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Let’s drop the act – Nintendo are not by any stretch of the imagination the gamer friendly company. In both the past and the present they’ve been nothing but self-interested, shamefully unorganized and afraid to look to the seemingly plagued shores of Europe, the second largest video games market.
I’ll start with the incident that prompted this rant – the Zelda bonus disk. Now what an idea that was! Not only were we going to get the eagerly anticipated new Zelda title, but a mix of a revamped classic with some totally new content in the form of the second bonus title. All we had to do was pre-order and this bounty would be ours for a meagre sum. To begin with the only problem is what to play first – it seemed as if Nintendo were almost apologising for something… then I was reminded what.
Nintendo couldn’t organise a stag party in a brewery that moon-lights as a lap dancing parlour. We’ve seen it time and time again, the Zelda Bonus disk fiasco is just the latest example. In short, chaos reigned. I have two Gamecubes, one US and one UK and knowing Nintendo slow international releases I wanted to get my name down for a US copy of Zelda with the bonus disks. A simple task you may think, everyone who pre-orders gets the bonus… or not, as the case may be. Retailers simply don’t have a clue what’s happening, they don’t know how many copies of the bonus disks they’ll be getting and in turn which customers will get these. I put my name down with a (previously) highly reputable retailer in November but I know my pre-order definitely won’t be supplied with the bonus. Why? In the chaos the only people who can benefit are those out to rip people off. I got an e-mail on Saturday from the company I pre-ordered with telling me that if I was quick I could get the bonus disk for £19.99 – that’s on top of the £45.99 I paid for the game back in November. They’d decided not to give out their allocation of the freebies as the additional content they were intended as, but to make themselves a profit from the people desperate to get their hands on these titles.
So despite the fact I got my pre-order logged in a timely manner, I get no bonus disks (needless to say I’ve cancelled my order with these scum bags in disgust). “How’s this Nintendo’s fault”, you say? Well, the whole thing is borne out of the confusion. The exact same thing was complained about at the time of the Japanese launch of Zelda, but Nintendo have done nothing. They could inform retailers of how much stock they’ll get so the reputable ones can tell customers where they stand before ordering. They could have bundled the bonus disks and actual game together, rather than packaging them separate and in totally different cases to allow dodgy retailers to sell them on rather than hand them out to the disserving pre-ordering customers. What can you expect from Nintendo though? That amateur operation that gets by because they have some talented coders who develop quality titles, but do just about everything else totally wrong.
Zelda is actually are rare breed – a title that is scheduled for a reasonable quick international launch. It shows that Nintendo can do it, hell, any company can. An international conversion is not hard. We’ve believed the lies we were fed for too long and forgiven good old Nintendo, the gamer’s friend. A high quality NTSC to PAL conversion takes a matter of days. One of the very few good points about international piracy is that they’ve displayed that a competent organisation can do this conversion to a high standard inside a week. That’s criminals without the billions of pounds worth of investment in equipment and talent like Nintendo, and who have to wait until the street date to get their hands on the code. Then there is the language translations, surely taking all that text and turning it into the numerous European languages for our launch is time consuming… why? Come on, pin this down. We’re talking about translating a couple of thousand words into four or five languages, and the translations don’t even need to be that specific. We’re not translating Byron or Elliot here; as long as the message is communicated in a grammatically correct manner we’re sorted. Again, remember this can also be done while the game is still in development, there is no rule that says Nintendo have to wait until the title hits the Japanese streets before they think about international translations.
The truth is Nintendo just don’t care about these things. They really don’t act like a company limping along behind two competitors. How else can you explain the delay of Metroid? Christmas is the crucial time of the year, yet Nintendo relied solely on the existence of a Mario game to set things straight. They played around with a little advertising, but were totally swamped by their competitors’ media blitz. Look at the way Sony strained to get GTA3 out for that all important period (granted, with a few bugs). Nintendo, on the other hand, released a fully working English version of Metriod in the States in November… and nothing over here. Would the Gamecube have faired better over here with two AAA titles over the festive period, undoubtedly. You could also add Super Monkey Ball 2 and Animal Crossing to that, two more AAA titles that had a US launch long ago yet Nintendo seem reluctant to bring them to these shores.
