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"Nintendo's future. Bleak?"

For the first time in years, there are more than two serious consoles hitting the market. Even more amazingly, two of these consoles are launching head-to-head, and the other is extremely well established... both with brand name and games.

So, not only has Nintendo got to compete with Sony (again!), but this time Microsoft have joined the scene. Add to that, the PS2 has had two Christmases worth of sales, and a huge repetoire of games, and the Xbox has a huge marketting budget (and a strong launch to go).

Clearly, Nintendo cannot compete with Microsoft on the TV screens- they simply don't ahve the money for that.

Oh no... Ninty have a far greater weapon at their disposly- games. And lots of them. With characters and franchises ranging from Mario and Zelda to Metroid and Kirby you wouldn't be suprised if Nintendo launched the Gamecube with the best line up of AAA titles seen...

In fact, I thought Nintendo had gone one better when they announced, a while back, that they had given the rights to many of their games away. Metroid, Smash Brothers and Starfox, amongst others, were to have sequals made by developers outside Nintendo. This would then enable Nintendo to concentrate on making some of the most spectacular games ever. Maybe a new Zelda for launch? Maybe something totally new!

But alas, things seem to be crumbling. First we hear news of Ninty's in house games. It turns out that Mario and Zelda will be absent from launch, to be replaced by a couple of weaker games. Ok, so the in house games are good fun, no doubt, BUT will these attract gamers to buy the Gamcube. Methinks not.

Nor will the news of a new Zelda wet gamers appetites- 90% of gamers are the casual sort who will buy a console on brandname alone, and don't read multiformat mags. How are Nintendo going to get these gamers to part with their PS2s, and buy a console that looks like a kids toy? (Sorry, but the console doesn't look "serious".)

OH! And things get worse!...

Those franchised games Ninty have given out aren't all they were promised to be.

At Spaceworld, there was a big absence of Metroid clips- only 8 seconds of the game were shown. Asked why this was, Mr. Miyamoto had to admit that he'd only got the code for the game just before the show, and he wasn't impressed by what he saw. The game had bad pop-up, no sound, was not interactive, and certainly wasn't worth the months of work that had been spent on it. (I believe the game was 8 months into developent at this time!). In fact, the whole future of the game looked on a knife edge.

The other games Ninty had handed out were all good, but many were so far from ready that you wonder why Nintendo didn't just make one of these games themselves to get it out at launch.

Before Nintendo fans throw a riot, let me just saya few things:

1) I am only talking about launch titles
2) I'm a huge Miyamoto fan and will be buying a GC myself
3) This topic is MEANT to cause discussion.

Oh, and remember, all the titles that miss release will come out eventually. So those Zeldas and Marios will certainly mean the console is a great piece of kit. That;s not what I'm arguing about.

I just want to know where all of Ninty's time has gone? They've given away many of their big games, has ages to make a killer titles, and instead they come out with Pikmin... fun, but not AAA by any means.

Sonic

===SONICRAV---> wrote:
> Ah! But one of Ninty's biggest mistakes with the N64 was saying that Sony was
> targetting a different market... in fact, many of Ninty's fans went straight to
> the PSX.

Oh, and the 16bit age was a classic... but that was when the
> industry was a fraction of the size it is now- hence Ninty's despirate need to
> re-establish itself in the market.

Sonic

Then Sonic tell me why the N64 outsold the Snes?

The N64 was a success ity made tonnes of money the GC will do better, we'll still see the awsome titles, Nintendo won't struggle, Ninty's happy, Sony fans will frow sales stats in our face whilst we simple go your loss and play on our GC.

Nintendo don't need to beat Sony the way an industry works doesn't take too much competition wise, a company must do what it must in order to make a profit. Nintendo make and sell hundreds of games, they sell many home consoles and they sell millions and millions of GBA's.

Competition is what Microsoft like they like fighting, they like bad mouthing Sony and Nintendo in their adverts, Nintendo are making money, they are happy, their fans are happy in fact all Nintendo need to do is keep making their fans happy and with the great icnrease in third party titles on the GC they'll deafinatly be doing that and Microsoft and Sony can make millions it doesnt make them any better.

Strayed away but still.

Dringo.

Tony_Blair wrote:
> h'ere' h'ere

What the hell as the point in this reply??? To get the word count up or something??!?!?!?

Sonic

h'ere' h'ere

Ah! But one of Ninty's biggest mistakes with the N64 was saying that Sony was targetting a different market... in fact, many of Ninty's fans went straight to the PSX.

Oh, and the 16bit age was a classic... but that was when the industry was a fraction of the size it is now- hence Ninty's despirate need to re-establish itself in the market.

Sonic

Good points from you there King, and yeah, those who remember the 'good old days' are likely to get GCs. They have Ninty franchises AND the 'new' Sonic game (update of the DC version). This means 16-bit gamers are gonna see many of their favourite franchises back in 3D (is it good or bad that they are in 3D for those that remember the 16-bit days? You could argue either way...) and therefore GC could be very strong with them.

