I’ve been reading your blog for years and found myself agreeing with you far more than not. That is, until recently.
It seems that you’ve become so enraged with Nintendo that you’re allowing you anger to cloud your judgement.
Your most recent post is proof enough of that.
“I expect Sony to do things much better with Vita than with the PSP. Many of the previous errors of the PSP will be corrected with the Vita.”
First, there is absolutely no proof of this. In fact, Sony is already showing the same arrogance as they always have.
“I think it is far more probable for Vita to ‘suddenly become popular’ than it is for the 3DS. The 3d output is a hard barrier where people like me will never be sold.”
Okay, I can agree that 3D is an issue but…
“I’m not praising it so much as saying there is nothing about Vita that pisses me off. PSP pissed me off with their stupid UMD movies.”
Not true. The Vita is going to use a propriatory storage format. 3DS uses SD for it’s storage. Vita cards will have to be purchased directly from Sony and only from Sony. You can’t simply purchase a card and expect it to work. It has to be a Sony card. According to you, strike one.
“The usual barriers that keep me away from game consoles isn’t found in Vita. It still has the high price of $250 but seems like a great value compared to the $250 3DS. The game library is also very questionable. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
Those barriers are still there, at least if you still believe in them. What value are you talking about? And why are you saying that you’re going to ‘need to keep and eye’ on the games library? You and I and everyone else knows exactly what it’s going to be: PS3 Lite. Sony and developers have themselves stated as much. They can port PS3 games to it in a matter of weeks, remember? There aren’t going to be any real handheld games on the system. There are only going to be direct console ports or new console like games. At lest with the 3DS you can’t directly port from the Wii or any other system. You still have to put in the effort if you want to make a bad game for the system. However, Sony has completely removed that barrier. According to you, strike two.
I don’t understand how you can overlook these flaw and then bash Nintendo. You should be bashing them equally. Nintendo has screwed up, this is true. But there is still more hope for them than there will ever be for Sony. As you can see, if you were actually looking, that Sony has already screwed up far worse. Sure the price is low, and Sony themselves admitted that they’re not going to be making a profit off the device for at least 3 years, but is this the kind of market that we want to support? One where they charge little for the hardware but god only knows how much for the games?
And that’s the final sticking point, which I’m sure will be strike three. We don’t know how much Vita games will cost. 3DS games seem to have gone up about $10. Now I’m as disappointed in that as the next person but, just how much do you think developers are going to want to charge for their Vita games, which are going to be ports of their PS3 games? PS360 games cost $60+ right now. Vita games may be on a smaller screen but according to Sony and developers, they’re going to be the same games. $60+ for a handheld game? Insane you say? But what if it happens? And we also don’t know how much Sony is going to be charging for their cards.
Somehow you missed all of this in your quest to degrade Nintendo. Sure, rag on them. They deserve it. But to smack them about the head in regards to their problems but then turn around and give Sony a pass for the exact same things… What’s happened to you?
Has it reached the point where you think everything Nintendo does is wrong, no matter how much worse the competition is? That’s where 3rd party developers are. That’s where the so-called ‘hardcore’ gamers are. Is that where you are now as well?
No wonder you want to end this blog. You’ve become to jaded that it’s not useful anymore anyway.
I wanted to end this site back in 2008 and study other industries. But the economy tanked and some of those industries actually got nationalized. Ironically, if I left then, people would have said I left ‘only because things got bad for Nintendo’. Things have been going bad for Nintendo for quite some time now, and here I remain.
I’m enraged? I’ve actually been laughing at all these recent events. As a gamer, I’m disappointed that I may have to become a non-console gamer for another couple of decades. But I’ve done it before, and I’ve been making preparations to do it again. For E3 2011, I’m still laughing at how Nintendo can use E3 to make their huge announcement of a new console yet everyone becomes confused as to whether a new console was actually announced or not. The Nintendo president has to actually hold the console on a picture on twitter to end the doubts. Hahaha. If I took a time machine weeks before E3 and told you that was going to happen, no one would believe me. Yet, here we are.
What you are hearing from me is how I would sound if I had a site during the N64 or Gamecube days. I’d be saying, “Why doesn’t someone want to make a game for me?” For example, did you know it has been half a decade since NSMB DS has been released? Is there another portable 2d Mario on the horizon? Nope. How long must I wait? 6 years? 7? 8? 10? 20?
Super Mario Brothers Mii will be the very first 2d Mario in high definition. How is Nintendo going about this game? Well, it looks stale, derivative, and bizarrely has Miis as playable characters which really destroys the game world.
What I’m pointing out is that Nintendo does not respect consumers such as myself and others that made the DS and the Wii a success. This is how Nintendo lost their core audience with the NES and even SNES. The reason why Microsoft and Sony are unable to break into consumers such as myself is because of this lack of respect. This sort of consumer is given a label, ‘casual’, and is spoken about as a retard and treated as such. Now, how is a snobbish attitude conducive to winning consumers?