Being Nintendo, there is always a final slap in the face. With all these slow conversions, the Freeloader seems like a godsend to the forgotten UK Gamecube owner. Okay, he’d have to pay a little more for imported titles, but at least he’d get them. How does Nintendo react to this? Does Nintendo see that there is an obvious demand in the European market and roll up their sleeves to get stuck into the conversions? Of course not. Nintendo decides to do everything it can to stop the launch of Freeloader, despite the fact the product breaks no laws and can only allow genuine, full price titles to be played. Nintendo bullied the companies who press the small DVD disks as well as strived to continually change their international locks to bar the Freeloader. All this effort to stop their customers enjoying games they’d purchased at inflated import prices. Games that Nintendo couldn’t be bothered to give international releases to. Yeah, the gamer’s friend.
Such distain for customers isn’t new. The 16-bit era is largely remembered as Nintendo’s high point, it also marked another high point – prices. Using their dominant position Nintendo proceeded to slaughter everyone and grab every penny they could. The 3rd parties suffered, the publishers suffered, the retailers suffered, the distributors suffered, and, most of all, the consumers suffered. It took that evil corporation Sony to come in and offer low licence fees and low prices to the consumer to straighten things out. This wasn’t their only crime then, as anyone who eagerly anticipated Super Mario RPG will remember, those international launches have always been a problem (1080’s “a snowboarding game won’t sell in the Summer” must be the low point of their total stupidity, oops, almost forgot about Christmas 2002).
I was a Nintendo kid; I’ve owned every single Nintendo console, including numerous versions of the each Gameboy in it’s Original, Pocket, Colour, Advance and SP phases (oh, there’s another nice trick there – don’t provide a headphone jack with the unit, make the consumer buy one later). Forget Sonic, I remember Mario Vs Alec Kidd arguments. However, overtime Sony has shown how things should be done, how a reputable console maker should operate if he has the consumer’s interests at heart – which naturally will lead to a profit as well. With all this in mind I can only come to the conclusion that Nintendo needs to pack the hardware side of things in, well I suppose they’d have to keep the highly profitable Gameboy up an running (maintaining the position that has held back the technological advancement of the handheld console for years – innovative only when their isn’t a customer to extort it seems).
What do we actually benefit from the existence of the Gamecube? I really struggle to see. Any of Nintendo’s titles could be converted to the PS2 or Xbox and it would cut down the hardware costs as we’d only have two consoles to fork out for, rather than three. The Gamecube isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a revolutionary console, the only “innovation” even the staunchest fanboy will name is the Wavebird. A wireless controller? Come on, that’s pushing it. They’ve been around for years and the use of wi-fi rather than infra-red is a decision made because of external technological advancements.
If Nintendo developed for the PS2 or Xbox we’d get the same high quality titles, just on different platforms. Really, how much would that matter? I never thought I’d be saying this, but there really seems no point in their hardware department. Hopefully with such a big concern off their minds they could get on with pumping out the quality titles. Maybe the high competition among the 3rd parties would even encourage them to get international releases under their belt quickly.
The lack of concern in Europe over Christmas verges on suicidal. Already retailers are discounting stock to clear; Metroid and Zelda have come too late. Knowing Nintendo, they won’t bother to advertise the launch of these titles anyway, so the public won’t be aware they’re missing out on anything. Your average gamer now doesn’t know the Zelda franchise like he would have a decade ago. He doesn’t know it almost guarantees quality, and Nintendo seem reluctant to tell him. Something like the bonus disks would be such a good value-adding tool for getting attentions, but, bringing me round full circle, who says Nintendo can even manage to distribute this seemingly brilliant PR tool without causing chaos and disappointment.
That went on rather longer than intended… coffee well cold now. Oh, cue the fanboy “they’re sooooooo innovative” responding rants. To snip some points in the bud, Jumping Jack on the PS was the first 3D platformer, Nights and Mario 64 were developed at the same time diluting the claim even further. Secondly, the analogue controller is as old as the hills, around decades before the N64.
