Reader! Reader! Haven’t you heard?
Zelda: Skyward Sword was so popular that people were driving to other states to get it. (1)
Due to the popularity of Skyward Sword, it remained everyone’s favorite game on the system for YEARS and YEARS to become an instant classic. (2)
Zelda: Skyward Sword clearly sold over seven million copies worldwide for being such a hit. (3)
Due to how popular Zelda currently is, there are cartoon shows about the characters. (4)
Mario is so popular today, all the kids do nothing but play Mario. (5) Perhaps Mario might even get his own movie. (6) Mario is so cool, every video game company is trying to make a mascot to compete against him. (7) Did you see the latest NEW WORLDS in that newest Mario game that has everyone talking? (8)
Metroid is such an expert game that it is only for advanced players. (9) Even PC gamers respect and will buy a console to get to Metroid. (10)
Nintendo is growing so fast that even the computer companies fear Nintendo. When Apple was asked which company it fears most, it said, “Nintendo.” (11)
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1) Zelda 2 was in such demand, people were driving state to state in order to get a copy.
2) Link to the Past dominated the Nintendo Power community list for years. There is no disagreement from anyone today that the game is a classic.
3) Ocarina of Time sold over seven million copies worldwide and is the best selling Zelda despite a smaller market space in that time period.
4) Zelda was its own cartoon show combined with the Super Mario Super Show and had a presence with Captain N.
5) Today, most kids play Minecraft.
6) Mario was popular enough to have Hollywood actually follow through with a movie.
7) No one is trying to compete against Mario. His market is too small to consider stealing. Sonic and Bonk are among the massive roster of mascots that were made to compete against Mario.
8) There has been no new world added to the Mushroom World since Super Mario World. Mario games are now recycled content.
9) Metroid was originally marketed as the ‘hard’ game for the NES and then Gameboy.
10) One of the writers for PC GAMER magazine, the guy who used to review the RPG games, said that he bought the NES because of Metroid, the Gameboy because of Metroid II, and the SNES because of Super Metroid. Even Metroid Prime impressed this type of gamer. Did anyone buy a Wii for Metroid: Other M?
11) Apple did say this once.
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My biggest challenge when making this website was communicating to people what a true gaming phenomenon was like. To those of us who lived through the Atari or NES Eras, there is no need to communicate this phenomenon. But as time went on, there were people who were born outside the GAMING REVOLUTION and consider the game business to be nothing but ‘console warfare’. They don’t remember Tron. They don’t remember the President of the United States devoting speeches to video games and the great revolution.
But we are only six years away from the Wii phenomenon. Has everyone forgotten what the Wii launch felt like? I want to say, “No, surely people haven’t forgotten the Wii launch.” But I used to think everyone remembered the Atari and NES phenomenons. Surely, people will be forgetting the Wii phenomenon as well.
Does the Wii U feel like the Wii launch? Or does it feel more like the Gamecube launch? The Wii was a small controller with big ideas. The Wii U is a big controller with small ideas. The Wii transformed our living rooms into play-dens. The Wii U looks to transform the Nintendo home console into a Gameboy.
And that is what the GamePad is: a Gameboy. The controller is a Gameboy.
Note that I’m not too concerned that Nintendo is going down the road of mediocrity. I’m more concerned that Nintendo is denying us the choice of their better quality games since they know it would cannibalize sales of their current crappy games. If you had an option of playing Mario Chase or Pac-Man Versus, which would you choose? How about Nintendo Land’s Metroid versus the Metroid Primes?
If Nintendo’s stuff is so rich in quality and extremely innovative, then why is Nintendo scared of selling their games on the same digital shelf to games decades older? Why would a HD Nintendo be scared of 8-bit games? Why would a GamePad Nintendo be scared of 16-bit games? Why would a ‘we’re-online-now’ Nintendo be scared of N64 games?
What is the game console? Is it a high turnover contraption that relies on a gimmick? Or is it a low turnover companion where you carefully add to your growing game collection? I’d say its the latter.
Six years from now, the successor of the Wii U will easily toss aside the GamePad just as the Wii U is tossing aside the Wii remote. The Wii U seems nothing more than Nintendo pretending they never took a different path with the Wii and returning back to the Gamecube road.
The question is, reader, do you want to buy another Gamecube?