This is very familiar territory for me. I’ve been in this zone for around fifteen years before I jumped back into console gaming. There is no ‘anger’, just amusement. It feels like I’m putting back on a familiar hat.
Have you noticed the constant theme is my repeated assertions that gaming revolves around gamers? That what is good for the consumer, is good for game companies? Lately, this has been reversed. Miyamoto’s recent comments put him in the camp of ‘what is good for developers is good for gamers’. It is actually the other way around. Publishers keep telling us that, “What is good for publishers is good for the gamer.” It is the other way around. What is good for gamers is good for the publisher. I want to re-establish the order of thinking that places the customer as the true Game God, not developers, not publishers, not ‘cycles’, and certainly not the marketers.
Let me address what you said more specifically.
The Vita is going to use a propriatory storage format. 3DS uses SD for it’s storage. Vita cards will have to be purchased directly from Sony and only from Sony. You can’t simply purchase a card and expect it to work. It has to be a Sony card. According to you, strike one.
I don’t have a problem with this. I do not see consoles as computers or expect them to act like computers. With a computer, I wouldn’t accept a propitiatory storage format. As long as the cards are easily affordable, why should I care?
The reason why you pay for a Sony made card is because Sony makes cards. Nintendo doesn’t make cards. That is the only reason why you don’t pay for proprietary Nintendo cards. It is not because Nintendo likes you or anything. Nintendo does make controllers which is why their consoles tend to insist that first party controllers be used. Or, at least, first party controller design. Why can’t I plug in my own controller to play how I want to play? Nintendo doesn’t like that. I have a far bigger problem with that than I do with Sony made memory cards.
You misunderstood my UMD movie reference. The PSP was positioned to be the handheld movie playing device. This pissed me off because I want game consoles to focus on games. In the same way, I was pissed off with Sony trying to use the PlayStation 3 to push Blu-Ray. That is an abuse of the gaming market to non-gaming ends. The market response was the destruction of the UMDs and everyone buys a Blu-Ray player instead of a PS3 (not at all what Sony or Michael Pachter expected).
Nintendo’s push for 3d output is exactly like PSP’s push for UMD movies. It is trying to use the game console to entrench the console company into another medium. In my life, I choose gaming as the premier and superior medium above and beyond all other mediums. I expect the game console to prioritize on gaming.
“The usual barriers that keep me away from game consoles isn’t found in Vita. It still has the high price of $250 but seems like a great value compared to the $250 3DS. The game library is also very questionable. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
Those barriers are still there, at least if you still believe in them. What value are you talking about? And why are you saying that you’re going to ‘need to keep and eye’ on the games library? You and I and everyone else knows exactly what it’s going to be: PS3 Lite. Sony and developers have themselves stated as much. They can port PS3 games to it in a matter of weeks, remember? There aren’t going to be any real handheld games on the system. There are only going to be direct console ports or new console like games. At lest with the 3DS you can’t directly port from the Wii or any other system. You still have to put in the effort if you want to make a bad game for the system. However, Sony has completely removed that barrier. According to you, strike two.
The Game Gear did a pretty good run as a handheld. PSP, despite all its major issues, surpassed the Game Gear.
It is not well known that the PSP is doing extremely well in Japan. It is even outselling the 3DS. What caused the reverse in PSP was largely based on a single game called ‘Monster Hunter’.
Can this phenomenon occur in the West? Not with Monster Hunter but with another game? Very possible.
Nintendo failing with the 3DS has left a wide open door for Sony. The Vita must be watched closely.
Back in 2006, everyone discounted the Wii because of the Gamecube’s performance. Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying Vita will do a Wii performance. I am only saying that it will not do a repeat PSP performance. Everything I’ve read about Sony suggests they are aware of what held the PSP back, and they are addressing them with Vita. There won’t be the port issue the PSP had, for example. The handheld market is a red hot growing area, and Sony is more likely to prioritize the Vita than PS4. The handheld over console switch Japan made may spread everywhere else.
I don’t understand how you can overlook these flaw and then bash Nintendo. You should be bashing them equally. Nintendo has screwed up, this is true. But there is still more hope for them than there will ever be for Sony. As you can see, if you were actually looking, that Sony has already screwed up far worse.
The mindset of Nintendo, at this time period, is that they are placing what Miyamoto desires, what other developers desire, over the desires of the customers. This is how Nintendo got into the huge decline of the N64 and Gamecube in the first place. The Wii U is based on the premise that everyone loves Nintendo games but just doesn’t have the time to play them. This is why we must play Super Mario Brothers on the handheld when it is time for baseball. This is totally different than 2006 when Nintendo was declaring the problem was disinterest in gaming.
