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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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I would look into the Gamecube and the console industry this much, but I'm just having too much fun playing the games.
If you want to talk about delays, how about Final Fantasy for the PS2?
We Europeans have to wait at least another year before we get a Final Fantasy game that the Japs have had for a whole year longer than us.
If they've got a whole team of translators, why does it take so damn long?
If they've got a whole team of translators, why does it take so damn long?
Yeah, but there's LOADS of text in FF games and the Nest gen ones are dubbed (unforuntately) so they need people who can actually SPEAK both languages,
Whitestripes wrote:
> 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.
I totally agree
> 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.
I totally agree
Something worth considering is this:
XBOX owners bicker endlessly about Nintendo and PS2
PS2 owners constantly bicker about Nintendo and XBOX
GameCube owners aren't complaining.
Why is that then?
XBOX owners bicker endlessly about Nintendo and PS2
PS2 owners constantly bicker about Nintendo and XBOX
GameCube owners aren't complaining.
Why is that then?
Insane Bartender wrote:
>> GameCube owners aren't complaining.
>
> Why is that then?
we are too busy fending off fanboys
>> GameCube owners aren't complaining.
>
> Why is that then?
we are too busy fending off fanboys
In a quality conversion PAL and NTSC games should run at identical rates. Again, another myth Nintendo have shoved down people's throats to make up for their own laziness. The screen refresh rate is different, that does not mean the game has to be slower. You just have to do more than simply convert the colour and then wack it out to a public so appreciative to get a release they overlook these things.
cookie monster - sorry, the benefit of the Gamecube existing is access to Nintendo games? If Ninty pulled out of the hardware industry the whole point is that the Cube wouldn't exist and the games would be on other consoles. PS2's outdated architecture? Things like that matter less and less as everyone is at a high level (it's like falling from 3,000 feet or 2,850 feet), espically as Sony have by far the best software libraries available to prospective developers allowing them to get more out of the system. Oh, and I really don't care about lining Bill Gate's pockets instead of Nintendo's - can't see the difference. A huge, international corporation with a history of questionable practices, price fixing, twising the arms of smaller developers, treating customers to substandard products and general distain Vs Microsoft.
With regards the "small" fall in prices (and I can remember paying far more than £40 for N64/SNES games). Well, firstly - we are comparing rates from ten years ago with now, that results in a significant change in prices. Look at why the EU fined Nintendo, estimates of the inflations run at around £10 per game.
The reason Nintendo doesn't get the "cool" gamers is because they're not aware of who Nintendo is. That's not the gamers fault, its Nintendo's total lack of ability to market they're own products.
cookie monster - sorry, the benefit of the Gamecube existing is access to Nintendo games? If Ninty pulled out of the hardware industry the whole point is that the Cube wouldn't exist and the games would be on other consoles. PS2's outdated architecture? Things like that matter less and less as everyone is at a high level (it's like falling from 3,000 feet or 2,850 feet), espically as Sony have by far the best software libraries available to prospective developers allowing them to get more out of the system. Oh, and I really don't care about lining Bill Gate's pockets instead of Nintendo's - can't see the difference. A huge, international corporation with a history of questionable practices, price fixing, twising the arms of smaller developers, treating customers to substandard products and general distain Vs Microsoft.
With regards the "small" fall in prices (and I can remember paying far more than £40 for N64/SNES games). Well, firstly - we are comparing rates from ten years ago with now, that results in a significant change in prices. Look at why the EU fined Nintendo, estimates of the inflations run at around £10 per game.
The reason Nintendo doesn't get the "cool" gamers is because they're not aware of who Nintendo is. That's not the gamers fault, its Nintendo's total lack of ability to market they're own products.
I can't be bothered to argue with someone who can't see the points that are being made.
Insane Bartender wrote:
> Something worth considering is this:
>
> XBOX owners bicker endlessly about Nintendo and PS2
> PS2 owners constantly bicker about Nintendo and XBOX
>
> GameCube owners aren't complaining.
>
> Why is that then?
Your generalising the whole system. people who own an xbox rant about the other companines. Not True. Same with PS2. There are a few jerks who decide to runa round saying "gcube sux" but thats not the whole user base.
Something else to consider. Get all 3 consoles, and argue with yourself, if you are going to argue at all (directed at all flamboiant fanboys)
> Something worth considering is this:
>
> XBOX owners bicker endlessly about Nintendo and PS2
> PS2 owners constantly bicker about Nintendo and XBOX
>
> GameCube owners aren't complaining.
>
> Why is that then?
Your generalising the whole system. people who own an xbox rant about the other companines. Not True. Same with PS2. There are a few jerks who decide to runa round saying "gcube sux" but thats not the whole user base.
Something else to consider. Get all 3 consoles, and argue with yourself, if you are going to argue at all (directed at all flamboiant fanboys)
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