I’ll start with the incident that prompted this rant – the Zelda bonus disk. Now what an idea that was! Not only were we going to get the eagerly anticipated new Zelda title, but a mix of a revamped classic with some totally new content in the form of the second bonus title. All we had to do was pre-order and this bounty would be ours for a meagre sum. To begin with the only problem is what to play first – it seemed as if Nintendo were almost apologising for something… then I was reminded what.
Nintendo couldn’t organise a stag party in a brewery that moon-lights as a lap dancing parlour. We’ve seen it time and time again, the Zelda Bonus disk fiasco is just the latest example. In short, chaos reigned. I have two Gamecubes, one US and one UK and knowing Nintendo slow international releases I wanted to get my name down for a US copy of Zelda with the bonus disks. A simple task you may think, everyone who pre-orders gets the bonus… or not, as the case may be. Retailers simply don’t have a clue what’s happening, they don’t know how many copies of the bonus disks they’ll be getting and in turn which customers will get these. I put my name down with a (previously) highly reputable retailer in November but I know my pre-order definitely won’t be supplied with the bonus. Why? In the chaos the only people who can benefit are those out to rip people off. I got an e-mail on Saturday from the company I pre-ordered with telling me that if I was quick I could get the bonus disk for £19.99 – that’s on top of the £45.99 I paid for the game back in November. They’d decided not to give out their allocation of the freebies as the additional content they were intended as, but to make themselves a profit from the people desperate to get their hands on these titles.
So despite the fact I got my pre-order logged in a timely manner, I get no bonus disks (needless to say I’ve cancelled my order with these scum bags in disgust). “How’s this Nintendo’s fault”, you say? Well, the whole thing is borne out of the confusion. The exact same thing was complained about at the time of the Japanese launch of Zelda, but Nintendo have done nothing. They could inform retailers of how much stock they’ll get so the reputable ones can tell customers where they stand before ordering. They could have bundled the bonus disks and actual game together, rather than packaging them separate and in totally different cases to allow dodgy retailers to sell them on rather than hand them out to the disserving pre-ordering customers. What can you expect from Nintendo though? That amateur operation that gets by because they have some talented coders who develop quality titles, but do just about everything else totally wrong.
Zelda is actually are rare breed – a title that is scheduled for a reasonable quick international launch. It shows that Nintendo can do it, hell, any company can. An international conversion is not hard. We’ve believed the lies we were fed for too long and forgiven good old Nintendo, the gamer’s friend. A high quality NTSC to PAL conversion takes a matter of days. One of the very few good points about international piracy is that they’ve displayed that a competent organisation can do this conversion to a high standard inside a week. That’s criminals without the billions of pounds worth of investment in equipment and talent like Nintendo, and who have to wait until the street date to get their hands on the code. Then there is the language translations, surely taking all that text and turning it into the numerous European languages for our launch is time consuming… why? Come on, pin this down. We’re talking about translating a couple of thousand words into four or five languages, and the translations don’t even need to be that specific. We’re not translating Byron or Elliot here; as long as the message is communicated in a grammatically correct manner we’re sorted. Again, remember this can also be done while the game is still in development, there is no rule that says Nintendo have to wait until the title hits the Japanese streets before they think about international translations.
The truth is Nintendo just don’t care about these things. They really don’t act like a company limping along behind two competitors. How else can you explain the delay of Metroid? Christmas is the crucial time of the year, yet Nintendo relied solely on the existence of a Mario game to set things straight. They played around with a little advertising, but were totally swamped by their competitors’ media blitz. Look at the way Sony strained to get GTA3 out for that all important period (granted, with a few bugs). Nintendo, on the other hand, released a fully working English version of Metriod in the States in November… and nothing over here. Would the Gamecube have faired better over here with two AAA titles over the festive period, undoubtedly. You could also add Super Monkey Ball 2 and Animal Crossing to that, two more AAA titles that had a US launch long ago yet Nintendo seem reluctant to bring them to these shores.
