Dear Sean –
I don’t want to sound like I think you’re crazy, since I don’t, but there is something that is troubling me about your recent discussions of Nintendo. Perhaps you can enlighten me further.
Lately, what with the 3DS and all the stuff sure to come in on the new Project Cafe (or whatever the blazes its called), I believe I totally agree with you in the business sense of “bad idea.” As a gamer as well, I’m dissapointed in the directions Nintendo is taking. It will cost them. All the same, not mortally. For example, the 3DS is overpriced. No doubt about it. I know that’s immediately why people look into the PSP as an alternative. But what happens when Sony does the incredibly stupid thing and releases the NGP? Well, focus will shift on back to the 3DS. This isn’t Nintendo’s strategy of course, but I think the 3DS will not remain a disaster, and most likely the 3D sort of forgotten. Especially after costs come down and they release with better battery life.
However, I think we may be getting ahead of ourselves by confirming Nintendo’s failure in the next generation of consoles from the start. I started to pick it up in your articles talking about how Nintendo is facing disaster, etc. I doubt that actually. And I don’t think Nintendo will be seen as a failure in the next generation. It may not do “as well” as it could have, given the proper foundations for a successful console, but it in my limited understanding I can’t help but ask this question:
Are we seeing the rise of the N64? Or the Gamecube? We all see the problems that started coming out of the N64 era, but such problems did not become as serious to Nintendo until we were well into the Gamecube era. Unlike with N64, the Gamecube signalled something was clearly WRONG with Nintendo. Truthfully, I wonder as well at your explanations of what made the original N64 fail.
You claim it was Nintendo’s misguided gaming policy, but is there any truth to the idea that Sony had a better policy? And this is key I think in any discussion going forward about the success of Nintendo’s next console. What are the competitors doing?
What I am afraid will happen will be that Nintendo deals only with the new challenges of high-end computers and new players on the market such as Apple, etc. As of yet, I don’t think they will present any serious need for Nintendo to change anything they do. Not from a console perspective anyways. Portable devices are another story entirely of course. The reason I say this is because are we honestly expecting Microsoft or Sony to bring any actual competition to Nintendo? Do you think someone else will swoop in to change the dynamics?
Perhaps I need to see what you think of the competition before moving further. Did Microsoft and Sony learn anything from the past generation? News of the NGP tends to signal Sony has no clue what its doing, and Microsoft is still desperately hyping its Kinect.
I don’t quite know yet what will happen, but I somehow get the feeling that whatever Nintendo does in the next console will resemble the N64, and not the Gamecube, in terms of the result. And we may be waiting for a generation beyond this next one, and someone who can seize upon the gaming market the correct principles going forth, before we see any change whatsoever. In short, Nintendo may be the proclaimed “winner” by holding the largest share of the gaming market (even if it does decrease some), and feel they need do nothing to change. Nobody else at the moment seems to know any better. Anything can change, I suppose, but I respectfully have to disagree with you that the impending “disaster” is at all imminent, or that soon Nintendo will be replacing top execs because they see the writing on the wall. I think it might move much more slowly. If it does fail, we may be two generations down the line before we can look back and fully realize the trainwreck.
Incidentally, I like reading your articles, but there was one a long time ago that really cut me me deeply! D: I know its not the sort of game you probably play, but I really like the Fire Emblem franchise and I’ll have you know you slandered us FE players in that one article (too long ago to make me go and find it), making us seem like ludicrous fringe gamers (of which I suppose we sort of are). Anyways, thought you might get a kick out of that, knowing a die-hard FE player enjoys reading your posts.
Sincerely,
An amused and thinking reader
I wrote a long essay in reply, but then I deleted it to write the following.
Why must I explain why the N64 was a failure? Why? It should be self-evident to all.
Part of the Blue Ocean Strategy, and even disruption, is looking at The Big Picture. What is The Big Picture? I will tell you what is NOT The Big Picture. It is NOT whether the product is ‘profitable’ (as Nintendo consoles are). It is NOT whether the product did better than the previous product (Xbox 360 from the original Xbox). It is NOT that the system didn’t fail as spectacularly as other products (Ps3 is no Pippen).
The Big Picture is beyond the frame of a generation. The Big Picture demands not a ten year frame, not a twenty year frame, not even a thirty year frame, but a fifty year frame.
The Big Picture is integrating video games in society. This is the Revolution. In fact, it was this Revolution that was the original tree that the fruit of the Computer Revolution grew from. Success can only be defined as furthering the Revolution, furthering integrating video games in society. This is The Big Picture.
Based on The Big Picture, what video game consoles were successful? Skipping the PONG Era, there have only been three video game consoles, ever made, that have been successful. These are the Atari 2600, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Wii. And the Wii is questionable at best. The Wii proved, beyond a shadow of the doubt, that Nintendo and the Game Industry are not prepared for the big leagues. They lack the emotional and intellectual rigor to further integrating gaming in society. What other conclusion can there be when a game developer says, “I do not want to make games the masses wants?” Or even the over-rated Miyamoto showing, without a shadow of a doubt, he is not emotionally prepared for video games to be mainstream when he keeps trying to make the games he wants.
