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"Future hitches for Nintendo?"

Now whilst after a highly impressive E3, we all no doubt feel like loving Nintendo, and kissing Mr. Miyamoto’s feet, but I think that we can’t afford to get carried away. Nintendo still has a future that is unpredictable and masked with mystery; we are still yet to see what the casual gamers are going to think about the Nintendo DS and other such exciting products from the Big N. But what about the other franchises and aspects that we associate with Nintendo, or which are vital to them? Enter…

Source 1: Pokemon - [URL]http://www.planetnintendo.co.uk/poke_draw.JPG[/URL]
Monster battle you say? Pokemon I say. Yes its still by far the leading title of its genre, but what about the genre as a whole? Ever since the Pokemon card obsession seemed to fizzle out the games have slowly but surely decreased in popularity. Sure there will always be a select few that keep this franchise living, but I think it would have been better for Nintendo to cash in on a fully 3D Pokemon RPG game earlier, when the name was so incredibly popular. I can see this being a very niche market in the future.

Source 2: Mario - [URL]http://www.planetnintendo.co.uk/mario_draw.JPG[/URL]
Mario, and everyone loves Mario. Or do they? According to the recent disliking directed towards the great Italian’s latest game on the ‘Cube it seems his status may well be on the plunge as well. I personally loved it, and whilst many would agree, a vast majority also believe Sunshine to be a shadow of its former N64 title, and an untrue update to its genre. Does this mean the platform-lovers of Nintendo are getting grumpy with Nintendo too? And what about Mario 128? That seems to be shaping up to be something different too, and God knows the amount of strops that are liable to form over that.

Source 3: 3rd Parties - [URL]http://www.planetnintendo.co.uk/third_party.JPG[/URL]
Is it just me or has it become progressively more worrying the amount of 3rd parties packing up their Gamecube games and heading PS2 and Xbox exclusive. Even before now top titles such as Rainbow Six 3 and Splinter Cell have gone down this route before eventually after much wait offering the titles on ‘Cube too. With Eidos, Acclaim and EA all looking prone to going down this route also, Nintendo relations on the 3rd party front seem to be crumbling. My idea? Tell these companies that if they don’t want to make games for Gamecube then they can’t make them for GBA either. If this were the case, and contributions were made to Nintendo as a whole then more companies would have second thoughts when it came to deserting the ‘Cube. The Gameboy is, and always has been, big business.

Source 4: Zelda - [URL]http://www.planetnintendo.co.uk/zelda_draw2.jpg[/URL]
After the pant-wettingly pleasing E3 outing, everyone has been talking about the next Gamecube Zelda game. Fully realistic, just what us Ninty fans want, but is it what the general public want? Are they, like us, going to see what a console shifting game this may well turn out to be, or will it be a combination of this, and poor Nintendo advertising that will fail to shift the new update? I personally can’t wait for this, it seems to have retained all of the brilliance and aspects that made Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask great and packed it together with a wealth of new features. A bit much to say so soon, but if the public aren’t made fully aware of what a killer game this could be for the ‘Cube, it could go all wrong.

Source 5: Shigsy - [URL]http://www.planetnintendo.co.uk/shig_draw.jpg[/URL]
The maestro himself, behind Zelda, Mario 64, and of course the brilliant Pikmin. What if he packs it in though, and packs it in whilst all the franchises he has created are running out of steam? The man isn’t getting any younger at 50-something; lets just hope Nintendo can soak up every ounce of banjo-playing genius before the Spielberg of video games departs, eh? Slightly irrelevant, this one, yet something to ponder over all the same.

So there you have it, Nintendo’s future, whilst particularly bright after E3, could still be somewhat thwarted by other such causes. I, like most am still sure that the genius company will conjure new ways to differentiate exclusive franchises such as Mario and Zelda. But what about Pokemon and other future consoles? Are Nintendo ever going to be in danger of running out of innovation, or perhaps money to fuel such creativity? Only time will tell, and only the general public will decide.

Thanks for looking.

What Nintendo needs is a franchise to rival other big ones at the moment like GTA that the all general public know about.

Most people would link Mario to Nintendo.. but it's now not as popular by any means. Nintendo need a "GTA".

And I think Ashman was talking critically rather than mass popularity.
That's where Sunshine fell behind the usual Mario standards.


As to mass appeal, Mario will never be the Mario that dominated gaming in the late 80's. Pokémon will never dominate like in the late 90's.
Tetris was king of handheld gaming early 90's.