Being Nintendo, there is always a final slap in the face. With all these slow conversions, the Freeloader seems like a godsend to the forgotten UK Gamecube owner. Okay, he’d have to pay a little more for imported titles, but at least he’d get them. How does Nintendo react to this? Does Nintendo see that there is an obvious demand in the European market and roll up their sleeves to get stuck into the conversions? Of course not. Nintendo decides to do everything it can to stop the launch of Freeloader, despite the fact the product breaks no laws and can only allow genuine, full price titles to be played. Nintendo bullied the companies who press the small DVD disks as well as strived to continually change their international locks to bar the Freeloader. All this effort to stop their customers enjoying games they’d purchased at inflated import prices. Games that Nintendo couldn’t be bothered to give international releases to. Yeah, the gamer’s friend.
Such distain for customers isn’t new. The 16-bit era is largely remembered as Nintendo’s high point, it also marked another high point – prices. Using their dominant position Nintendo proceeded to slaughter everyone and grab every penny they could. The 3rd parties suffered, the publishers suffered, the retailers suffered, the distributors suffered, and, most of all, the consumers suffered. It took that evil corporation Sony to come in and offer low licence fees and low prices to the consumer to straighten things out. This wasn’t their only crime then, as anyone who eagerly anticipated Super Mario RPG will remember, those international launches have always been a problem (1080’s “a snowboarding game won’t sell in the Summer” must be the low point of their total stupidity, oops, almost forgot about Christmas 2002).
I was a Nintendo kid; I’ve owned every single Nintendo console, including numerous versions of the each Gameboy in it’s Original, Pocket, Colour, Advance and SP phases (oh, there’s another nice trick there – don’t provide a headphone jack with the unit, make the consumer buy one later). Forget Sonic, I remember Mario Vs Alec Kidd arguments. However, overtime Sony has shown how things should be done, how a reputable console maker should operate if he has the consumer’s interests at heart – which naturally will lead to a profit as well. With all this in mind I can only come to the conclusion that Nintendo needs to pack the hardware side of things in, well I suppose they’d have to keep the highly profitable Gameboy up an running (maintaining the position that has held back the technological advancement of the handheld console for years – innovative only when their isn’t a customer to extort it seems).
What do we actually benefit from the existence of the Gamecube? I really struggle to see. Any of Nintendo’s titles could be converted to the PS2 or Xbox and it would cut down the hardware costs as we’d only have two consoles to fork out for, rather than three. The Gamecube isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a revolutionary console, the only “innovation” even the staunchest fanboy will name is the Wavebird. A wireless controller? Come on, that’s pushing it. They’ve been around for years and the use of wi-fi rather than infra-red is a decision made because of external technological advancements.
If Nintendo developed for the PS2 or Xbox we’d get the same high quality titles, just on different platforms. Really, how much would that matter? I never thought I’d be saying this, but there really seems no point in their hardware department. Hopefully with such a big concern off their minds they could get on with pumping out the quality titles. Maybe the high competition among the 3rd parties would even encourage them to get international releases under their belt quickly.
The lack of concern in Europe over Christmas verges on suicidal. Already retailers are discounting stock to clear; Metroid and Zelda have come too late. Knowing Nintendo, they won’t bother to advertise the launch of these titles anyway, so the public won’t be aware they’re missing out on anything. Your average gamer now doesn’t know the Zelda franchise like he would have a decade ago. He doesn’t know it almost guarantees quality, and Nintendo seem reluctant to tell him. Something like the bonus disks would be such a good value-adding tool for getting attentions, but, bringing me round full circle, who says Nintendo can even manage to distribute this seemingly brilliant PR tool without causing chaos and disappointment.
That went on rather longer than intended… coffee well cold now. Oh, cue the fanboy “they’re sooooooo innovative” responding rants. To snip some points in the bud, Jumping Jack on the PS was the first 3D platformer, Nights and Mario 64 were developed at the same time diluting the claim even further. Secondly, the analogue controller is as old as the hills, around decades before the N64.
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Tellah wrote:
> Hmmmm. Metroid Prime was released months ago in the states and I don't
> know for sure, but there can't be that much translation in what's
> essentially a shooter.
> I could probably do it myself in a couple of days with a dictionary.
There's actually gonna be a whole load of game play upgrades for the European version when it's released.
It's now harder amongst other things.