The Wii shows that when Nintendo swam into the Blue Ocean, they could not handle it. So they are swimming back to the shallow waters which they are more comfortable with. The Blue Ocean is scary. Unless you know how to swim, you will drown.
We will have to wait at least twenty years or more until someone else is brave enough to try again. From Nintendo’s recent executive statements and current behavior, they have zero interest in continuing that direction. In fact, they seem very interested in making the typical game console. Why? It is because the software developers would prefer to make software they want to play. It much easier and much less scary than to make games for the non-traditional audience.
Someone might say, “But Malstrom, look at how gaming has grown since the NES. Look at that!” Right, Sherlock. And what is this ‘growth’? Is this ‘growth’ actually integration of video games into society? No! It is not true growth but just based on trends completely unrelated to gaming including…
-Population Growth
-Gamers having more disposable income since gaming continued past childhood into adulthood.
-Introduction of new territories in the globe. For example, once upon a time there was the Soviet Union, and it was not exactly a market you could sell video games. Global trade, as we know it, did not exist decades ago.
-Economic upswing. From around 1983, the United States has been in a massive economic expansion that did not stop until just recently.
In terms of The Big Picture, video games could have been stagnant or even declining yet show growth across the board due to these trends.
But like the wind, trends change. Now the trends are moving against video games…
-Population Decline (in Japan and European nations, though not in North America which is still growing).
-Less new territories opening up than before.
-Gamers having less disposable income than before due to economic shifts.
-Economic recession. The United States is in recession. Japan has been in a recession since the 90s. Areas of Europe falling into a steep recession like Greece.
No matter which way the trends blow, video games should be marching forward in integration with society. In the 70s, when trends were against it, gaming continued to grow. In the early 80s, when trends were against it, is considered a Golden Era of video games. The Revolution must continue.
Integration with society does not mean slapping games on a cell phone because cell phones can act like portable computers. Integration with society does not mean stuffing movie playback on game hardware. Integration with society does not mean free games downloaded by your browser.
Integration with society means integration with people’s daily lives on the most personal level. It is considered a passage of childhood to give a young boy a baseball and a baseball bat. Anyone who denied a young boy a baseball and a bat would be thought to be cruel.
We almost got to the point where it became part of a passage of childhood for a young boy (and maybe girl) to grow up with a game console bundled with Super Mario Brothers. The NES and the SNES generation of kids swear by it. It was a very powerful phenomenon. It partly defined their childhood. It is an event as strong, or even stronger, to these people now than the event of a child given a baseball and a baseball bat. Every child deserves to grow up with Super Mario Brothers. When the NES and SNES generations grew up, they began trying to replicate this event, which profoundly touched their childhood, through their children or through their nieces and nephews. It was only until the Wii that this event could be replicated again (resulting in the largest amount of any game console sold in December 2009 in the United States). And remember, the United States was already in a recession. Just because the trends were against gaming didn’t mean gaming didn’t grow.
This example of the American passage of childhood of kids growing up with Super Mario Brothers is what I mean by integration with society. This is a form of integration that is truly bound by the society and interwoven through out. People saying ‘integration with society’ to mean putting games on cell phones are completely missing it.
Back during the Atari Era, movies were replicating video games (instead of the other way around). For example, see Tron. Movies are an obsolete form of media that belongs in the ash heap of a previous century. Why game developers wish to mimic movies has always told me they don’t know what their true mission is (and it comes across as vanity).
For one brief moment (at least in America), you saw what the Revolution was with the Wii. Let me give this example of integration with society. Go into any waiting room, what do you see? You see a ton of crappy magazines that no one reads like Time or Newsweek. The reason why they are there is because the receptionist orders them because it seems as if that is the expected thing to do. I hate waiting rooms. I’m sure so does the reader. Wouldn’t it be more fun if there was something there like… say… Wii Sports? Early during the Wii Era, Wii Sports was trying to break out of its home confines and enter businesses and places where no one thought it would go. As the Wii Era progressed and Nintendo refused to follow up on Wii Sports, and did ridiculous things like throw in the stupid ‘island concept’ into Wii Sports Resort, it chased Wii Sports out of businesses. Even now, Nintendo is ruining their Miis by making them so… ‘fruity’ that these games can never, ever integrate in things like a business’s waiting room.
Wii Fit is a good example of integrating gaming with society. In the case of Wii Fit, it was using the medium of video games to achieve fitness goals. Going to the gym and doing exercises sucks and is boring. Game elements have the possibility of transforming how we do fitness and, since we need to do fitness anyway, this integrates gaming into society.
Nintendo had all these plans for the Wii. One plan was to sell Wii systems to book stores (for what purpose? dunno) but to get the Wii system out of the ‘video game section’ and into other sections. Why shouldn’t a video game console be found in a sports section, for example? Keep in mind, this was how the video game market was born. PONG was sold by Sears Sporting Goods.
