar Hero and Rock Band) but came up terribly short. The more people heart about Wii Music, the less interesting it seemed, but Nintendo just kept on promoting it, which is what led to the rumblings of an impression among core gamers (the ones who pay attention to such things) that they had lost touch with the core market.
Maybe those weren't the games Nintendo was hoping they'd compete against, but that's how it turned out.
Incidentally, since Nintendo now acknowledges Wii Music to have been a flop, the core has one less reason to believe that Nintendo is losing touch with them; rather, they just had a lapse of judgment of the sort they'd had before (emphasizing Gamecube-GBA connectivity, everything about the Virtual Boy, and ditching the Playstation before it was a separate console all come to mind).
The worst-case scenario for the core would have been if Wii Music turned out to be a really good game and sold record amounts. Nintendo being who they are, this would mean that they'd apply the lessons learned in that game throughout all the others. These lessons would be things that the core views as antifeatures. Quite vexing for them: here we've got a company that knows better than most anybody else how to make the games that the core love to play, and they're not applying that skill.
Bill -- thanks for noting, link has been fixed!! And thanks to all for the thoughtful comments, folk like you are the soul of my blog :)
When Nintendo threw out the rulebook and redefined the scope of what could viably be considered a "controller", they alienated a lot of gamers, and I think this is what it comes down to.
It's not just that Nintendo's targeting a whole new market at the expense of part of their old one; it's that they've abandoned the core model for gameplay that has defined generation after generation of console games. As I see it, that's what people are getting upset about.
It's not really the lack of core franchises that's winding people up; it's the lack of games with "traditional" gameplay models. It just happens that the core franchises tend to be nostalgic throwbacks to the earlier, more traditional models of gameplay that earlier characterised Nintendo. It’s why a certain audience - the ones who feel "betrayed" - want them so badly. They're yearning for certain types of games and a period of time that Nintendo is really trying to move away from.
For example, let's look at the New Super Mario Bros. game for Wii. Didn't Nintendo say that they wanted a mode that would essentially allow the game to play itself past difficult parts of the game? Super Mario Bros., in its design, is a traditional, hardcore, gamer's game; it's unforgiving, difficult, based entirely on skill and it penalises the player heavily for his or her mistakes. In some ways, it is the complete antithesis of the way Nintendo’s pitching themselves, and their games, now: accessible, family friendly, fun.
Part of the problem is that they're trying to placate an old market when they'd rather focus elsewhere, and that’s a difficult position to be in. I’d argue that it's not Nintendo fans who've grown out of Nintendo; it's Nintendo who's grown out of the relationship with its old fanbase. Nintendo just hasn't got the heart to submit the divorce papers yet. ;)
This, of course, is all theory. As someone who's no particular fan of Nintendo, I'm not exactly best placed to comment. As usual, I've just gone and opened my big mouth anyway. :D
The problem i find, is that Nintendo is in the right in going for people that are not like us that are "hardcore" Gamers(I loathe that term by the way) because we are a dying breed, just look at the comics industry to see what happens when you solely focus on one audience for too long. That kind of scares me to be honest.
Because lets face it, Wii sports and Wii fit are just not games. They are a collection of mini games at best. But thats the way forward apparently...
Also it doesn't matter that Nintendo tries, they've made the same game over and over again so many times i think people have got sick of it so even if the next zelda does come out people might ignore it because it will probably just be another copy of ocarina of time gameplay.
Oh and I do play some games that I used to play in my childhood..there still as fun as they are now.
I don't think I'm making much of an assumption when I say that most of us were excited for the Wii because we wanted the next installments of our favorite franchises: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash, etc. Basically, we wanted more of the same.
We thought this new motion control thing would be an interesting frontier, and we were willing to give it a try. However, there have been problems with this new system that none of us could have expected, and some of us probably can't even easily put into words.
As I said, we wanted more of the same, and we grew up playing games, comfortably reclining with our controller in our hands. The Wii betrays this habit; its controller and a healthy chunk of its gameplay is NOT more of the same.
Now instead of one controller, you have two, one for each hand, and this makes each controller more difficult to wield. A typical person holds a normal controller with their palms, not their fingers, which leaves the fingers free to do what they want, as well as requiring only half the work the Wii controller does from each hand.
Additionally, now there's a cord in the mix, and we have to unplug it and replug it every time we want to play our games (assuming that most of us have chargers). That's a lot more work than just picking up the 360 controller lying on your desk...especially if you use the wrist strap.
And of course, trying to play a game just feels different; I'm sure I'm not the only one who has played a game on the Wii and wished they could have used a PS3 or 360 controller instead.
Even titles that can be played with the Wii remote sideways, like Punchout!!, have their flaws...why does the game make me select menu options with the Wii sensor, forcing me to reposition my controller whenever I get in or out of a fight?
I think a lot of us just want to play a game, and we're getting older and lazier; using a normal controller is what we're used to. I know I have multiple friends who, when they relax their hands, end up with their hand in the exact shape of the grip they use on a Playstation 2 controller. We've become conditioned, what we like has been reinforced, and yes, yes, motion-sensing is cool, but just give us what we're used to...we want more of THAT.