> Hmmmm. Metroid Prime was released months ago in the states and I don't
> know for sure, but there can't be that much translation in what's
> essentially a shooter.
> I could probably do it myself in a couple of days with a dictionary.
There's actually gonna be a whole load of game play upgrades for the European version when it's released.
It's now harder amongst other things.
idlewild wrote:
> The thing is though, there isn't one soul european language, meaning
> that it has to be translated into many languages for EU. So ner.
Believe it or not, there isn't just one person doing all the translations. You can have multiple people translating the same game while it is still in development and ready for a same day worldwide release... ahh but Nintendo needn't bother treating their customers with such care. They'll struggle by with fanboys blindingly accepting anything they do for a little longer. I'll carry on playing their games, but it really does feel like an effort to give my money to Nintendo - sooner or later the struggle will overcome the benefit.
To Whitestripes, sorry, but that sounds like, sorry IS, a total cop out. I know Nintendo make great games, but no sane person can argue that they've treated they're European customers in anything approaching a professional manner.
> The thing is though, there isn't one soul european language, meaning
> that it has to be translated into many languages for EU. So ner.
Believe it or not, there isn't just one person doing all the translations. You can have multiple people translating the same game while it is still in development and ready for a same day worldwide release... ahh but Nintendo needn't bother treating their customers with such care. They'll struggle by with fanboys blindingly accepting anything they do for a little longer. I'll carry on playing their games, but it really does feel like an effort to give my money to Nintendo - sooner or later the struggle will overcome the benefit.
To Whitestripes, sorry, but that sounds like, sorry IS, a total cop out. I know Nintendo make great games, but no sane person can argue that they've treated they're European customers in anything approaching a professional manner.
maddmun wrote:
> Since when is Europe the second biggest games market?
As most people forget, in terms of raw numbers Japan trails way behind Europe and the US.
> Since when is Europe the second biggest games market?
As most people forget, in terms of raw numbers Japan trails way behind Europe and the US.
Games take a bit too long to get from the US to the UK.
That is my only gripe with Nintendo. Being a GC owner already, and being very well informed about the games industry, I couldn't give a crap about adverts; I know what's coming and I know what I want.
Oh, and I've only seen two XBox adverts since the orignals were banned.
And I wouldn't call a whirlwind promotion tour of Europe by Shigeru himself, with hundreds of thousands turning up to meet him in London a few weeks ago, a lack of 'pushing' the new Zelda.
That is my only gripe with Nintendo. Being a GC owner already, and being very well informed about the games industry, I couldn't give a crap about adverts; I know what's coming and I know what I want.
Oh, and I've only seen two XBox adverts since the orignals were banned.
And I wouldn't call a whirlwind promotion tour of Europe by Shigeru himself, with hundreds of thousands turning up to meet him in London a few weeks ago, a lack of 'pushing' the new Zelda.
maddmun wrote:
> Since when is Europe the second biggest games market?
---
Since Europe has been bigger than Japan.
Which it always has been. :-)
> Since when is Europe the second biggest games market?
---
Since Europe has been bigger than Japan.
Which it always has been. :-)
Great, Shigsy. He'll pull in the casual gamers and shift units. His flying visit makes up for Nintendo's wonderful practice of treating Europe as an after thought. That makes up for not being able to walk into a shop and buy games that have been available elsewhere for months. That's made me forget about all those years I paid inflated prices for games because Nintendo, in an illegal act that the EU fined them for, controlled a cartel in Europe to keep prices artifically high - but then the consumers get little benefit out of that fine (and that doesn't evfen take into account the bully tatics they used on publishers and 3rd parties to pump up their profits and the prices we paid). I've suddenly forgiven them for the substandard PAL translations which for years forced us to play games at a slower speed than intended.
Way I see it, get them developing for the PS2/MS and the worst case senario is that I get the same treatment, so have to wait for the great games, but didn't have to spend £300 on hardware from two different regions.
Seriously, you're happy Nintendo think so much of your custom they make you wait for months rather than completing the prompt conversions many other publishers manage?