However... not all those who remember the NES and SNES are 20+. I remember both those (although not much about NES cos I was very young, and didn't really have the means to find out about games back then) and some games. I remember the SNES and Megadrive fondly, and indeed have downloaded lots of classics from that era onto my PC with ROMs, to relive old memories, and play classic games I missed back then. And I am only 16. The first game I remember playing was ghosts and goblins on the NES. Got me off to a difficult start. That game was incredibley hard! But I have so many other great memories, and that is one of the major factors that makes me want a GC... all those classics updated, and I can't wait to see what Ninty do next with their franchises.

Anyway, good replies from Sonic and King... but Sonic, don't forget that Ninty may have to compete with PS2, but Microsoft is targeting PS2s market more than Ninty is.

Good points, but what I'm saying is that Microsoft have already succeeded in all the tasks you've set them. They have the excellent launch games, as well as plenty of third party developers. They will have the "cool" factor once they get their ads going.

Oh, and the thing about MS buying Bunngie...
This was a major move for the company- not only does it show other developers that they are serious about supporting the console and making sure it won't flop, but it also meant that MS has some great games!

The console is certainly NOT a PC- just a look at the launch titles will show you it's a serious gaming machine with some veryy hardcore titles. It's aimed primarily at console gamers, however, it's hoped that with the PC architecture PC developers will join the console.... it's pretty clear that PC gaming is on the way out (BIG TIME!), and if MS happens to have a lot of PC developers on its side then it'll certainly attract a hell of a lot of new console gamers.

Finally, Ninty's oposition is NOT just MS.... what about Sony with the PS2- now that's a pretty tough market to compete with!

Sonic

Just a few thoughts on this rather interesting topic…

To be honest both the Xbox and GC are going to be pretty cool and I’d like both – and that’s coming from someone who’s only just bought a PS2! However, I really believe that those of you that are saying Nintendo have the uphill battle against Xbox have got it the wrong way around.

Remember when the PSone was released – it took a HUGE amount effort of (in both monetary and PR terms) for Sony to get the machine into the position it found its self in a couple of years later i.e. the market leader by miles.
The PSone wasn’t ‘born’ cool, it didn’t have a huge library of games and to top it all Sony were the ‘new guys’ to the video games business. They (Sony) had to build a brand, they had to ‘tell’ their customers why they wanted a Play Station and they had to build–up a collection of really good games. This really does take time - although credit where credit is due, Sony did this better than any company in video game history.
And it was only when the Play station went main stream, i.e. people started to see it as something to do when they get back form the pub, that it really started to go crazy. When Sony finally achieved this level of ‘cool’ every developer under the sun wanted to program for the machine – no other console had a chance. Hence the N64, and to a degree the DreamCast, were just dodo’s waiting to happen.

Microsoft have the same sort of uphill battle ahead of them, and they don’t have a console which, graphically speaking, stands head-and-shoulders above the competition (and the WOW factor in those days meant a lot) like Sony had with PSone over Sega Saturn et ‘el.
And before anyone says anything, I said ‘head-and-shoulders’ above the competition – Xbox my have the best spec, but for all intense and purposes all three consoles have the same-ish capabilities when it comes to graphics.

In addition, Microsoft have no franchises to fall back on. They can’t release a new Mario game (okay this time around the launch title is Luigi’s but it’s the same character wearing green dungarees) and know that’ll it’ll sell shed loads – and in the mean time work on the next killer game. Microsoft have got to start their own series of games – like Sony did so well with the GT. If they can’t do this then they’ve got to persuade quality 3rd party developers to come onboard and help them out – and to a certain degree they’ve achieved this. Games like Gotham Racer and DoA3 certainly look and play very well but they are not classics. The only true great game that the Xbox has at launch – having played most of them – is Halo. And the irony of this is that the only reason this game is on Xbox is because big bad bill pulled out his chequebook and BOUGHT the company developing the game! A move which may yet back fire as it really pi$$ed of the PC community (who already hate Microsoft anyway) and guess what? Gamers who play PC titles are one of the main target ordinances for the Xbox!

Additionally, those of you that say that the GC will only appeal to younger gamers are slightly underestimating the amount of people who ‘grew up’ with the NES and SNES and the lasting influence these amazing GAMES machines had. I owned both a NES and Super NES in my early teens and I can honestly say the games I loved then are ones that I still want to play today. For this reason a new Mario game is worth buying a GC for alone – not to mention StarFox, Zelda, Donkey Kong etc! Nintendo really do have the best franchises in the business and most people do know this.
For this reason the GC will appeal to young gamers (read 14 years and under) and gamers that remember the ‘good old days’ (22+ years old). The former will buy the console for Pokemon – this game could make the Atari Jaguar sell! While the older guys (and Gals) are going to be buying a GC to relive there misspent youth. Also remember that gamers aged 22+ are the section of the public that have the most disposable income to spend on video games!

Anyway I appear to have written far more than I intended so I’ll sign off at this stage – I’m sure most of you are either asleep or have gone anyway!

Just don’t underestimate GC or Nintendo – you can be sure Microsoft hasn’t!

But how long can ninty string out pokemon...

hold on! The banner says there's a pokemon Crystal edition! For the love of God!

Sonic

There's always room for expansion.

But frankly, with all the money Nintendo are making form Pokemon merchendise, they don't even need their consoles to be a success anymore.