Hi Malstrom
One of the things that have puzzled me about the 3DS is Nintendo’s focus on street pass. The DS had pretty much the same feature.
Some games (e. g. Nintendogs) could keep sending WiFi signals while the DS was closed. And if you came across another person doing the same thing you could unlock dog races that person had.
But, unless I have been living under a rock for the past six years, this feature went nowhere. Let’s just make a quick rundown of all the requirements for a successful transfer:
-I would have to be carrying my DS around. Personally I only do so if I know there is a chance I will get to play it. There is no need to have a DS with me while I’m shopping for groceries, but it has become my standard equipment when I have to wait at he doctor or whatever.
-I would have to be carrying a game compatible with this feature around
-I would have to keep my DS running, constantly draining its battery
-Most important of all, I would have to come across a person who did the exact same things as I did AND had the exact same game running as I have.
Now tell me, what are the odds of meeting all these criteria? So what would you do, drain your DS battery and risk not being able to play any more when you want to, just for the chance of unlocking something, or simply leave your DS shut down?
Besides, what exactly is the point of street pass? Do I really want my DS to play Street Fighter on its own while I’m busy? That’s like building a stereo that plays music at home while you’re driving the car.
You know what would really make me interested in bringing along my DS? If there was a really fun multiplayer game that every DS came with. Download play is great, but it takes quite a while and if you only have a couple of minutes that can already be too much. But if every person has that game multiplayer can happen much faster. And even when you download a person’s game most of the time multiplayer is too limited. In Mario Kart you get only a couple of courses and only the host can chose his character, while everyone else has to play as Shy Guy. Why not include Mario Kart with the handheld? Everyone likes Mario Kart and racing games do not suffer if you make them in 3D (I’d even say it makes them better when you are driving fast).
I also liked you example of the family with three kids. I happen to come from such a family and being able to play a game such as Mario Kart (despite its limited multiplayer), 42 all-time classics (love that one), Tetris (never had an original Game Boy and the GBC came without a game, what a shame) or the multiplayer mode from New Super Mario Bros. with my brother or sister without having to buy the game twice is incredible.
If I was in charge at a console making company, I’d go even further. Why is multiplayer limited to a maximum of four people (even most board games are)? Why not instead of using more processing power, higher resolution and bigger TV screens to make games look prettier, use all this power to allow six player simultaneously? On of the few things Nintendo did well with the N64 was allowing four players at a time. Why stop there? You know why? Because developers just don’t care. I can understand it in an action game due to limited processing power, but there is no reason not to do so in a turn-based game. Smash Bros. Brawl has a mode where you can organize a tournament, I think it can handle about 30 people and you can set how many players face off at the same time. Why is this an exception and not the rule? If the developers went all the way to make the game work, how hard can it be for them to implement a simple change in rules? It would mean quite a lot to the customer.
There are multiplayer games on the DS and Wii that are more than four players. On the DS, there was Bomberman and Tetris that allowed up to 8 players (I think). Bust-A-Move allowed 6 players. On the Wii, Bomberman Blast allows 8 players I think.
But yeah, Street pass is too passive to be considered as a huge feature. Remember WiiConnect 24/7? I’m thinking it is along those lines.
I want games. Awesome games. And I want to play them with everyone. Things like DS download play help facilitate this.
From the publisher’s point of view, they think that if they do this then they will end up selling less copies. This is wrong. Instead of buying 5 Mario Kart games, the family will probably not even bother with the handheld at all. And even though it might be one game per family, they often would buy other games.
The more gamers play, the more games they buy. When gamers play less and less, they buy less games.
One thing we don’t really see analyzed anywhere is that while a killer app might get someone to buy the hardware, the killer app also sends the player to go buy additional games. For example, Super Mario Brothers was so awesome, people not only bought a NES, they then went out and bought all sorts of other games. People had so much fun with Super Mario Brothers, they looked for other games that were as fun. And I think this is the same with Sonic, Tetris, Wii Sports, and other killer app games.
When I finished Mario 5, I was so ecstatic that I wanted to go out and buy more games! But, alas, there were no other games similar to quality on the Wii. I think that desire is what actually fueled the 2d Kirby game and DKCR sales. But I don’t consider either games really successes since they didn’t facilitate that desire. The torch burned out. Sales are too tepid.
I see killer app games creating so much interest in gaming that it generates sales in other games on that system. It is stupid to say that Super Mario Brothers stole sales from other NES games. No one says that today because they would sound dumb. Without Super Mario Brothers, most people wouldn’t have bought the NES or even looked at any of the NES games. The same went for Tetris and Gameboy or Space Invaders and Atari 2600 or Wii Sports and the Wii.
To those who LOVE Zelda, be it any Zelda from Ocarina of Time to Link to the Past, you are always in the mood for more Zelda. So when you hear of a game that is ‘like Zelda’, you immediately tune in. Some of you buy it. In this way, your interest in Zelda ends up catapulting you to a completely different series from another company. For example, those who loved Zelda 2 ended up checking out Battle of Olympus for the NES due to how it has a similar experience. Thanks to Super Mario Brothers, 2d platformers rose out of the ground, like mushrooms, throughout the 8-bit and 16-bit generation. People wouldn’t stop buying them.
The myth is that a really good first party game ends up killing third party game sales. The truth is that really good first party games end up generating third party sales. Customers do not choose between games. Interested customers choose ‘all-the-above’. The threat is never another game or a better game. The threat is disinterest.
Every game company owes their existence to the incredible video games that created interest in gaming. Pac-Man didn’t take away sales from other games, it added to them. Super Mario Brothers didn’t take away sales from other games. It created so much interest that rose the tide that lifted all gaming boats. When a video game creates interest, it benefits not just that game but all games.
From my own buying habits, when I am having fun playing games is when I tend to keep buying more and more. When I become annoyed or disinterested, I buy less. I bought Mega Man 2 when I rented it almost immediately after. I bought Mega Man 3 the day it came out. I bought Mega Man 4 too. But after 4, it didn’t seem the same. So I didn’t buy Mega Man 5 or 6.
I don’t think the business model has changed at all. Good games destroy disinterest (which causes these customers to pick up other games). Bad games increase disinterest (which causes customers to not buy games anymore). As a consumer, gaming always feels like only a handful of games are actually fun while a larger number are ‘OK’, and the rest is a sea of garbage.
I wish game companies, like Nintendo, would focus on making amazing games that we don’t want to stop playing. Instead, Nintendo seems more interested in ‘tricks’ and ‘viral elements’ than in actually making a fun video game. This is why I don’t like things like ‘street pass’ or AR software or face raiders. The monster of disinterest needs to be slain constantly. Science projects and marketing tricks do not kill disinterest in video games.
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