Hi. I’ve just read the new announcements for the 3DS, and aside from the exhorbitant price for the Japanese market (more expensive than the Wii!), I finally realised why I’ve been so underwhelmed by the console since it was originally announced. Look at the 3DS launch game library in this video:
http://kotaku.com/5650702/watch-almost-every-3ds-game-in-action
These are almost all console games! Nintendo is literally taking Sony’s PSP strategy and building a handheld macine that focuses on “better graphics” and delivering the home console experience. Why!? You’d think Nintendo would have learned by now that that practice doesn’t work. I don’t want to play a Resident Evil 4-style game hunched over my handheld. I want to play it on my TV!
I know you praised the 3DS for cutting off Sony from competing in the 3D market, but I have to question whether that was a pursuit worth following. The Nintendo DS sold by the bucketload when Sony was actively competing. Would getting rid of Sony really justify this drop in quality handheld gaming?
Quality in handheld gaming!? Oh reader! Don’t you realize that ‘quality’ is defined by whatever is entertaining to Nintendo’s producers? Nintendo is unhealthily obsessed over 3d technology. Nintendo’s businessmen and developers are very competent. But if you walk into a room where they are at with a bag full of ‘new fangled 3d technology’ and proceed to empty the bag onto the table, those competent businessmen and developers would suddenly become drooling and uttering strange grunts.
“What do you mean, Malstrom? What do you mean Nintendo is obsessed over 3d technology?”
Well, it isn’t like they abandoned the game that made the company (Super Mario Brothers) for 3d technology. It isn’t like Nintendo put out a failed game console that was ‘virtual reality’ goggles that had to be played on a table and only had a single color of red. It isn’t like after the heights of the NES and the competitive SNES that Nintendo radically redesigned their controller and made almost all their games 3d from that point on. It isn’t like Nintendo was so enamored over new 3d technology that they put ‘3d’ into the DS successor’s brand’s name. It isn’t like Nintendo made another 3d Mario for a Nintendo console to insist you unworthy consumers fall in love with the 3d technology by making it ‘easier’ and ‘simpler’ to experience this ‘3d nirvana’ Nintendo keeps ramming at you. It isn’t like Iwata has already declared the 9th Generation home console will be 3d output (we’re talking the successor to the successor of the Wii).
The 3DS was not designed for you. The 3DS was designed for the ‘Industry’ and to provide a fix to the sick 3d obsession Nintendo developers have. The fact that the new ‘analog slider’ is placed in the dominant position on the 3DS tells you exactly where the software is going to go.
You will not get that new 2d Mario. How could it be played with the D-pad being placed in an odd spot?
You will not get that new 2d Metroid. Besides, Sakamoto would rather show off his creativity to you with more ‘maternal instincts’.
All in all, this is the N64 curse Part 2. What old school gamers kept complaining is how all games ‘had’ to be 3d because the hardware supported it. It was said at the time that ‘2d games no longer sell’. What we see with games like Mario 5 is that they most certainly do sell. The reason why the games you and I want are not made is not because they won’t sell but because the producers at Nintendo (Miyamoto, Aonuma, Sakamoto, etc.) do not want to make them. What we get instead are the lame ass formulas Nintendo keeps using for every generation that is interesting from a production standpoint but not from a gameplay standpoint or from a consumer standpoint. The reason why Nintendo’s audience trends younger is because the young are experiencing the formulas for the very first time. And after each release of a game, the developers will have tea with Iwata at an Iwata Asks interview where they congratulate each other on how creative they are.
Yes, the 3DS is disruptive to Sony’s 3d gaming push. But the problem is that you cannot disrupt a market that does not exist. There is no 3d output gaming market yet. Nintendo is disrupting a mirage. Nintendo did this with User Generated Content because they knew Sony was going User Generated Content so Nintendo put the pedal to the metal and went full out UGC and had the flagship title of Wii Music to lead it.
The true purpose of the 3d technology is to lock the market so software developers get used to developing for it and do not develop for other platforms. That is the 3DS in a nutshell. Nintendo’s success in handheld gaming is thanks much in part to how Nintendo blocks potential entrants before they can gain any foothold.
The 3DS is N64 deja vu to me. If it appeals to you, more power to you. But I am getting off the bandwagon. I won’t purchase the 3DS. Not even a 2d Mario can draw me in at this point with the controller.
Nintendo is contradicting itself. When the Wii was introduced, Nintendo said the new controller is to correct the mistake of the complicated and frightening typical game console controller. So what does Nintendo do? They slap it on their latest handheld. Do they really expect people like me who refuse to buy any game console with such a control scheme (N64, Gamecube, even the PlayStations and Xboxes) to pick up that contraption? Not even the Virtual Handheld with gameboy games can draw me in because why the hell do I want to play classic Gameboy games with inferior controls? I’d rather play it on my original Gameboy where the D-Pad is in the correct position.
What is going to happen is that the 3DS will start out with strong sales. But then it will wane. Nintendo will put out ‘innovative’ software and sales will still wane. A big reason why is that the original Nintendo customers will not be pulled into the 3DS. If Nintendo cannot get former customers, they will be unable to reach new markets. The ‘Game Industry’ and its critics will not understand what is going on, as they never understand anything going on, and will say the decline in sales is due to some mystical ‘console war’ somewhere and blame the decline on cell phone gaming or even iPads.
I don’t think Nintendo understands the difference between video games and 3d technology as they think they are the same. This misunderstanding of what gaming is has delivered Nintendo N64 sales, Gamecube sales, and Wii sales collapse.I suppose in 20 years, they will understand this as it took them that long to realize their previous mistakes. It goes to show that time, not reason, is the only thing to thaw arrogance.
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