Sony’s gaming sector is very different from 2006. Kutaragi is gone. Phil Harrison is gone. One thing to Sony’s credit is that they keep supporting their game consoles and do not abandon them like Nintendo does. PS2s will still be sold once the Wii has left the shelves. And that shows the incompetence of Nintendo.
I’m not praising Sony. I’m just saying that with the 8th Generation, starting with the Vita, they haven’t done anything to piss me off. That may or may not change.
I can’t say anything about Microsoft because I do not know what their 8th Generation plans are. I suspect it will be similar to Wii U with a cliched ‘hardcore and casual’ strategy with more integration of Kinect. But we will have to wait and see.
I despise all of Nintendo’s moves and mindsets in the 8th Generation so far. It is dramatically the opposite of the 7th Generation.
Sure the price is low, and Sony themselves admitted that they’re not going to be making a profit off the device for at least 3 years, but is this the kind of market that we want to support? One where they charge little for the hardware but god only knows how much for the games?
You need to keep up with the news. =) Vita hardware was designed to be around the $250 price point. This is not a PS3 situation.
Nintendo hardware doesn’t sell at a profit if you take in account distribution and marketing (all essential to a console launch). All game console companies focus on software and accessories to make their money.
And that’s the final sticking point, which I’m sure will be strike three. We don’t know how much Vita games will cost. 3DS games seem to have gone up about $10. Now I’m as disappointed in that as the next person but, just how much do you think developers are going to want to charge for their Vita games, which are going to be ports of their PS3 games? PS360 games cost $60+ right now. Vita games may be on a smaller screen but according to Sony and developers, they’re going to be the same games. $60+ for a handheld game? Insane you say? But what if it happens? And we also don’t know how much Sony is going to be charging for their cards.
The price of the Vita games is confirmed to be at $40 which identical to the 3DS games. And the Vita games will be in cartridges.
Somehow you missed all of this in your quest to degrade Nintendo. Sure, rag on them. They deserve it. But to smack them about the head in regards to their problems but then turn around and give Sony a pass for the exact same things… What’s happened to you?
How am I giving Sony a pass? It’s a brand new generation. We can only judge using the 8th Generation frame. If this was the dawn of the 16-bit generation, if I said to keep an eye on Sega, someone might say, “LOL, but look at the Master system! It did so poorly!” That was then. This is now.
I’ve said, myself, that I still think the $250 price tag is ‘high’ for a gaming handheld, and there isn’t much in the ‘upcoming Vita games’ to make it stand out. But in a year or two, this will change. Vita will have more games. And since Vita was mostly designed around the price tag and is using cell phone parts, I expect that price to drop. It’d be funny if Vita ends up becoming cheaper than the 3DS. Remember, this isn’t the PS3. Sony has much for flexibility in handling Vita than the disaster Kutaragi left them with the PS3.
Has it reached the point where you think everything Nintendo does is wrong, no matter how much worse the competition is?
At the current moment, yes, everything Nintendo is doing is wrong. The only ‘right’ thing they are doing is making 2d Mario a launch game for the Wii U. But look how poorly they are handling that game. Yech.
You must get out of the world that says, “We must have equal parts optimism and not just negativity.” Business is the real world. Back in 2006, 2007, almost everything I was saying was that Nintendo was doing the right thing. It was because they were. This led many to believe that I was a Nintendo marketer or something. But look at the market performance at that time. Nintendo really was doing all the right things. Apparently they didn’t understand their success or don’t care which is why they are at where they are today. It reminds me of the NES where Nintendo did the right things, didn’t understand or care about their success, and ended up almost losing the market the next generation.
That’s where 3rd party developers are. That’s where the so-called ‘hardcore’ gamers are. Is that where you are now as well?
I don’t fly the Sony flag. I don’t fly the Nintendo flag either. If anything, I fly the Disinterest flag. Sony, like Microsoft, puts out lobotomized PC game machines and attempts to sell them as ‘consoles’. All I am saying is that when placed side by side, Vita looks to have far more value to the market than 3DS does. This could change, of course. But with the mindset behind the 3DS, I don’t see that being probable. Currently, in Japan, the PSP is beating the 3DS. If the 3DS cannot beat the PSP in Japan, how can it beat the Vita there?
The real question is America. In America, kids buy the Nintendo handhelds. But with the price tag and 3d output, parents are united against the 3DS. Vita is still pricy, but could it fill that void? I don’t know.
We’re in uncharted territory. Never, before, has Nintendo been so weak in the handheld market. The PSP has been the most successful competitor to Nintendo’s handheld market lock. And Vita looks to beat the PSP. Nintendo’s self-made implosion could make this an interesting generation.
If Nintendo loses their handheld market to Sony, I swear to you that heads will roll at NCL. The 3DS would hurt the company far more than the Gamecube or Virtual Boy ever did.