Zelda was always the pet of the Nintendo hardcore. :-)


In the end, franchises come, franchises go.
Nintendo have pretty much lost hope of becoming market leader in the short term, but it doesn't matter because despite being a failure compared to the phenomenal Playstation, the N64 was Nintendo's biggest selling console yet. And with the price of game production starting to drop again, Nintendo will always be making big profits so they'll never go out of business.

:-)

Dringo wrote:
> They still have a wider third party support roster than they did with
> the N64.
>
> Ashman is not right about Mario losing popularity after Sunshine
> though, Sunshine is a good Mario game... there has been tonnes of BAD
> Mario games.

Sunshine was good but...

Well, as bad as minor Mario games, the main series of Mario was always mind blowing.


The first Mario brothers re-invented the platformer.
Mario 3 blew it out of the water and still surprise you when you realise that it was designed for that 8 bit Nes that started life with a conversion of Donkey Kong from the Arcades.
Super Mario World wasn't QUITE as big as advancement as before, but still took the series to new heights in ideas, playability and level design.
And the Mario 64 re-mastered the series into 3D (after everyone said that 3D platform games just weren't possible!).

Mario Sunshine game along.
It took all the necessary steps forward in terms of playability and pure control mechanics. For the first hour or so you're in gaming heaven.
Effortlessly wall-jumping and triple jumping across Delfino rooftops to your heart's content, and playing football with the coconuts...

But the level design...

Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully made and had its platforming moments, but on the whole the game felt more like a cheap funny spin-off than the next big thing in platform game design.

Not because Nintendo couldn't, but because they didn't find "making the best game ever" rewarding anymore, for some reason.
I think Shigsy got into some anti commitment crisis and started getting bored of games the moment he got the controls working! :-D

It sounds like he's got bigger plans for the next Mario and Zelda though, although I'll believe it when I see it.
No more hype for me! :-)

Mario topped the all-formats chart, despite it having an installed userbase of, like, 2, at the time.

I'm not sure why you keep making such sweeping, unfounded generalisations about the public's view of Mario, Pokemon, Zelda or even Nintendo, but they don't really hold up when you consider it.

Mario sunshine topped the all format charts when it was released, and disappointment from the general Press (The Guardian for instance) about Mario 128 not being shown at E3 illustrates that people are anticipating the game hugely, and that Mario still has the calibre to attract gamers.

Many E3 analysts have said how much potential the DS has, and it seems to have wowed even the most casual of videogames journalists. I'm not suggesting for a second that Nintendo will ever appeal to the same market as the Playstation does, because it won't ever, but that doesn't mean that Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong and even Nintendo themselves aren't popular trademarks, because they certainly are.

Dringo wrote:
> Ashman is not right about Mario losing popularity after Sunshine
> though, Sunshine is a good Mario game... there has been tonnes of BAD
> Mario games.

"Ash" pur-lease. And yes, I agree, I too loved Sunshine, just check my SR review, but the fact is it has hardly dominated the screens like its previous games have. I think that Mario is perhaps an exception, but that doesn't change the fact that it now seems to only appeal to the Nintendo hardcore, and casual gamers are hardly interested by it.

There are some thrid party titles I would really like to see venture on to the cube such as the new 'Mercenarries' game by lucasarts. However Developers are putting the cube further and further towards the back of their minds when designing games nowadays and I think if the GC is going to survive (aswell as the N5) nintendo have to rekindle their relationships with third party devlopers and establish new and fresh partnerships such as the one with square.

They still have a wider third party support roster than they did with the N64.

Ashman is not right about Mario losing popularity after Sunshine though, Sunshine is a good Mario game... there has been tonnes of BAD Mario games.

I agree Strafio, I was merely pointing out that on a wider scale, Nintendo are never going to attract the vast amounts of people that Sony are managing to, and thus, may lose third party support. This could be financially severe for Nintendo, but my opinion is that they will always survive, just not be the force of what Sony is financially.

Ashman is right, but it doesn't matter.

Nintendo's market plan doesn't rely on bigshot overwhelming of the market.
They budget well and make a decent profit on a relatively small amount of sales.

Mario will never be world dominating like he was in the late 80's.
Pokémon will never be the world dominating franchise like it was in the late 90's.

Nintendo will carry on regardless.

New franchises will be hit and miss but Nintendo will always have its fanbase to float on.