I used to be on the Nintendo abandoned the hardcore bandwagon, then I just sort of came to terms with them being a profit seeking company first. That and these days there really are a decent amount of hardcore games to play on the Wii, they just don't sell at all. It's hard to get mad at a platform for not providing something when we buy less than a 100,000 copies of games like MadWorld.
Also, I read an interesting insight somewhere awhile back. Nintendo didn't abandon the hardcore, the hardcore abandoned Nintendo. They essentially did the same thing with the N64 and the GameCube that they did with the NES and SNES, but since the SNES their penetration went down with each subsequent generation. If we wanted Nintendo to keep it's old business model then we should have bought all their stuff during the previous two generations instead of going to Sony and Microsoft.
Their strategy wasn't working so they changed it and we all got angry.
"The problem i find, is that Nintendo is in the right in going for people that are not like us that are "hardcore" Gamers(I loathe that term by the way) because we are a dying breed, just look at the comics industry to see what happens when you solely focus on one audience for too long. That kind of scares me to be honest."
This hits the nail right on the head. I have a LOT of consoles in my living room and have been playing SF4 constantly since it has come out. However I do not identify myself as a "hardcore gamer" because, let's face it, most of the big games that get all the attention and hype are either pretty but shallow (i'm looking at you, little big planet) or hollywood-wannabe vaguely-homoerotic male power fantasties (do i even need to list any examples here?).
"hardcore" has just become a niche that marketing suits attempt to exploit in order to sell ads, in-game or out. anyone who complains about being betrayed (by nintendo or whoever) usually has an agenda they are trying to push or is just confused...
First of all, what Nintendo has done is incredibly smart, and from a business perspective I completely appreciate how much of a mega success the Wii and DS have been. They had to do something after the relative failures of the N64 and Gamecube, and what they came up with was innovative, brave and highly profitable (and also quite logical).
Now, and this is going back pretty far now, when I look at both the N64 and Gamecube, I see at least three things wrong, shared in common by both:
1. Crap support for EU territories, i.e. games were always released significantly later than in the US and Japan.
2. Terrible marketing; aesthetically crap, toy-like design. (All this can be tied into a major image problem that Nintendo had since the PS1 arrived on the scene.)
3. Lack of games. Whatever the reason, publishers did not flock to either the N64 or the Gamecube and the quality releases dried up pretty quickly unless they were first-party or strongly Nintendo affiliated.
My point is that Nintendo did a lot of things wrong during those years, and that's cause to suggest why a lot of fans jumped ship, and they were right to do so, in my humble opinion. In this sense, Nintendo had no one to blame other than themselves for their dumb decisions.
But you've also got to look at the position they were in just before the Wii. They were milking their old franchises to death - as they continue to do so now, I suppose - and becoming ever more obsolete in the industry. Quite honestly, while their portable sector was doing great business, without the Wii it appears to me completely plausible that they might have bowed out of the console market altogether.
And If you look at it that way, wouldn't it be better to have Nintendo around than not at all? I think the Nintendo that fanboys sometimes want the company to be probably wouldn't be able to compete in the market as it is today. So, really, Nintendo fans might count themselves lucky that the company exists - and positively thrives, no less - in any form at all.
The market grew up, and Nintendo didn't have a chance, so it created a new market for itself.
Phew, pretty complex, huh? What a muddle. Maybe it can all be summarised thus:
i. The market changed; Nintendo failed to change with it. Instead of the ubiquitous presence of yesteryear, Nintendo becomes (dun dun duuuuuun!) niche - too niche to really grow and prosper.
ii. Some gamers move on to better things (the fans "abandon" Nintendo); the "true", "core" fans stay loyal.
iii. Nintendo creates its own sub-market (Nintendo "abandons" the fans); the fans stubbornly refuse to move with the times and cling to the memory of a perceived golden age.
That's it. I know, it's awfully long-winded and rambling. Terrible, really. I promise that my normal writing isn't nearly as all over the place as it is here. :)
I will echo the sentiment of broken games being nostalgic.
During the N64 era I bought and played through a game called "Tonic Trouble" developed by UbiSoft and similar to the Rayman games. It was a TERRIBLE jumble and if I played it today it would only occasionally be fun. But when I was in middle school? It was basically the bees knees. In elementary school I played many SNES games which were probably even MORE terrible, but I cherished them and thought they were fantastic.
Sometimes I'll find myself close to ragequitting on a game these days, and I try to stop myself and ask, is this really that game breaking?
I think the answer is 'no' more often than 'yes'.
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The Wii... I actually played the console for the first time 2 weeks ago and I've been playing around with it since then. I got all the big titles for it and played through most of them. Didn't like them very much.
They all seemed kind of unfinished to me. Sure they're not really aimed at hardcore gamers like myself but that doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy them if they were up to today's standards. I do enjoy casual games. But it seems that the Wii generally lacks the production values of Playstation, Xbox and PC games (I had a lot more fun with Eyetoy Play 2 than with Wii sports for example). Mario Galaxy may be an exception but since I can't stand the sight of that stupid little guy anymore, I can't really judge the game.
I don't know... I quite like the controls the console offers, but they haven't done them justice yet in my opinion. I'm looking forward to Shattered Memories. Maybe that'll change my perception of the Wii, but what has been offered so far isn't anything spectacular or original.
And that is something I blame Nintendo for. They can do a hell of a lot better than this.
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