Way I see it, get them developing for the PS2/MS and the worst case senario is that I get the same treatment, so have to wait for the great games, but didn't have to spend £300 on hardware from two different regions.
Seriously, you're happy Nintendo think so much of your custom they make you wait for months rather than completing the prompt conversions many other publishers manage?
ANyway, it's not Nintendo that have the problem, compared to Japan, US gamers are getting a raw deal. It's the public IN Europe, most couldn't care less about when games are released, and they couldn't care less about Nintendo, so Nintendo shouldn't be nice to them.
That's what I'm like...
That's what I'm like...
I have a Q. I don't buy PAL games.
And actually, all PAL games run slower than NTSC games. As for the inflated prices, when I had a SNES I bought new games for £40, and now they average at £36, bearing in mind that cartridges cost more than DVDs.
And judging by the huge crowds when he came to London, I'd say it was a success.
And like I said before, I've seen more GC adverts than Xbox ones, and the PS2 adverts are crap. It doens't matter how much advertising Sony want to make, I'll never buy a Playstation until there's enough games on it I want to play. If they spent less time putting up posters and billboards saying the PS2 is 'The Third Place' and more time trying to convince me I want to play their games, they might be a bit more successful.
Even the most intelligent PS2 owner can't deny that a lot of it's userbase is made up of sheep and people wanting to be 'cool'. The GC has no such fanbase, and so everyone who bought one really wanted one, for the games.
And actually, all PAL games run slower than NTSC games. As for the inflated prices, when I had a SNES I bought new games for £40, and now they average at £36, bearing in mind that cartridges cost more than DVDs.
And judging by the huge crowds when he came to London, I'd say it was a success.
And like I said before, I've seen more GC adverts than Xbox ones, and the PS2 adverts are crap. It doens't matter how much advertising Sony want to make, I'll never buy a Playstation until there's enough games on it I want to play. If they spent less time putting up posters and billboards saying the PS2 is 'The Third Place' and more time trying to convince me I want to play their games, they might be a bit more successful.
Even the most intelligent PS2 owner can't deny that a lot of it's userbase is made up of sheep and people wanting to be 'cool'. The GC has no such fanbase, and so everyone who bought one really wanted one, for the games.
Dr Gonzo wrote:
> How about you read the post and make a sensible, constructive reply
> relating to the points raised.
>
> What do we benefit from the Gamecube's existance? It allows Nintendo
> to wallow in the same style they have for the last ten years while
> watching their market share slide away. Get them out of the hardware
> business quick and have them opperating as a slimmed down organisation
> doing what they do best - developing top quality titles. Hopefully
> without the distractions it'll given them more time to think about
> small things like Europe, the second largest games market.
What do we gain from Gamecube existence? What about the access to the best games producer in the industry, period. I can think of no producer that continually produces games of such quality time and time again, SEGA comes close, but its not close enough.
And what about those people that want the multiformat games, but dont find the PS2 or Xbox to be to their liking. The gamecube offers them another option, if you dont want to fill Bill's overstuffed pockets, buy a gamecube. If you dont want the PS2's outdated architecture , buy a gamecube.
I could wittle on for another 500 or so words to counteract your initial post, but to be honest, why bother?
> How about you read the post and make a sensible, constructive reply
> relating to the points raised.
>
> What do we benefit from the Gamecube's existance? It allows Nintendo
> to wallow in the same style they have for the last ten years while
> watching their market share slide away. Get them out of the hardware
> business quick and have them opperating as a slimmed down organisation
> doing what they do best - developing top quality titles. Hopefully
> without the distractions it'll given them more time to think about
> small things like Europe, the second largest games market.
What do we gain from Gamecube existence? What about the access to the best games producer in the industry, period. I can think of no producer that continually produces games of such quality time and time again, SEGA comes close, but its not close enough.
And what about those people that want the multiformat games, but dont find the PS2 or Xbox to be to their liking. The gamecube offers them another option, if you dont want to fill Bill's overstuffed pockets, buy a gamecube. If you dont want the PS2's outdated architecture , buy a gamecube.
I could wittle on for another 500 or so words to counteract your initial post, but to be honest, why bother?
Metroids getting blitz advertising too.
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