So back to your original question, why do I consider the N64 a failure? The answer is that it not only failed to further integrate gaming into society, it did the opposite by putting up walls. A better way to describe the N64 is as an ‘Anti-Game Console’. That console did more to harm the Revolution of Video Games than almost any other. And the Gamecube continued that direction.
It was only until I heard Iwata, in 2005, blame the N64 for Nintendo’s big problems then that I realized there was hope for the company and for gaming. Iwata correctly blamed the N64 for putting a wall between gamers and non-gamers, by increasing the stigmatization of gamers, by making games too long, too bloated, and the Wii would do things like ‘correct’ the controller.
Today, I do not hear Iwata or Miyamoto speak about the N64 in the way they did prior to the Wii. Instead, they talk of the N64 as if it were the Greatest System Ever. This tells me that their future console performance will be serious decline like the N64 and Gamecube were. Nintendo was even talking up the Virtual Boy! So the writing was clear how the 3DS would perform. How on earth can the 3DS perform the Revolution? How can the 3DS integrate gaming with society? At best, it might integrate movies and the console if anyone gave a damn about 3d. But 3DS will do just the opposite of integrating gaming and society. It will separate gaming from society as almost all of the fail consoles have done since the Atari 2600 and NES.
So no, I do not think I’m jumping the gun.
Remember folks, the success of the Wii is the norm. Let me repeat this in case anyone did not hear me. The success of the Wii is the norm. It is normal for gaming to expand, normal to integrate itself into new parts of society. It is NOT lightning in a bottle. It is NOT a fluke.
Atari was declared to be a fluke. Video games were just a fad, it was said. Atari, though, did crash but it had nothing to do with the Revolution. While the home consoles got swept into a black hole, gaming continued in the arcades and on home computers. When the NES appeared and became successful, again, people said this was a fluke.
The most prominent person to say the NES was just a fad and would collapse was Trip Hawkins, president of Electronic Arts. Hawkins was told by the board that if EA did not make games for the NES, he would be removed as president.
Was the NES a fluke? Was the NES ‘lightning in a bottle’? Of course it wasn’t. So why did Nintendo’s console sales continue to decline? Look at the software Nintendo produced. And look at the software that was on the NES that Nintendo refused to reproduce (such as simple sports games or 2d Mario).
Fast forward to the Wii. Many people, like myself, who bought a Wii (and I bought it at launch) were saying, “Finally, a real game console!” And there is a reason why Wii sales skyrocketed when Super Mario Brothers 5 was released. People have been waiting for Mario 5 since… well… Super Mario Brothers 4.
The reason why Nintendo cannot succeed in the future is because Nintendo does not believe in the Revolution that I’ve described above. Nintendo believes video games are a series of fads, one after the other. In fact, Nintendo tries to make every video game different from its previous incarnation because of the belief that ‘things must be new’. This is why Samus Aran has ‘maternal instincts’, why Mario is in 3d and flying through space, and why Link’s sword was almost taken away from him because why does he need it since he never fights anything and just does lame puzzles all day?
The belief from Nintendo is that their products are popular is dependent on that time period. There is no eternal belief of gaming. In fact, Nintendo developers look at game development with the heart of a chemist. “What if I mix these elements together? What reaction might it cause in the market? Oh! I cannot wait and see?” Nintendo developers are addicted to the ‘surprises’ a market gives them.
The idea that Wii is a restoration of what gaming actually is, that Super Mario Brothers 5 is a restoration of what a Mario game actually is, is something Wii consumers easily understand and accept. But Nintendo is highly resistant to this notion. From their perspective, the Wii had to succeed because it was ‘surprise’. This is why Nintendo has this dogma of slapping gimmicky hood ornaments to every console they make for now on.
The nature of the 3DS was not to integrate gaming into society (how is that possible with the higher prices, warning signs to children, and 3d that gives headaches?). The nature of the 3DS was to put on a gimmick to give ‘surprise’ (which would be 3d output). “But there is more to 3DS than that,” says the wily reader. OK, so there is more than one gimmick. Still, the brand revolves around 3d. The cost of the handheld revolves around the 3d output. The games will all revolve around 3d.
With Project Cafe, you do not hear Nintendo talk about integrating gaming with society. Instead, you hear more about ‘tricks’ and ‘gimmicks’. This time, the controller has something ‘new’ with it. Yawn to that.
Why even have Project Cafe? Why not fulfill the potential of the Wii? Iwata’s answer is that “Developers do not have any more ideas for the system.” Since when was a video game console revolving around the desires of developers? The video game console revolves around the desires of the gamers. The Wii became a success in spite of developer interest.
Since Nintendo already has a playable form of Project Cafe to be shown at E3 2011, we must assume the dye is cast. This form of Nintendo context has been poured into the concrete. It will solidify and be Nintendo’s prison for the Eighth Generation.